During our weekly meetings, we find ourselves solving the same operational problems week after week because we are only addressing surface-level symptoms. How do we train our leadership team to dig down to the issue behind the issue during our IDS® sessions?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

To stop solving the same problems repeatedly, your team must master the Identify phase of IDS®. Most leadership teams jump straight into discussing and solving before they have actually defined the real problem. When an issue is brought to the table, the person who listed it must state the problem in a single, clear sentence.

Once the issue is stated, the rest of the team must ask clarifying questions to strip away the noise. This requires a shift from talking about what happened to asking why it happened. A useful technique is to ask why several times. If the issue is that a key client deliverable was late, the surface issue is the late delivery. Asking why reveals that the team member was overloaded. Asking why again reveals that we have no clear capacity planning tool. The capacity planning tool is the actual issue behind the issue.

The Integrator must ensure that nobody is allowed to transition to the Discuss phase until everyone agrees on the root cause. If you are debating solutions before you have spent at least five minutes clarifying the problem, you are moving too fast.

Write the issue down on a whiteboard or shared screen so everyone can see it. If the written statement is a symptom, rewrite it. Once you have identified the real systemic issue, the solution usually becomes obvious and can be resolved permanently, preventing it from showing up on your Issues List ever again.