Root Cause Analysis Frameworks

Written By Wendy-Lynn

There are three types of Execution questions: Metrics for Success, Trade offs/Experiments and Root Cause Analysis (RCA). In this article we are going to discuss strategies for Root Cause Analysis.

These questions can feel like a game of 20 questions. More recently, we have seen a pivot to ending Metrics for Success prompts with trade off questions around the metrics you spell out. For example, do you expect X or Y to happen.

For standalone RCA questions, there are three big categories of causes of the problem:

  1. External to the Company

  2. Internal to the Company; External to the Team

  3. Internal to the Team

Examples: External to the Company

  • politics

  • weather

  • terrorist attacks

  • pandemics

  • changing trends/competition

Examples: Internal to the Company; External to the Team

  • company-wide marketing efforts

  • bugs on other teams

  • code releases

  • APIs not working for X reasons or in Y location

Examples: Internal to the Team

  • recent code releases

  • partner APIs that fail in one market (related to team release)

  • leaky funnel issues where your team own the funnel

Wendy-Lynn https://intrico.io
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