On garbage pick-up day, every one of my neighbors places their garbage cans on the sidewalk. All of the houses have about six feet of grass between the sidewalk and the curb. The garbage truck drives down the street and stops at each house. The person on the back of the truck steps down, grabs the garbage container and empties it into the back of the truck.
Recently, I was outside when the garbage truck came through my neighborhood on its regular route. As the truck stopped in front of my house, I walked around to the driver’s side and stepped up onto the truck. I the asked the driver if he preferred the garbage can to be placed in the street or on the sidewalk. He said it didn’t matter, “Either place.”
I thanked him and then walked to the back of the truck where the person who loads the truck was standing. I asked him “Where would you prefer I put the garbage?” Without hesitation he pointed to the street. I responded as though I was surprised, clarifying “you want it in the street?” He said, “Its closer.” The guy driving the truck doesn’t care where the garbage is placed, but the guy who loads the garbage has an opinion.
A root cause analysis digs into the details of a situation to provide a complete explanation. When working a problem or improving a process, specifics from people who do the work should be included. These people perform the task everyday. They’ll have valuable insight about what goes well and what goes poorly. To get this information, checking with “the person on the truck” is too general. Specifically we should check with “the person who loads the garbage,” or both. Root cause analysis is a problem solving method that should also affect the problem solving culture and how that organization communicates what it knows.
This input from the person on the back of the truck is only useful if there is interest in using it; such as simplifying the trash pick-up process, or reducing the distance the garbage has to be moved, or preventing on the job injuries or increasing the amount of trashed that can be picked-up in one day, or including people in decisions about how best to perform their work. This is Root Cause Analysis 101.
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