New Crew Signing, Part 2: Define

Kepner-Tregoe (KT) helps clients implement their strategies by embedding problem-solving, decision-making, and project execution methods through individual and team skill development and issue resolution process improvement.

One acquirement passed down to me from a former Rolls Royce (Aircraft Engine Division) and Corning engineer that I will never forget is Problem Analysis. I've learnt, in a decade spent in manufacturing, that properly identifying problems (both potential and existing) is the first step you should take before initiating any change.

Why? You might find that your next company project has a potential problem that could put them out of business. How much money could a company save by properly nixing unnecessary change? How many jobs could be saved? Resources more appropriately used? A lot. Ask Kepner-Tregoe.

The Crew have problems. Scoring goals is the #1 issue in their book - and their solution is the most egregious one possible. Throw warm bodies at it.

The more bodies the better is early mans approach to slaying a large animal.

The issue here is that the Crew haven't gone through the process of properly identifying which problem is the largest. If they had done so appropriately, we would've seen a change (or stagnation) in the goal scoring trend over the past three years. The Crew have attempted change and improvement in Goal Scoring recently. It has not worked. Each year, since 2009, has been worse than the previous.

2009 : 1.37
2010 : 1.33
2011 : 1.26
2012 : 1.00

The new Crew signing is not enough to change that trend. No player in the world could because the issue runs much deeper than one, two or three players. A one year dip would be tricky to solve. Four years? This simple metric blows holes into what the Crew just did.

Robert Warzycha, Brian Bliss and Mark McCullers need to step back and properly identify what is going wrong before just throwing more people at it.

For example: The team is also allowing more goals each season (per game).

2009 : 1.03
2010 : 1.13
2011 : 1.29
2012 : 1.50

This is a metric that anyone looking at a table can see. Don't even get me started on goals per game with out penalty kicks (Columbus was awful last year, worst in the league in open play and run of play).

This is basic stuff here, folks. It is frustrating. It is infuriating. A car crash in slow motion.

The Columbus Crew need to just stop. Identify the problems and define them before just jumping to improvements.