When a problem occurs, organizations conduct an investigation to understand exactly what happened. While it’s important to have a clear definition of the issue, it’s common for people to disagree about the problem. People see problems differently, so striving for consensus on a single item can be a huge waste of time. Instead of trying to define the problem, a root cause analysis should start with the negative impact to the goals. Overall goals dictate the ideal state. Any deviation from ideal provides the organization’s view of the problem.Identifying a problem as a single thing doesn’t reflect real issues. Instead of picking the problem as a one thing, it should be defined by the specific impact to each of the organization’s overall goals. In reality, one incident can negatively impact three different goals: safety, customer service and production. The root cause analysis, in this case, will start with three different undesirable effects. Their cause-and-effect relationships will connect into one complete map of the incident.
It’s a mistake to think of the problem as one thing. An effective root cause analysis reveals the system of causes that produced the negative consequences. Starting every investigation with a clear connection to the overall goals clarifies priorities. Following are three reasons why problems should defined by the overall goals:
1. It prevents unnecessary debates about the problem. People disagree about the problem, but they don’t disagree about the impact to the overall goals. People close to the work and managers agree on the ideal state. For safety the ideal state is zero injuries. No one disagrees with this point. Anything that is not zero injuries is a problem.
2. It quantifies the magnitude of the issue which differentiates larger and smaller issues. Capturing the specific impact to each of the overall goals dictates both the detail required in the analysis and the extent of the solutions.
3. It connects every individual and every task to the big picture. Showing people how their job contributes to the overall goals reminds everyone that what they do is important to the organization’s success.
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