Blog - Operational Problem Solving

I’ve been working with Root Cause Analysis practices for the last 29 years and never found so many different views on Root Cause as in the IT Industry. The term “root cause” is loosely used to describe many kinds of causes and we need to clarify this first.

In all organisations at any point in time, there are a number of initiatives under way to improve performance.  These may be formal or informal, generated in meetings or in the tea room, part of a company wide Continuous Improvement Drive, products of a suggestion scheme or quality circle, knee-jerk reactions to recent incidents etc.

Recently I attended my 40^th college reunion. I saw lots of old friends and I enjoyed lots of small talk with people whose names I could recall but not their faces. I had a revealing and rewarding discussion with one of my classmates who had made a big name and a small fortune for himself in the business world. When he asked what I was up to, I kept my response deliberately vague. I replied “Consulting.”  

He pressed me. “What type?”

During the 1980’s, we were all taught that decision making requires us to think in terms of objectives, alternatives and potential risk. In essence, methodologies focused on making a rational choice and selecting a viable alternative to implement.  Whilst objectives and potential risk remain a constant feature,  we need to critically review the concept of alternatives in current day decision making.

The reason for critical review is two fold. Firstly, potentially an alternative may only provide a part of the future decision outcome, or worse, the decision outcome we are seeking does not have alternatives at present.  The latter is often visible when required to decide solutions for the Information Technology problems.  As Charles Kepner (KEPNER et al (1981).  The New Rational Manager.) already postulated in the eighties, the outcome of a decision is  “what ought to be done”.  This notion of what ought to be done actually implies more that just choosing between alternatives, it postulates that decision making must be a “solution creation” exercise.

You want to do what?!

Human beings have no problem getting themselves out of trouble, but do have a major problem anticipating potential risks. The pitfall of modern business in most situations is that we are dealing with major new initiatives and constant changes, but we are not seeing the “blind spots”.