How to do Root cause Analysis in 8 Steps - 10X your Design research skills

Doing a root cause analysis sometimes becomes very difficult and lot of people in the design will not have the process to do it. Some people even wonder can we use it into the design process? Is it really required? Because a lot of people use this in manufacturing sectors, engineering sectors and all. But people will be really wondering. So this podcast is going to give you clarity on why root cause is important for doing design research. How to do it exactly in seven, eight steps, which you can follow it. Okay, so take a lot of notes. Let's jump into this podcast. Welcome to this Design for Change. Thank you so much for staying tuning in with me. I hope you are learning lot many things on this podcast and let me tell you very honest thing guys for you. Okay so if you're really listening to this podcast, definitely you are learning in a greater, greater accelerated way because I have not found any podcast in Apple and Spotify which is giving you so much of problem oriented solutions which design community is facing. So a lot of interviews and design topics and hypothetical case studies and other things people discuss but day to day life like how someone really constructs a portfolio, how someone really talks to a recruiter, how someone really attends a design task when an interviewer is approaching them, how to get a very good job very fast and what are all the requirements. So nobody's giving you a very precise information. I'm really glad and happy to really say that this particular Design for Change program is helping you in that. Okay, so have spread it your words to your friends or somebody who is really in need of this. So it will be a great karma for them, it'll be a great help for them what you're doing because they will be also benefited and they'll be also getting a huge results after listening to this podcast. Okay so thank you for the overwhelming support guys and we are reaching 26 countries and I'm really happy to say that. And and recently there are some listeners from Turkey and Austria, one of my favorite country. I've been there. So thank you so much guys. I really welcome you everybody and I wanted a very good feedback. Also in every podcast I have a description like about this podcast. What do you think? So you can honestly write me what you feel. That would be a great feedback for me as a designer. I love Kritik. I love things to really rework on myself if it is required so that I can able to deliver you a better quality service. Okay so so now today we are going to discuss a very important topic called root cause analysis. So let me give you what is the understanding of this root cause analysis. Okay, see root cause analysis is very, very easy and a simple tool to find out the real root cause of a problem. It's a design research method you can call, okay, because what happens is people identify some problem, but that will be a little vague. They will not go into the depth of what is the reason behind the reason, Reason behind this, reason behind this reason what? Go, go back, go back, go back. Until you find the real root cause, you will not find the real problem. What's happening? Okay, so it is, it's a tool which will help you gain a deeper understanding, formulate an effective solution, make improved design decision in your career. If you're able to do this root cause analysis in a proper way, sometimes you will find the hidden problems inside water design. What the client may not see in the obvious way, this is the importance of, this is the definition of this guys. Okay, so let me tell you why it is very important. Okay, so having understood what is meant by root cause analysis, let me give you some importance of why it has been followed. Okay? See specific statistics on root cause analysis in impact design research can be very, very challenging. Particularly lot of studies have proved this effectiveness. Okay, so Harvard Business Review found that companies were using this root cause analysis method improved their problem solving success rate by 90 percentage. A study by American Society of Quality ASQ related that effective root cause analysis can lead to cost savings up to 30 to 50 percentage. You will be surprised. A root cause analysis of project management by Shafiq Tul Islam explores the benefits of this in project management, highlighting its applicability and design projects. So it is very vital guys, to understand root cause analysis and its importance why industries are doing manufacturing, industry, healthcare, industry, software design, data science, any industry uses it. Okay, like I'll give you one small example. If you have still not understood what is mean by root cause analysis. Like let's say if you ask people generally, okay, so what's your problem? Like let's say people will say sometimes I have lot of depths. That's the problem. Okay, so as a designer, you're going and solving some problem in order to find a problem of coming out of the depth, right? That's how you tune. But let me tell you guys, if you apply root cause analysis, you will ask why money is your problem? Like let's say if you're asking a user, let's say I'm not earning that much, that's why I don't have money. Okay, why are you not earning that much? Because my job nature is like that? I don't have that much of salary. That's why I'm not working. Okay, why your job nature is like that? Because I've studied this much only that much industry is only there offering me with this skill set for this salary, for this value at what I'm making. So that's what I'm getting to my home. Okay, why did you study only this much? Why not study huge? Because of my economic situation, my parents didn't show me a great opportunity. So I did that. Why your parents are given this opportunity? Where are they coming from? Why? What is the reason they are not doing it? Okay. My parents come from a very typical rural background. So they don't have a education itself. They are dropped out of second standard, third standard. They don't have that much of financial capability to put me in a higher education. And they are not having a proper awareness. Why didn't your parents have awareness before it? Because in my vicinity of the circle, the people were like that only. Why in your vicinity of your people were like that? So it keeps on going, guys. Okay, I'll tell you what is the final answer? The final answer will be evolution, randomness and mutation. Okay. Okay. Maybe you will not understand these three points. Some people who really understand evolution, they'll get this clarity. Okay? But let's. Let's stop this awareness with the parents. So we have found almost six to seven different causes. See, still we have not narrowed down. Let's say, if you're narrowing down on one particular issue, like let's say your village doesn't have schools. That's why people are not aware. That's why your parents are not aware. That's why they have not put you in a right school. You are not getting a quality education. Going and working on the building of the schools in that village will be the actual solution to fix this problem permanently. If you give him money, that's a temporary solution. If you give him some permanent job which can help him solve little problem, that will give him a very temporary solution. If you try to work on his skills, yeah, temporarily, he may get solved with this problem. But there would be other people like him who will not get the proper education. They will go into the same vicious circle of the rat circle, what you call rat race, again and again and again. So until unless you identify the root cause and solve it, nobody's going to fix it. So I hope now you would have understand what is mean by root cause analysis. See guys, root cause analysis is a beautiful tool. Normally it's used in manufacturing industries, it saves you huge amount of cost. It helps you find out the real root cause of a problem. You know what, there is a methodology called Six Sigma 8D, particularly Six Sigma. If you ask, they will tell you. DMAIC. Okay. DMAIC method they call. So they used to find out what is the real design problem, what is the, what is the definition of the problem, how can you measure that? What are the exact, what you call actions which are going to take it, what are the implementation and what are the corrective action and what are the preventive measures? So dma DMAIC has a specific steps and process to do it. I'm not sure about the AIC's full form, but I've read it during my long back click click during the manufacturing time which I worked on. Okay, but it is broadly covering you to define the problem, measure it, analyze it and try to find out the real root cause and implement the solution and take the corrective action. I think that's the exact form of it. Okay, but why I'm telling you the six sigma 8D approaches, it is a way to find the root cause of the problem. So why are they doing it? That's the point I'm trying to say until unless you get to the real root cause of the problem, nobody will be able to fix that solution. Many times I'll tell you guys, client will be coming up with a lot of problems. Sometimes he might be not knowing the exact root cause. He'll be telling you this, this, this. But it's your responsibility as designer to go and find it out exactly what is the root cause. Because I tell you guys, I worked in my organization in one project where the client has came up with a brief. Okay, so he was like in a very urgent situation. He needed this, this, this. So we asked him, give us some time. No, he didn't give. Okay. So what we did is we started doing research in a very faster way and then we found out the real root cause of the problem is something else. And we solved that problem. And then we showed the client. Client was really surprised. How come you guys found out this? We have not encountered this superb here. Then we asked, can you give one more week time? We'll get into the exact root cause, we'll find it out, no problem. You take two weeks. He said, so it's not about winning the project, it's about we want the client. Now he has become a regular customer of us and we are getting a huge revenue because of this one client. So I mean he doesn't go with any particular design project with anybody. He comes again and again and again to us. My boss, my super boss, everybody was happy. In fact, I was working with my superboss with this project directly. I was reporting to him. He's a dgm. But the thing is, he got really attracted to the way in which we approached this project and then we made a success. There is another case study in that project. The client was asking us to bring the solution. He doesn't ask us to do any research, find out this, that and all. And he said five to six problems, this is what we are going to solved. So they did some study and analysis before they handing over this project to us. And our engineering team got this problem and we as a designers, we started working with them. And typically what engineering people think is we only do some aesthetics and what do you call, we build the exterior surfaces and give it to them. That's what is the engineering people's understanding. Not to offend anyone, I, when I was an engineer, I was also thinking the same thing. But design is not that. Design is an entirely human centric approach. We are taking care of human centric needs. Usability, technology, aesthetics, manufacturability, cost, everything. Okay? So the point is they came up with that mindset. They also said, don't do research, just make some ideas, sketches and give them 3D models. That's it. What we did is we did not hear these people. Okay, we started doing research. We came to know there are 105 different problems which is associated in this whole. No, no, sorry, sorry, not 100. It's exactly 61 problems. We were really surprised. Out of the 61 there were top 20 problems which is pressing us most. And out of this top 20 to 25, there are three problems which even the client did not expect that we will tell. They were totally shocked. In fact, when we are presenting this project, one of the guy from, he's from uk, okay, so he's a biomedical engineer. He stopped and he asked, wow, this is really great. And how did you find out that he was asking, did you find it in our material which we gave. We were like, no. We came to understand the problem in a deeper way. We did the research, we found out what is the reason. We used a technique called 5Y analysis and we were able to find it out. Okay, so we'll come to how to do a YY analysis little later. But here out the story. So what happened now? They were extremely happy. They were ever continuous clients. So it's not about to Impress somebody. It's about finding out the real truth as a designer, not getting driven by any cross functional team or even the client per se. Okay. So it's a very powerful tool, guys. You will get to the root of the problem so that your entire dynamics of the problem and project changes. People who have seen the difference after applying this, what you call this, root cause analysis, they will never go back to their old original process because they have tasted the juice and essence and powerfulness of this process. Okay, so this is the importance, this is why industry, industry really requires you to really go deep. Even if they don't say you will have to do it. Let me tell you guys, Albert Einstein, after lot of research and after his all efforts and everything, you know, he was very curious how the universe really works. He wants to understand the quantum physics in a more deeper way. He wanted to really find out the entire complexity into one simple equation. And you know what? He made it into a very simple equation called E is equal to MC square. Again, if you really understand the physics deeply, you will know with this we can able to understand how the life really runs. And we can able to calculate the light speed. We can able to calculate if the object is running close to the light speed, what will be the life expectation, what will be the what. In fact, if you use this equation, if you cross beyond the speed of the light, you will start aging, you will stop aging, you will never age. You will, you will stop the time, you will freeze the time. That's the power of this equation. E is equal to MC square. So how did this happen? See again, E is equal to mc square. Explanation is not the point of this podcast. But I saw a movie about this Einstein in BBC World. That's where I understood the importance of this equation. He gone into the so deeper level of that entire universe, how it is being tied and then he has exactly put it in the form of energy equation which is E is equal to MC square. So it's all about finding out the real root, root, root cause of what you wanted to solve. That's how Albert Einstein is going to the entire end of the thing. And then he gave us this very simple equation to this world. Still we are using guys, it has not become obsolete. It's, it's a foundational physics of, I mean it's a foundational quantum physics. So that is the power of root cause analysis. You, you will go beyond the norms what society has set. So understand the important guys. Imagine if your life changes because of this decision. Why don't you think your project will not change and you will sometimes find a new product in your research. Also maybe your client is asking you some product. That's okay, you can design but you will find some intermediate product. Also you will find some new market. Also maybe your client will be really blown away. Yeah, this is a beautiful idea. Why don't we introduce and launches so that kind of evolution will come only if you start stretching out in a different way. Okay, so now you've got the clarity. I think we've gone deep. So now let's understand how to do this. Why, how to do this? Root cause analysis. First step. Guys, take a lot of notes. Okay, define the problem. What is the real problem? Please try to define it out. Take a lot of time here out of these eight steps. This is a very, very important steps. Very, very important step. People don't take it seriously. So define the problem. Second, please be, please be very mindful of gathering as much as data as possible. Huge data. Huge, huge, huge, very, very, very, very huge data. You'll have to collect lot more information. Third is try to find the possible causes for that. Possible causes, not the real causes. Okay, after collecting data and information, whatever problem you're taking out, okay, so gather primary research, secondary research, qualitative, quantitative. Do as much as you can so that you will be come up with a great amount of information to find it out. And then go and narrow down the causes. What causes maximum impact, what causes are more similar. What causes could be grouped together, what causes could be separated each other. So try to form some clusters and different groups and narrow down the causes. Like let us say if somebody is having health issues, going to understand why he's having health issues. You're doing YY analysis, you're trying to find out his stomach was really upset. Why his stomach is upset. Don't go and fix the stomach problem. Stomach is not the real thing. Why his stomach is problem? Because he's a bachelor, he's staying outside. He's not eating food normally in a cooked environment. He's eating outside. Why he's eating outside? Because he's not having time to cook food. Why he is not having time? Because his work is from morning, night to noon. Why his work is like that? Because that much is the workload what he has. If he changes his work nature, if he finds a job which is 9 to 5 job, you'll be able to cook properly in his house. His stomach problem will come down simple. Going and fixing a wrong problem with the wrong reason is a. It's a Complete waste of time. It's a BS until unless you find out the real root cause of the problem then and only you can able to do it, guys. Okay, so there is something called analysis. You have to perform an analysis. Now that's a fifth step. How to do it? Jagdish, fishbone diagram, Pareto principle, 5Y analysis, seven way analysis. See there are a lot many things, okay, 5Y analysis I've demonstrated to you with an example 7Y is like going deeper into it. Fishbone analysis is very simple guys. Draw a straight line in x axis, okay? Try to branch out the problems and the root causes of it. Okay? In that straight line, please write the problem like let's say people are earning low income, that's a problem. What is the causes for the low income? Branch out. One upside branch out. Another downside branch out up. So see the fish bone, okay? The spinal cord of the fish. Put it in the Internet, you will get it same like that you are finding the exact root causes of the problems what you've written. So your problem is in the x axis, you straight line, right? Now if you pause this podcast and put it in Google, you will get what is fish bone diagram looks like? It look exactly like a fish bone spinal cord. So the spinal cord center will be like a problem. And what is the reason for this problem? Up branches, down branches. If you draw arrow marks as many as possible, that would be the causes of this entire problem. The moment when you find the real root cause of the effect what you've got, you will have lot of clarity in why it is happening. Okay, again you will get lot more information, guys. It's not like even after narrowing down you will find lot of causes, 10 causes, 20 causes, 30 causes, 40 causes. Now you will have to choose the top impacting causes and verify it properly with your secondary information. Verify it properly with your research. Verify it properly with your data. Try to brainstorm with your team. Try to understand the fact and verify whether the root cause analysis what you made is really had the proper impact of it. See, don't focus on the symptoms, focus on the exact reason. Go to the genetic reason why somebody is getting that problem. See your problem may your problem scope may be initially limited. But the moment when you are thinking very deep, you will be able to solve it in a very simple way. Like let's say if the client is deliberately stopping you. We need only a surface level problem, no issues. Find it out what are the exact root cause till the end. And now go and solve the problem. Even if they asked you to surface level solve the problem, you will be having a much more conviction and confidence to present it because you know what is the real reason for it. Okay, so after verifying this root cause, now develop the solution. And the eighth thing is go and implement this, test it out and evaluate it. Because just like that, if you have found some solution, it doesn't mean we'll be able to have an effective solution. Once if you're able to test it out, if the feedbacks are good, go ahead and document it. If it's not good, iterate it. Because lot of people don't follow this eight step iteration because when you do iteration one more time for the root cause analysis and find out the real what you call. Let me repeat you guys. First you define the problem. Second you gather the data. Third is find the possible causes. Fourth is narrow down the causes, find out which is high impact, low impact, medium impact. Perform the analysis using Fishbone diagram, Y way analysis, five way analysis and Pareto principle. I forgot to tell you guys, okay? 80 20, it's a very good thing. I have recorded a separate podcast in 80 20. So 80 percentage of why you are failing will come from the 20% of the actions what you've taken. Any problem will have 20 percentage reason which is contributing to 80% of the impact of the problem. Go and find out the 20% and solve it. Your job will become easy. So that's the method. It's very simple to put I've given you. When you restrict out lot of causes, you can able to use this 8020 reason and you can able to do. If I'm solving this two important critical problem, then 8 of my real problem will be solved simple. Rather than working on the eight problems which is not at all a problem, it's a waste of time in your product design life cycle. Okay, so please be mindful of it. And then sixth is verify your root cause. Seventh is develop your solution. Eight is implement and evaluate and test it out and if it is not good, reiterate it and do the continuous improvement until the problem gets solved and document it in a proper way for the further designers to work. Okay, so this is what is exactly called root cause analysis. I hope you have got a clarity in this and if you need more support to get to know what is mean by root cause analysis, how to do it live. I have an interesting experiment and exercise for you guys. It's a very short exercise but people who are writing down something about what do you think about this root cause analysis in this podcast. Our team will reply to your email and will help you with helping out in mastering this particular tool. Okay? Knowing this method or tool is not the point. You have to master the skill and be a good what you call skillsful person. In approaching that then you will become a great value added asset in your design organization. Okay. So thank you so much guys. Take care. All the best. Bye bye.