Identyfying Root Cause of Issues in Solving a Problem

The next approach that is critical to analyse a problem is the root cause analysis. In this segment, we will understand the root cause of a problem and more importantly, how to reach there.  We will follow two basic frameworks:

• 5 Whys
• Fish Bone Diagram

Let's summarise the key learning from this video:

5 Whys 

The technique is used for identifying the most logical underlying cause of a problem. As the name suggests, this technique involves asking the question “Why”, five times so that you are able to drill down to the root cause of the problem rather than focusing on the superficial causes which are actually the effects of the root-cause.

Taiichi Ohno, the main architect for Toyota’s successful reemergence in the 1950s, documented the 5 Whys process in his publication ‘Toyota Production System’.

Next up, we will look at the Fish Bone Diagram and its implications:

In this video, you learnt about the Fish Bone diagram and its use while finding the root cause of a problem. 

The Fish-Bone diagram also called the 'cause and effect' diagram, or the 'Ishikawa diagram' is a visualization tool. The Fish-Bone diagram focuses on helping you ideate and helping you categorize the potential causes of a problem in an intuitive manner.

So, once you have determined the problem that needs to be solved you have to write it in a box, and this box acts as the head of the fish. Then, you draw a horizontal arrow pointing towards the head of fish, which has a significant resemblance to the spine of a fish. The next step is to identify all the possible causes of the problem that you have written in the box and write them around the tilted arrows also called fins, which point towards the spine of the fish. Now, only considering major causes is obviously not enough: there might be multiple factors contributing to these major causes. In order to drill down to the root cause, you must account for these factors as well. So, you can depict these factors by drawing branches from the arrows of the corresponding cause. And you can continue this activity until you are able to determine the root cause of the problem. 
 

There are also other important principles such as the Pareto Principle which states that almost 80% of the outcomes are a result of 20% of causes. So, you should focus more on these 20% causes to get to the desired goal in a more effective manner.

In the next session, we will learn the third step in Approach to Problem Solving

Additional Resources:

• Root Cause Analysis, Explained with Examples and Methods
• What is a Fishbone Diagram?
• A Detailed Document on 5 Whys - Getting to the Root of a Problem Quickly