Recently Vice President Kamala Harris went to Central America to find "root cause" for "the problem at the US Southern border".
Initially, I thought, wow, root cause, good job. But after thinking about it some more, I realized she jumped ahead a little. Root cause of what? What is "the problem at the Southern border"? From whose point of view? Who is impacted? How does that impact manifest itself? What is the context? What does success look like when "the problem" is resolved. The issue is that Vice President Harris didn't really define the problem. As such, what was she searching root cause for?
Following the 8D (8 Disciplines) problem solving methodology would have helped.
- Create a team to resolve the problem. In my experience, the team should be led by the person accountable for the process that is causing the problem.
- Define the actual issue. Not the perceived issue. I'd also recommend that you make sure that all your stakeholders agree this is the problem that is being solved. Define that as who is involved, what is the impact (pain point), what is the context, what does resolution look like and how is that measured.
- Take containment actions. Protect the "who" defined in the problem identified in D2.
- Identify root causes of the issue. Use techniques like 5 Whys, fishbone diagrams, etc.
- Define and implement corrective actions. Fix the issue and eliminate the problem.
- Validate that the corrective actions are indeed working.
- Prevent recurrence of the problem.
- Congratulate and recognize the team.
