Why does a complex problem keep coming back after a group votes on what to fix?
For a simple problem, a vote is often enough: people agree on what is wrong, and fixing it works. A complex problem is
different. The most visible complaint is usually a symptom, so fixing it leaves the cause in place, and the problem comes back.
Everyone has sat in that meeting: the list was made, the votes were counted, the top item was fixed, and nothing changed. Answer the question
the way a room here would, with seven simulated members beside you. What you end with is your own map of causes — and, against each
root it finds, what this method does about it, including where it does nothing.
WHAT YOU WILL DO, IN FIVE STEPS
Write one cause, alone, before you can see anyone else’s.
Read the others’ cards, and say more clearly what you meant by yours.
Select your top five ideas.
Answer, for pairs of cards: does this one influence that one?
See the map the answers add up to — causes at the left, what they lead to at the right.
This walk maps obstacles. The same five steps map two other things, and a room says which when it opens: a future — what would be true if this went well, where the pair question becomes would this help achieve that — or actions, where it becomes would this make that easier to do and the map says what to do first. Obstacles is the common case and the default.
Why it works. Because you write before you read, nobody can steer you.
Because a link needs three quarters of the room, nobody can bury a cause. Because the map is built one pair at a time, it shows causes, not popularity. Because the map names causes and not people, those who disagree about everything else can stand behind it.