How I used root cause analysis to turn organizational problems into opportunities

I had a lot of problems building content teams. Sometimes these problems resulted in complete failure. Content stalls, email campaigns fail, or new hires don’t work.

Sometimes it feels easier to just accept reality and move on. “Well, this new hire wasn’t the right person for our team at the moment. We’ll do better next time!” But if you don’t understand Why This attitude didn’t work – if you don’t understand the real problem, you’re bound to repeat it.

Conducting a root cause analysis (RCA) helps you confront your perceived reality and truly understand what went wrong so you don’t repeat history. Now, that can sound a little scary.

After all, we’ve been told this for years Learn from mistakes is the key to growth. Admitting failure feels vulnerable. What if I is the problem? What if I can’t fix the problem?

The RCA process helps us overcome these fears using a data-driven approach and critical thinking. It requires us to avoid the easy answer and pursue deeper truths. From there we can develop a more informed and practical approach to challenges. We fail, we learn and we improve. That’s the goal of a good RCA.

How do you conduct a root cause analysis and what tools can you use to do it effectively? Grab your free one Root cause analysis templateand let’s get started.

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Marketer with experience in Project managers know it’s important to monitor your systems and take an honest look at things when they fail. RCA provides a framework to better understand how organizational components work together and how they can be improved.

To help us unpack the RCAs, I spoke to Ellen Smolkoa part-CMO Predictive performance. She has helped many companies analyze business problems with RCAs and find significant value in the process.

“Root-cause analysis helps you overcome superficial symptoms and address the real causes of underperformance,” Smolko said.

“For example, when sales are down, it’s tempting to think you need more leads. But often the real problem lies deeper: perhaps your offerings no longer meet changing customer needs or your message does not convey added value. By systematically identifying and addressing these root causes, RCA enables you to make informed decisions that lead to lasting improvements.”

What is the “5 Whys” approach to root cause analysis?

The purpose of an RCA is to identify the root cause of a problem. This means that when we are faced with a problem, we cannot accept our first instinct.

We need a framework that helps us question the people, processes, tools, systems and environments that influence a negative outcome.

This is where the “5 Whys” come into play. In the 5-Why approachYou keep wondering why a problem was able to go beyond the obvious answers and find the underlying cause. Sakichi Toyoda pioneered this technique and applied it liberally in the company he founded, Toyota Industries.

As an example, I will apply the 5 Whys to my new hire example from earlier.

A few years ago I built a content team from scratch. We urgently needed to meet our customers’ expectations with outstanding written content. But our content fell short of these expectations and our new employees moved voluntarily and involuntarily within 12 months.

Why did this happen?

Why 1: Why are new content hires not meeting performance expectations and leaving so quickly?

An important part of the 5 Whys exercise is to use objective data as much as possible. We often build subjective assumptions about people and processes and let these influence decision-making:

• “The new employees just don’t understand it.”
• “They don’t spend enough time understanding their customers.”
• “They’re not bringing their own problems to the surface quickly enough.”

But does the data we collect confirm these assumptions? During this exercise, put aside whatever you want think You know and focus on what you can prove.

Pro tip: Using data to support decisions is a core tenet of total quality management – ​​and simply a good practice to rely on when engaging in complex organizational change.

In this case, I looked at quality control data provided by customers and team leaders, as well as employee satisfaction surveys. Using these data points, I discovered that several team members were dissatisfied with their roles. These team members were also the ones to whom customers reported that they were producing content that did not meet expectations.

It’s tempting to stop here; After all, doesn’t this support our subjective assumptions? The new employees obviously don’t get their customers. But the 5 whys let us go deeper.

Why 2: Why are team members dissatisfied with their roles and not meeting customer expectations?

I could sense that team members were frustrated, and the data confirmed that feeling. And customers certainly expressed their frustrations, too.

That’s why I delved deeper into quantitative hiring, onboarding, and performance data. I also conducted more qualitative surveys and spoke to current team members about their problems and what they thought was happening.

The analysis in this phase revealed two important findings:

1. Dissatisfied team members felt overwhelmed by the number of customers and their expectations.
2. They did not receive enough feedback and support to adapt to these expectations and improve their performance.

Why 3: Why do team members feel overwhelmed and lack sufficient feedback and support?

You’ve probably noticed a trend in these questions: the previous conclusion influences the next question. That’s the secret to a good 5 Whys session: you constantly interrogate.

You may also start to take things personally at this stage of the process. I felt like I owned a significant part of this problem. They were My Team – didn’t they get enough help from me? What did i do wrong?

There is a place for in this process extreme personal responsibility and implement improvements personally. However, remember that we need data to support our decisions. We must approach it objectively to ensure we truly understand the root cause.

So I spoke with our talent management team and we delved deeper into the hiring and onboarding process, including screening questions, writing test analyses, and early hiring management practices. The data showed us:

1. We have not thoroughly assessed the skills and abilities of content team candidates to ensure a fit for the role.
2. We lacked consistent performance reviews and mentoring to ensure feedback turned into opportunities for professional development.

Why 4: Why was there a role imbalance and a lack of performance reviews and mentoring?

We reviewed hiring and onboarding data and saw how quickly managers were rushing to hire. We had a number of steps in our hiring process, but we were able to complete these steps quickly (and perhaps too quickly).

When we looked at onboarding, we realized that our process also covered the usual administrative tasks, such as: B. taking over PTO or logging customer hours. Yet we had not considered the need for ongoing performance management or close supervision.

Why 5: Why did we hire so quickly and use a limited onboarding process?

In this phase you can see how organizational goals and challenges influenced my team. Our company grew quickly and the number of customers and expectations grew accordingly. The growth put pressure on HR managers who just wanted it receive Adding people to the team to meet increasing demand.

The rush also led to a rushed onboarding process. We were so focused on attracting team members that we didn’t put enough energy into retaining them. We lacked a strategic focus on long-term team development that included deeper onboarding and more effective mentoring and performance management.

Use the 5 Whys to improve your organization

Based on this approach, we have taken steps to achieve significant improvements:

• Reassess the pressure to scale quickly.
• We’re tinkering with hiring and onboarding processes to find the most suitable people for our growth phase.
• Implementation of more structure and feedback options to improve performance.
• Doubling down on team development as a core part of managers’ roles and responsibilities (including my own role).

These changes helped build a stronger, more resilient team that consistently met and exceeded customer expectations. It wasn’t a perfect solution – growth always brings new challenges. But it took us in a more informed direction.

Pro tip: You can do the 5 Whys with just a whiteboard and a dry-erase marker, but it’s difficult to think through challenges right away. I recommend using ours 5 Why Template to break through barriers and start ruminating.

It is also important to note that you can only successfully implement the 5 Whys if your company culture can accept failure and does not resort to blame and distrust. While you should admit failure and learn from it, you can’t do that from a place where you don’t feel safe.

This lack of certainty leads to ignoring data that points to the “wrong” conclusion, not fully analyzing the situation, or failing to implement necessary changes.

My experience also raises an important point of caution that Smolko reiterated.

“The 5 Whys method, while straightforward, has its limitations,” she said. “It assumes a single root cause and relies heavily on accurate data. Many marketing challenges are diverse and require deeper investigation and validation.”

This approach will get you started, but a true root cause analysis should move you beyond the one cause mentality.

Which tools can help you with root cause analysis?

After you’ve done your 5 Whys approach, you should have a better sense of the root causes. But as Smolko mentioned, there are even more places that call for deeper scrutiny and critical thinking. RCAs can use different approaches and tools to address complex challenges.

Fishbone diagrams

These may also be called Ishikawa diagrams or cause and effect diagrams, but they are called fishbone diagrams because they look like a fish skeleton. You can use these charts to map potential factors contributing to your specific problem.

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Start by placing your problem at the “tip” of the fishbone. Then identify major categories such as people, processes, and tools. For each category, think about all the possible causes that are contributing to the problem. For example, I would put “quick hiring and onboarding” in the “processes” category.

Finally, analyze how these causes are related to each other and to your problem. The fishbone image helps you organize your thoughts around complex problems and identify missing connections and opportunities.

Pro tip: If you want to jump right into a fishbone diagram exercise, check out ours Free fishbone diagram template for a head start.

Affinity diagrams

An affinity diagram helps you organize and analyze large amounts of data. They organize data and ideas into groups based on their relationships to one another.

Start by collecting data from multiple sources, focusing on everything relevant to your problem. Then define categories and sort this data into groups. Label each group and analyze possible relationships for patterns and possible root causes.

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For my team’s challenges, I could pull data from exit interviews, performance metrics, and qualitative surveys from customers and team members. Natural problem areas such as training gaps or lack of support could arise, and connections between data would highlight them as points to begin addressing immediately.

Pareto charts

If you know anything about project management, you’ve heard of the Pareto principle or the 80/20 rule. In short, it is the concept that things in life are not distributed equally. That means 80% of your company’s production comes from 20% of its employees.

Applied to RCA, a Pareto chart is based on the underlying concept that a few root causes are responsible for most of your problems.

Start with a list of possible causes related to your problem. Then count each time to identify every cause that affects the result in your data. The more common causes tend to be the “bigger challenges” that need to be solved.

For example, while going through my 5 Whys exercise earlier, we were able to categorize my team’s frustrations and count instances where they showed up in the data. Inadequate training may have occurred 15 times, while heavy workload may have occurred only 5 times.

I would read this table and realize that we need to focus on training opportunities as this would more effectively address the root cause of our retention problem. This table will help you focus on the more serious causes and have a greater impact.

Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA)

RCAs often take place after a problem has occurred. However, the focus of an FMEA is on identifying failure points before they break. In this process, you evaluate possible root causes of errors and prepare mitigation measures.

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Part of the FMEA is to rate the severity, occurrence and detectability of each failure mode using a scale of 1 to 10. Or basically:

• How bad would it be if it happened?
• How likely is it to happen?
• How easily can we recognize that it is happening?

From there, derive a risk priority number and create plans to address the highest risk failure points. This is a great way to identify problems early and prioritize limited resources on the biggest potential challenges.

Start your root cause analysis with our free template

You can run these RCA tools without any special resources. Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets can help you with this process. Some specialized data-driven tools, such as Minitab or Tableaucan help with more complex challenges.

At HubSpot, we see many ways root cause analysis can help your marketing team. So many, in fact, that we’ve compiled our best tools and resources into one template. Open this template in Word, Excel, Google Docs or Sheets and follow our guided steps through a complete RCA.

Our template provides places to track event dates, customer details, and issue descriptions. You can then hire investigators, pursue possible root causes, and develop proposed solutions.

This template helps you make informed, data-driven decisions and focus on consistent organizational improvements.

Don’t be afraid of root cause analysis

A good root cause analysis should make you a little nervous.

Confronting underlying organizational issues requires asking tough questions, sharing openly and honestly, and being aware of your role and responsibilities. It’s a humbling process at times.

But I think it’s also an important process. Follow the steps behind an RCA and use the tools and data available to you, and you will discover the real problems that are holding you back from success.

If you want to achieve long-term success, don’t let fear limit you.

Dig deep and find the key to victory.