THE QUESTION
What would be true if attendance at this school were healthy?
Propose what to do, then judge whether each action would move each root.
Sealed 25 days ago: this room no longer knows who sat in it; only its steward is still named. What it concluded stays.
30 at the table (29 simulated) · 2 actions proposed against 5 root causes. Add one, then judge whether each action moves each cause.
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Score the foundations first
why
The method's own practice, before any action is proposed: each root cause is scored 1–5 on how feasible it is to address, how much impact addressing it would have, and how likely it is to resolve by itself with no intervention. Priority goes to roots with high impact, high feasibility and low likelihood of fixing themselves — priority = impact + feasibility − likelihood. Scores are averaged across the group and shown with how many scored.
1 = low, 5 = high. Your own scores; the group's averages beside them.
| root cause | feasible | impact | fixes itself | priority |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The register is a means of noticing, not a means of reporting | – | – | – | – |
| The school knows which of its pupils are carers, and the timetable bends for them | – | – | – | – |
| The first contact home after an absence is a question, not a penalty | – | – | – | – |
| A pupil who misses a week is spoken to before they miss a second | – | – | – | – |
| A year group's attendance can fall without anyone being blamed for it | – | – | – | – |
WHERE THE REMEDIES FIGHT
1 place where fixing one root damages another, read from this room’s own votes at the same three quarters as everything else. This is the bind to design around: an action that reduces one without the other is worth more than either side of the trade.
Every action the room found to reduce A year group's attendance can fall without anyone being blamed for it it also found to make A pupil who misses a week is spoken to before they miss a second worse.
Name what would have to be true first
WAYS OUT OF A BIND LIKE THIS
◆ Split the thing into independent parts, so the fix applies to one without touching the others.
◆ Do the work before it is needed, when it is cheap, rather than when it is urgent.
◆ Invert it: make the moving part still, the customer the supplier, the exception the rule.
◆ Take the troublesome part out of the whole rather than fixing it in place.
◆ Make the invisible visible, so what is going wrong can be seen while it goes wrong.
Prompts, not proposals. Nobody voted on these and they are not the room’s. If one of them suggests an action, propose it above in your own words and let the room judge it.
Would each action move each root cause?
Down the side: the actions people proposed. Across the top: the root causes the map found. Every square is one vote on one question — would this action significantly reduce that cause? One side has to reach 75% of the votes cast to settle it; short of that the square stays split. Each square shows how its votes fell — yes / worse / no — and a square is settled when one of those reaches three quarters of them.
why
Answered at 75% of votes cast, like every other question here. Split means people voted and neither side reached that bar — it is a result, not a queue, and it stays split until enough people change their minds. A square nobody settles stays undecided; it never turns into a no. Judging each pair on its own is what stops a popular action being credited with fixing things it does not touch.
| ACTION | FOUNDATIONS · does the action on the left help bring it about? | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The register is a means of noticing, not a means of reporting | The school knows which of its pupils are carers, and the timetable bends for them | The first contact home after an absence is a question, not a penalty | A pupil who misses a week is spoken to before they miss a second | A year group's attendance can fall without anyone being blamed for it | |
| Name what would have to be true first discuss | ✗ no, it does not 3 yes / 4 worse / 22 no | ✗ no, it does not 2 yes / 3 worse / 24 no | ✗ no, it does not 1 yes / 0 worse / 28 no | ⚠ it makes this worse 2 yes / 26 worse / 1 no | ✓ yes, it reduces this 24 yes / 3 worse / 2 no |
| Say who would notice if this stopped being true discuss | ✗ no, it does not 2 yes / 2 worse / 25 no | ✗ no, it does not 5 yes / 2 worse / 22 no | ✓ yes, it reduces this 24 yes / 3 worse / 2 no | ⚑ the group split 4 yes / 5 worse / 20 no | ✗ no, it does not 3 yes / 3 worse / 23 no |
Highest leverage so far
Name what would have to be true first reduces 1 of 5 root causes
Say who would notice if this stopped being true reduces 1 of 5 root causes
THE ACTIONS ON THE MAP
Showing every action the room judged: it acts directly on 2 of the 5 root causes. It does not act directly on 3. It makes 1 worse.
Read from the squares the room settled at Actions, nothing else. A root in green is reduced by at least one of the shown actions; in grey, none of them acts on it directly; a red outline means one of them makes it worse.
Share this view: as a picture · as a live map for another site
Each number on the map marks a root cause that action reduces.
① Name what would have to be true first makes worse: A pupil who misses a week is spoken to before they miss a second
② Say who would notice if this stopped being true
FROM ACTIONS TO A PLAN
The grid judged each action on its own. A plan is a set of them the room would carry out together.
Members put plans together from the actions that reduce a root cause, and the room compares the plans two at a time, at three quarters of the votes cast, as it judged everything else. Each plan shows which root causes it acts on directly, which it does not, and which it makes worse.
The steward can open a plan comparison.
What we expect to follow
Predictions about the actions: what each should change, how to measure it, and when to check. On the date, someone who was in the room writes what actually happened beside it.
why
A map says which actions move which causes. It does not say whether anyone did them, or whether anything changed. An entry here is a prediction with a date and something to measure, written after the map settled. When the date comes, what actually happened is written beside it and the prediction stays as it was: a wrong one is the useful kind. Nobody voted on any of this and it changes nothing the room found.
due 23 Jan 2027
actionName what would have to be true first
we expectmore families are reached the same week the absence starts
measured by% of families reached within a day of an absence
guessesthe room: 71 (median of 15, spread 40 to 85)