152 Thinking for a Change you will have several reservations, some of which will be quite valid. Recognize that those reservations don’t mean that Display Manufacturing’s tree is bad. It just means that had you been there raising the reservations, the clarity of the tree would have been enhanced. As you read through the evolving example, I encourage you to take a pencil and, using the categories of legitimate reservation, note your reservations. Then, try to answer your reservations by asking yourself in the following frame of reference: Assume that the connection is, in fact, valid. What else would need to be in this space on the tr ee in or der for me to accept it as such? This will give you excellent practice in using the categories of legitimate reservation, and thus enhance your sufficient cause thinking skills. It will also help you increase your ability to “put yourself in someone else’s shoes” when listening. It appeared to the team that entity # 8 ( Display installation pr ocess is difficult for the customer ) was an obvious effect of entity #1 ( To keep their costs low, stores hire personnel with minimal skills .) The insufficient cause reservation led them to clarify the relationship further, as illustrated in Figure 8.5. As the team looked at the rest of the list, they found it difficult to connect a third pertinent entity to the tree. Some seemed to be obviously connected to each other, but none seemed to be closely connected to the cluster that they started. So, they methodically went through verbalizing Figure 8.5 SL1019ch08frame Page 152 Friday, June 23, 2006 9:36 AM Copyright © 1999 CRC Press, LLC. Current Reality Tree 153 a hypothesized cause–effect relationship between each of the three entities on the cluster with each of the remaining entities on the list. “ If to keep their costs low, stores hire personnel with minimal skills , then customers question the value of the display .” Does it make sense? No. Ok, move on to the next. “ If to keep their costs low, stores hire personnel with minimal skills , then installed costs are too high from the customers’ perspective .” Does it make sense? No. OK, move on to the next, and so on. Ultimately, an intuitive bell rang when they tried, “ If display installation process is difficult for the customer , then installed costs are too high from the cus- tomers’ perspective .” (See Figures 8.6 and 8.7.) Step 4. Review and Revise for Clarity and Completeness A. Now that all of the pertinent entities are connected, take the opportunity to expand the tree to gain a more complete under- standing of the current reality. What are the effects of the entities, or combinations of entities, on the tree? What other aspects of the system are affected? What other stakeholders of the system are affected? • If your current reality tree is for the purpose of identifying a core problem, look for additional undesirable effects of the entities on your tree. • If the purpose of the tree is to identify a core strength or competency, look for additional desirable effects of the entities on your tree. • If your tree is to determine a general core driver of the system, look for good as well as problematic effects of the entities on your tree. B. Look for missing connections that exist among the entities on the tree. • Of course, expand the tree by diagramming these relationships and subjecting them to the categories of legitimate reservation. Notice, I have still not said that you should “dive down.” Even at this stage of the process, it remains an unnecessary task. C. Read the tree back to yourself. It’s easiest to follow if you begin at the lowest entry point and go up from their. Many people find it helpful to use the ter minology “if…then” to designate “cause–effect” when reading a tree. “If [cause], then [effect]. If you can’t read the “If [cause], then [effect]” statement in a free-flowing SL1019ch08frame Page 153 Friday, June 23, 2006 9:36 AM Copyright © 1999 CRC Press, LLC. 154 Thinking for a Change Figure 8.6 SL1019ch08frame Page 154 Friday, June 23, 2006 9:36 AM Copyright © 1999 CRC Press, LLC. Current Reality Tree 155 Figure 8.7 SL1019ch08frame Page 155 Friday, June 23, 2006 9:36 AM Copyright © 1999 CRC Press, LLC. 156 Thinking for a Change fashion, immediately invoke the clarity reservation, and modify your tree so that it does. 1. Do a “gut reality check.” Ask yourself if the tree, as a whole, represents a clear picture of the reality of the system. If yes, fantastic! If no, you have a reservation. Utilize the categories of legitimate reservation to uncover and diagram the “missing pieces.” Sometimes, the “real” reality is different from the reality to which you and your team would rather admit. This step is asking you to do a gut check on whether the tree reflects the “real” reality, even if that reality is one which you have avoided. a. You might want to show your tree to a colleague. i. If you want to confirm that the tree is, in fact, a reflection of the real current reality, share it with someone who also “lives” that reality with you. ii. If you want a set of eyes to look at the tree from the perspective of uncovering assumptions that you may have missed, share the tree with a colleague who does not live the reality with you. Ask them to find the possible holes in your logic, listen to their reservations, and fill in the missing pieces that they will surely highlight for you. Display Manufacturing (continued) Display Manufacturing’s tree looked like Figure 8.8 at this point in the process. Step 5. Apply the “So What Test” Your intuition led you to select an initial list of pertinent entities, and you used that list to develop the beginning framework of the tree. You then expanded your tree to make it a clearer picture of the system. Now it’s time to look at the tree with a fresh set of eyes and really determine what’s pertinent and what’s not. You have spent a good deal of time thinking about these entities as they exist in relation to one another. This step will ask you to look at each entity as if it was related to nothing else except the system itself. Consider your original list of pertinent entities as nothing more than entities that exist, along with other entities, on your tree. Now look at each entity in isolation and ask yourself the following questions. Highlight in some way (such as with colored marker) any entities for which your answer is “yes.” SL1019ch08frame Page 156 Friday, June 23, 2006 9:36 AM Copyright © 1999 CRC Press, LLC. Current Reality Tree 157 • If your tree is for the purpose of identifying a core problem, ask: SO WHAT! If this entity wasn’t caused by its purported cause(s), and if it wasn’t causing the entities it was supposed to have caused, would I want to remove it from the system? Is it undesirable on its own merit? Is it undesirable simply because it exists? • If your tree is for the purpose of discovering a core strength, ask: SO WHAT! If this entity wasn’t caused by its purported cause ( s ) , and if it wasn’t causing the entities it was supposed to have caused, would I care about keeping it in the system? Is it desirable on its own merit? Is it desirable simply because it exists? • If your tree is for the purpose of discovering a general core driver, ask both of the above. Don’t be surprised to find yourself answering yes to only a few of the entities that were on your original pertinent entity list. Typically, the entities you select in this step include a few from your original list along with additional entities taken from your tree. When you are creating your first current reality tree, this step may be very difficult. Over time, I hope that you will agree with me that it is a most refreshing part of the process. This is a critical part of the process, and I caution you against skipping it. The next step is identification of the core cause. This is where we truly determine “core cause of what?” Display Manufacturing (continued) Display Manufacturing put every one of the entities on its current reality tree through the “SO WHAT” test. The task was especially difficult, because they had to look at the entities not from the perspective of Display Manufacturing, but from the perspective of their customers. The revised list of pertinent entities became: 1. Display installation process is difficult for the customer. 2. Stores have a hard time receiving displays smoothly. 3. Installations are often a logistical nightmare. 4. Amount of revenue generated by display doesn’t justify costs associated with it. 5. Installed costs are too high from the customers’ perspective. 6. Customers question the value of the display. 7. It’s difficult for the manufacturers (our customers) to differentiate themselves. 8. Displays aren’t causing consumers to buy what they (displays) are meant to sell. SL1019ch08frame Page 157 Friday, June 23, 2006 9:36 AM Copyright © 1999 CRC Press, LLC. 158 Thinking for a Change Figure 8.8a SL1019ch08frame Page 158 Friday, June 23, 2006 9:36 AM Copyright © 1999 CRC Press, LLC. Current Reality Tree 159 Figure 8.8b SL1019ch08frame Page 159 Friday, June 23, 2006 9:36 AM Copyright © 1999 CRC Press, LLC. 160 Thinking for a Change You may be surprised at some of the entities that are not on the above list. For instance, what about Customers are constantly looking to reduce the costs of the displays? Of course, Display Manufacturing didn’t necessarily like this little fact of life, because it meant they were constantly justifying their prices. However, the question they needed to answer was, would their customers perceive this as an undesirable effect? Not likely. In fact, they’d probably be quite happy with their purchasing agents diligently looking after costs! Step 6. Identify Core Cause(s) Danny and I planted a tree in front of our house last year. Stems and leaves that almost look like mini trees grow from its base and roots. The landscapers call these mini trees “shooters.” When the shooters are present, the base of the tree looks really messy, and it’s difficult to differentiate between the trunk and the top of the tree. In fact, it almost looks like a bush! The shooters soak up water and other nutrients, which detract from the tree’s overall rate of growth, in terms of both height and strength of trunk. Therefore, we trim these shooters when they appear. We’re going to go through a similar activity in this step of the current reality tree process. The grand aim of all science is to cover the greatest number of empirical facts by logical deduction from the smallest number of hypotheses or axioms. Albert Einstein, 1950 A. First, we must distinguish the tree from the “shooters.” We do this by highlighting the paths by which the reselected pertinent entities (the results of the “so what test”) are connected to each other through linear and “V” connections, as illustrated in Figure 8.9. We have now identified that the pertinent entities are connected with each other as indicated in Table 8.2. SL1019ch08frame Page 160 Friday, June 23, 2006 9:36 AM Copyright © 1999 CRC Press, LLC. Current Reality Tree 161 Figure 8.9 Table 8.2 Entities Involved Type of Connection 2,1 V — common cause is #3 2,1 Linear 2,1 V — common cause is entity directly below #2 5,6 Linear 4,5 Linear 3,1 Linear 3,2 Linear 2,5 V — common cause is entity to the left of #4 5,4 Linear 6,4 V — common cause is #5 SL1019ch08frame Page 161 Friday, June 23, 2006 9:36 AM Copyright © 1999 CRC Press, LLC. [...]... something they didn’t want to address directly Who were they to try to change their customers’ customers’ hiring practices? They decided then to take a look at the entity the core problem combined with as it led to pertinent entity #1: It takes more than minimum skills to put together and install displays They also asked themselves the “cause insufficiency” question on the connection between the core... that you knew the answer to the questions that the tree is meant to provide, then I would agree that you wasted your time On the other hand, ask yourself the following: Do you have a clearer understanding of the system now than before you started the tree? Are you now in a better position to communicate the realities of the system to others? If you have built the current reality tree to identify a... frustrated Stop immediately and go to the next step • You may have the tendency to try to solve a problem before you have given yourself the opportunity to define it with the diagram Solving the problem comes later First, you are giving yourself the opportunity to look at the problem itself If you find that the act of verbalizing the problem automatically leads your mind to generate some solutions, write the. .. that come to mind on a separate sheet of paper This way, you won’t forget them, and it will be easier to continue with the process Then, remind yourself that solving it comes a few steps down the road and get back to the process b Diagram the problem as the five entities of an evaporating cloud The cloud and each of its entities are illustrated in Figures 9.1 and 9.2 The order in which you fill in the boxes... step in the process (Figure 8.12) The heavy lines show the paths by which the reselected pertinent entities are connected to each other There were only two “shooters” to be trimmed The entry points are noted with wide arrows, and the reselected pertinent entities are highlighted with thick lines It was obvious to the team that the core problem they were dealing with was To keep their costs low, stor hire... want to solve the pr oblem, don’t bother picking up the tool Make the decision to take a few moments to step back and observe the problem for what it is — a conflict that contains at least one assumption that is invalid Once you have made the commitment to solve this problem, you have empowered yourself to examine all sides of the issue, including those assumptions that you may have held near and dear to. .. determine how to overcome obstacles to putting in place a desired solution — the more difficult the task is to implement, the more useful the prerequisite tree is! The bottom line is, if you want to fi x it, you can, and ther e ar e tools to lead you ther e right in this book! I have built this current reality tree to identify a core problem What if I have identified something that I simply don’t want to solve?First,... more of the entry points to your tree Let’s imagine that entity E only caused 75% rather than 83% of the pertinent entities I would then look for a common cause of entity E and, perhaps, entity 3 (entry point B), because such a cause would be a common cause for all 6 of the entities Another place to look would be for a common cause of entry points E and F, or F and 3 (entry point B) In fact, the small... [injection], then we will be able to achieve [objective of necessary condition relationship] without the [necessary condition] • If I/we decide to implement [injection], then we will not need [necessary condition] in order to achieve [objective of the necessary condition relationship] c You can test injections aimed at the assumptions of arrow five by filling in the blanks to either of the following... entities D and D′ co-exist? • Why aren’t we allowed to have both D and D′? • Is there any overlap between the two? • Are they really mutually exclusive? Why? • You should be able to read the conflict relationship back to yourself in any of the following ways: • The reason we are unable to have both D and D ′ is [assumption] • D and D′ are not allowed to coexist in this environment because [assumption] . means and not ends. Aristotle, 4th Century B.C. The evaporating cloud is by far the most often used of the thinking processes. This may be due to the fact that it is the easiest of the tools to. also something they didn’t want to address directly. Who were they to try to change their customers’ customers’ hiring practices? They decided then to take a look at the entity the core problem. present, the base of the tree looks really messy, and it’s difficult to differentiate between the trunk and the top of the tree. In fact, it almost looks like a bush! The shooters soak up water and other