Root Cause

It takes a lot of discipline to make sure you do a root cause analysis on problems rather than leaping to conclusions about what is going on. The definition of a root cause analysis is simply the act of going through a systematic process to identify the source of a problem. The most common method is the 5 Why analysis.

Watch out for this pitfall: Many people think they know how to fix something, and will immediately start working on that problem. If it is not the root cause, they are just working on a symptom. The problem will return.

I want to stress this: always do a root cause analysis! It is such a simple thing to do, and yet people frequently skip it. Don’t miss out on an opportunity to solve a problem once and for all.