Identifying Comparisons for Effective Investigations: Audio

Last month, we talked about the importance of the problem statement and investigation steps. Just to review - the problem statement is about identifying the object and defect, and the investigation step is about gathering facts about the problem.

The next step in the investigation process is the comparison step. You might think of it as the companion to the investigation step. These two parts of the process are often referred to as IS (investigation) and IS NOT (comparison). We start the search by looking for things that don’t share the problem.

Again, we use the 4 W’s to organize our search:

What
Where
When
Weight

Sounds easy enough, but like the other steps, we often see some common pitfalls here, too.

The most common problem is using comparisons that share the problem. When you identify things that have the same problem or defect you are investigating, it cannot serve as a comparison. Using them will complicate, or derail, your investigation.

For example: Let’s say the grass in your front yard is dying and you want to find out why. You might compare it to your back yard provided the grass was healthy there. Or your neighbors yard if their grass was ok. But if the grass is dieing in either of those cases, you can’t use it because it shares the problem. You need to find comparisons that will provide differences. Without those, you won’t be able to find any clues later.

Remember, good comparisons are essential to finding good clues. Poor or inappropriate comparisons will mean that it is very unlikely you’ll find the true root cause.

Do you have any additional advice to share? Please post on our Blog or LinkedIn Group. If you have had other methods of success in conducting investigations, we’d love to hear about them.

Yours for training that makes a difference,

Herb Miller
Product Development and Training Manager
PathWise, Inc.