Get to the Root Cause using Fishbone and 5-Whys

Hello Blog and LinkedIn friends and colleagues,

There are many anecdotes, examples, pithy statements and quotes on the topic of Root Cause Analysis (RCA). My personal favourite has always been from Desmond Tutu. Working with you, many will have heard me use this one, but for those who have not it is very simple and powerful statement from a very simple and powerful individual.

But what does it mean to us, and why am I sharing this now. Working on symptoms can be quick and quite gratifying if you have something of the fire-fighter about your persona. “I saw an issue and I fixed it!”. Unfortunately, the chances are that what you saw is just the symptom of the problem, and without understanding what the actual root cause of the problem is, you will see this same symptom back at some point in the future. Working on problems, and getting to the root cause of these, takes more effort but in the long run is a far more valuable use of your time, or the time of your improvement project team.

Running RCA training with my business partners’ clients or with my own clients in the last month has led to some relatively quick re-sets on where the fixes were about to be applied. The fact that this covered…

? units not being able to move down a production line,

? or the day’s activities not being able to start after the huddle,

? or incorrect data stalling a process,

? or different teams running the same model in different ways,

…shows that the RCA approach can be made to work in any process and can be scaled to deal with problems of varying size and varying impact to a business.

I’ll only cover Fishbone and 5-Whys below (other techniques are available). My experience is that Fishbones are deceptively easy and 5-Whys can be deceptively difficult. During the Fishbone session make sure the problem effect statement is crisp and clearly defines the problem we are experiencing. Make the most of good Brainstorming techniques to pull out all ideas (especially from the introverts in the room). Remove any ideas that don’t actually cause the effect we see and remember to avoid negative statements or the absence of something being seen as a potential cause. Then, through group voting, carry forward the top ‘potential causes’ to a 5-Whys exercise. Ask ‘why?’ until the root cause is found, remembering that a root cause needs to be provable (i.e. it can be validated) and actionable (i.e. it can be fixed). Use an open questioning style to help the room avoid jumping to a preconceived cause. And finally look for the early mitigations which can deployed as a quick win, as you drill down to find the root cause or causes.

I hope his helps encourage you to start (or improve) your use of RCA. Of course, if you would like to discuss the above further then please get in touch, I’d be only too happy to assist. I’d also be happy to provide templates for your Fishbone and 5-Whys sessions if you cannot find a good examples.