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Related, this is a great example of why I’m skeptical when an analyst tells me they’ve done a “5 Whys” exercise to identify the root of an issue / optimization
by samch 4y ago
Related, this is a great example of why I’m skeptical when an analyst tells me they’ve done a “5 Whys” exercise to identify the root of an issue / optimization problem. The process follows a path to a solution with horse blinders intentionally on. If, in this case, the issue was the high use of steel, an analyst might drill down to the time it takes to retool or switch over a production line as the root cause of needing to use more than the ideal ratio. Clearly, however, the reality is much more complex.
- maroon-ranger 4y agoDefinitely guilt of championing (and perhaps even over-leveraging) the 5 why’s myself. What do you think is a structured & repeatable way of drilling down to the kind of layered insights here?
- samch 4y agoI see a fishbone activity as somewhat the reverse of the five whys. Instead of starting broad and narrowing focus down a singular path, the fishbone takes the problem and looks at all the contributing factors: https://asq.org/quality-resources/fishbone https://asq.org/quality-resources/fishbone I’m not an expert by any means. Just offering a suggestion.
- maroon-ranger 4y agoWow this is great. I could see how using this framework could lead you to identify the same factors in the article (assuming you had similar domain knowledge). I think the next hurdle would be coming up with a solution that sufficiently addresses these root causes.
- happimess 4y agoI get a lot of mileage out of one deeply-considered why.
- heleninboodler 4y agoThe real trick to root cause analysis is not to find a straight chain of 5 "whys" but to find a tree of whys and examine the leaf nodes. One path from root to tip would resemble a "5 whys" (but potentially be longer or shorter) but stopping when you've found a single item to fix is doing yourself a disservice.
- TimTheTinker 4y agoThis 1000x. It's particularly interesting if leaf nodes are allowed to continue branching into uncomfortable or organizationally taboo subjects (like culture or leadership problems), and if the same problems appear multiple times as leaf nodes. Then you know you're really getting somewhere.
- samstave 4y agoWhere may I read more about this, or have the correct terms to look into?
- TimTheTinker 4y agoHere's an excellent article. Check out the example causal tree diagram in particular (which resulted from a real incident at a rural hospital). https://qualitysafety.bmj.com/content/26/8/671 https://qualitysafety.bmj.com/content/26/8/671
- fijiaarone 4y agoActually that would be 3125x
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]