Strategies for our lives and business

This week has been very challenging at my work. We have been receiving constant visits from our clients and in the efforts to make sure everything goes perfect for them, we have missed certain details that we did not perceive at the right moment. These issues have been the reason for having different meetings in order to identify the root cause of the problem.

I am an internal and certified quality auditor and one of the things you learn in this path is precisely how to find the root cause of a problem. There are different strategies to analyze a problem and get to its root cause. I have personally used one that is called the Ishikawa or Fishbone Diagram, this method, based on Wikipedia's definition, "helps to identify potential factors causing an overall effect. Each cause or reason for imperfection is a source of variation. Causes are usually grouped into major categories to identify and classify these sources of variation." I have seen results by using it but a much simple and still accurate way to analyze problems is in fact "The Five Whys".

This week I started to use this method and it has worked perfectly in the process of identifying the root cause of some of the problems that our customers have identified this week. I encourage everyone to try these strategies. These do not necessarily have to be used only within an organizations environment but I can also be used in our regular lives too. You need to try it!