Problem Solving · Lesson 2 of 4

Decomposition, root causes and constraints

Ask what produced this until you reach something you could change. Blame is not a root cause.

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Decomposition splits a problem into parts you can actually work on. The test of a good split is that the parts do not overlap and that solving all of them would solve the whole thing. Most stuck problems are stuck because they are still one large undifferentiated lump.

Root-cause work goes the other direction: keep asking what produced this, several times, until the answer is something you could change. Stop when you reach something actionable, not when you reach something blameable — blame ends the enquiry early and almost always at the wrong place.

Constraints are the rules the solution has to live inside: money, time, skill, law, other people. Naming them early is not pessimism. An unconstrained solution is usually just a wish, and writing the constraints down often reveals that one of them is imagined.

See it happen

The month-end report is late again. It has been late four months running.

The read that arrives on its own

People need to start earlier. Send a reminder on the 25th.

The same situation, with this idea

What produced this? It is late because the numbers arrive late. Why? Because one team exports them by hand. Why? Because nobody has access to the source. That last one is something you could actually change.

What changed

Each "what produced this" moved from a person to a mechanism. The reminder was aimed at the last visible step, which is why four of them changed nothing.

The takeaway

Ask what produced this until you reach something you could change. Blame is not a root cause.

Easy to take the wrong way

Stopping at a person. "Because Sam forgot" is where the search usually ends and where it usually should not — ask what made forgetting possible.

Try this

Pick a recurring annoyance. Ask "what causes that?" five times, writing each answer.