In my younger years, I might have asked that question to tell off someone who was getting in my face. Now I find it’s one of the most critical questions to ask when beginning a process improvement because often we either don’t really know the answer, or we answer incorrectly.

How can we answer such a simple question incorrectly? Because we identify the wrong problem, or we define the problem incorrectly in the first place. Here are three simple and common mistakes we should learn to watch for and prevent:
1. Defining a solution, not a problem
2. Identifying results or consequences instead of the problem
3. Defining one possible problem when there are several

A strong culture of root cause analysis can rescue companies from the second two mistakes, and it will often prevent them from making the first mistake—or at least help them recognize it early.

Defining a solution

This is perhaps the most common mistake and also the most dangerous because it enables us to proceed with a great deal of development work and expense toward a solution that’s either less than optimal, or not a viable solution at all.

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