In This Episode…
Previously I have thought my lack of discipline was the reason for me putting things off. Well as a consultant, I have decided to become my own client and help me get to the bottom of what is going on. Putting things off is merely the undesirable effect, i.e. it is a symptom.
There are probably a few less obvious problems causing this symptom. I need to unearth those. In this episode I explain the principles behind the tool I have chosen to conduct a root cause analysis on myself.
Episode Show Notes
00:07 – In Episode 027 I thought I was being held back by my lack of self-discipline.
00:34 – However in episode 028 I realised I probably needed to dig a bit deeper to really understand what was going on.
01:06 – I realised I needed to do a cause and effect analysis on myself to see what was the root cause(s) of my challenge.
01:28 – Option 1 is to use the 5 WHY technique.
01:53 – Option 2 is to use the Current Reality Tree from the Theory of Constraints. I explain why I chose this over the 5 WHY approach.
02:47 – Conventional systems thinking for performance improvement.
03:15 – The Theory of Constraints approach to system performance improvement.
03:47 – The Theory of Constraints approach was developed by Eliyahu Goldratt in his book “Goal”
04:11 – The Current Reality Tree is a series of dependent, logical cause and effect relationships that is a snapshot of a situation at a moment in time.
04:36 – Ideally a Current Reality Tree should be developed by a team. As I am working on my own, AND I am going to be using it on my own behaviour, unless I am brutally honest with myself, I may lose objectivity.
05:06 – A Current Reality Tree consists of an undesirable effect (UDE) at the top and then a series of entities that are either causes, consequences or usually both, in a cascading relationship.
06:20 – In simple terms, UDE 1 can be caused by Entity A, which itself is triggered by Entity B and that is caused by Entity C. If Entity C is the root cause, if it is eliminated, then Entity B will not be triggered which won’t cause Entity A to exist which means UDE1 should disappear.
07:27 – A simple example using an overflowing sink.
08:25 – I am now going to use the Current Reality Tree to do a cause and effect analysis on why I keep putting things off.
