Symptom: net income for this quarter is lower than prior quarters

Visible problem: expenses have increased by 12% this quarter

First-level cause: the customer service team hired three new representatives, as they could not keep up with call volumes

Higher-level cause: call center volumes were up 55%, with the release of the company’s new solar powered television

Root cause: the instruction manual provided with the new television is not simple or easy to understand

Solution?

Go through bullets 1 & 2

Qs: After symptom & visible problem: What is your next step? What are potential solutions now that you know expenses have increased?

Any and all solutions, just shout them out!

Go through bullet 3

Qs: At first level: What are potential solutions here?

Go through bullet 4 & 5

Qs: After root cause: Now what are potential solutions?

Qs: How does your original solution differ?

We can see that if we try to solve the problem before knowing the root cause, we’d never come to the solution that addresses what actually is wrong