Lateral Thinking for Every Day

20

The Six Serving Men

When presented with a problem it is tempting to rush in and suggest solutions. The more experienced, the more powerful, the more forceful you are, the greater the temptation to advance your immediate solutions. But if your understanding of the problem is incomplete or just plain wrong then you will often come up with a bad solution because it addresses the wrong problem. We have learnt from studies in quality and Six Sigma methods that root cause analysis gives a deeper understanding of fundamental issues and therefore a better chance of generating good solutions. There are many books on advanced root cause analysis methods. Here is a simple technique which can help you to quickly identify the basic causes of a problem ...