Summary
When an organization is faced with something that went particularly well, or something that went particularly poorly, it is an opportunity to learn how to do things better in the future. There are many methods for analyzing failures, risks, or lessons learned, but they all share a common use of the cause-and-effect principle to determine why something happens. The Cause Mapping method focuses on the key elements of problem solving: defining the issue in terms of the organization’s high-level goals, analyzing the causes that are required to produce the issue, and developing the most effective solutions. Cause Maps are uncluttered and highly successful for analyzing both simple issues and complex issues.
Cause Mapping is a tool for understanding the bare facts of the issue. Avoid methods that use terminology or jargon to create the illusion that the issue is understood. These methods either unnecessarily hide information in categories or make the issue unnecessarily complex by enmeshing it in terminology.
Using a clear, uncomplicated analysis method makes it easy to communicate within the organization, with management, and with customers and suppliers. The Cause Mapping method also performs a complete, comprehensive analysis that is in a format ready to be documented for future reference, trending, or training.