Applying Current Reality Trees
An excellent tool for helping teams to solve problems better
Every so often when working with a client on a project there will be a tricky problem that we need to understand better and one of the best tools that I’ve found to do this is to visualise the challenge using a current reality tree, which is one of the thinking processes in the Theory of Constraints (created by Eliyahu Goldratt). The latter of-course relates to the idea that a small number of constraints can limit a system from optimising against specific goals.
Current Reality Trees are a way of mapping out many apparent problems but also seeing the relationship between them, important cause and effect relationships, and finding the root causes which may actually be creating multiple symptoms in a system. The principle it addresses is that many of the challenges that we see in front of us may actually be symptoms of a fewer number of root causes and identifying and tackling these is essential to direct effort in the most effective way.
Mapping the main perceived symptoms or undesirable effects (UDEs), and then any secondary (or perhaps hidden) symptoms that can feed into them enables us to understand true cause and effect much better. But it also helps us to identify the root causes which may be leading to multiple effects. Tackling the root cause will have greater impact in solving the problem and will make the undesirable effects disappear.
So the mapping process starts with agreeing the scope of the system that you are trying to understand. Then you list out and describe all the undesirable effects that you are seeing (around 5–10 is best). Then you analyse the things that are happening to cause that effect. If two or more things need to happen to cause a UDE (you can frame this as ‘if x AND y happen we get this undesirable effect’) you can represent this on the diagram using an ellipse. After mapping out all the effects you can work back to identify a smaller number of root causes. A great way to understand root causes is to use tools like the ‘5-whys’ (iteratively asking why five times, each question forming the basis of the next question). It’s helpful to think here about things that you can control and influence.
Having mapped out your tree you can validate it in some simple ways. The best ways that I’ve come across to do this is to go top to bottom using the word ‘because’. For example ‘users are not happy with the service because the response times are too slow because two critical functions in the organisation are not collaborating well because of a communication challenge. You can also go bottom to top using the word ‘therefore’, as in ‘two functions are not communicating well, therefore they are not collaborating well, therefore response times are impacted, therefore customers are getting frustrated’.
Having identified ‘what to change’, you can now focus on ‘what to change to’ and ‘how to change’. Since the reality tree maps out a sequence of cause and effect from a fundamental problem to the more visible effects it is particularly useful when working with poorly understood problems or dependencies. Finally, it’s really helpful to get a cross-disciplinary team involved in the mapping process, particularly when there are dependencies involved. This process can be really helpful in getting to root cause of problems in a collaborative way, but also focusing team effort in having maximum impact in removing barriers to progress.
For more like this, you can order your copy of Building the Agile Business Through Digital Transformation and the new book from Neil Perkin, Agile Transformation: Structures, Processes and Mindsets for the Digital Age. You can also join our community to access exclusive content related to the book
Originally posted on the Only Dead Fish blog
