Let the ideas rain down

If you'd like to catch up, you can read the entire series here.

Now that you've established a loose framework of possible cause categories, it's time to continue your RCA with the third step:

Enter possible causes into the diagram of your choice.

To complete this step, you'll gather your team and conduct a guided brainstorming session. As with all brainstorming meetings, the only constraint is that all ideas are welcome. Nothing is too outrageous or unrealistic.; there'll be plenty of time for filtering later. For today, you want to include any and all possibilities, because each idea (however outlandish) could lead one of the participants to a breakthrough. I can't stress this enough: every idea gets written on the big board of possible causes.

As the team members suggest possible causes, the you'll place each suggestion into the correct category on the diagram. Diagram, you ask? What diagram? Well, you have a few choices:

• The Fishbone (aka Ishikawa, aka cause-and-effect) diagram
• The Interrelationship diagram
• The Current reality tree

You can do some reading on the benefits and challenges of each diagram in this article by Anthony Mark Doggett. However, my experience has shown me that the tools used in RCA are secondary; what's important is doing the RCA. And the best tool is the one that works.

Tomorrow: a primer on how to run effective meetings.