(From 2016, bringing it up into the new podcast!)

Hi I'm Rudolf Olah, and welcome to the NeverFriday Software Leadership podcast. On this podcast I talk about leadership in software development.

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Today we're taking a look at cause and effect diagrams.

Cause and effect diagrams are one of 7 basic tools of quality. You won’t see them used very often in software development or IT projects. In other industries such as manufacturing, marketing and services, you will see cause and effect diagrams used everywhere. I've been on many development teams working on all sorts of projects from green-field to maintenance projects and not once has the team used a cause and effect diagram.

As a team lead or project manager or CTO, you will be the one to introduce cause and effect diagrams to your team. They won't go off and learn how to create these diagrams on their own.

Let's go over the advantages of the cause and effect diagram and why you should teach your team how to use cause and effect diagrams.

The first advantage is that you improve quality. You find specific causes and you can minimize or prevent the whole chain of events that caused the problem. You pinpoint and investigate the exact cause of a problem. Instead of a band-aid solution, you may be able to figure out a more comprehensive solution and have your team implement it.

The second advantage is that your whole team can be involved. Each member of your team has different perspectives and insights and can list causes that most of the team never even thought of. For example, the customer support team may suggest that the user manual isn't clear, or the QA team will suggest there wasn't enough testing done, or your developers could suggest that poor equipment was the cause of the problem.

By involving more team members, you reduce the biases that could prevent your team from solving the problem. By involving other departments, you involve stakeholders who will need to be on-board to implement preventative methods and measures for broader issues.

The third advantage is that you and your team gain a high level overview of the potential causes of a problem. This reduces wasted time. There's always going to be a developer on your team that just wants to rush right in to fix what they perceive is the root cause. More experienced developers are more likely to be correct but that doesn't mean your team should rush to try and fix things. Stepping back to a high level overview gives you and your team a sense of perspective and keeps priorities clear for your team.

So one more time. There are three advantages to cause and effect diagrams. First, they improve quality by finding the true root cause of a problem. Second, they can involve more of your team in brainstorming and collaboration and reduce biases in finding the root cause. Third, they give you and your team a chance to step back, keep priorities clear and gain a sense of perspective of the problem.

The next time you have a problem, try creating a cause and effect diagram and asking your team for their input. You may find it helps you get to a solution a lot sooner than you think.

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