What are issue trees?
Most consultants have heard of issue trees, but struggle to apply them in practice. This post is for consultants who want to learn how to structure and analyze issues to improve their problem-solving.
What is an issue tree?
And how to create and use it?
I struggled with issue trees a lot when I was a consultant at McKinsey.
But my managers and partners were pushing me to master this skill. They emphasized that it’s absolutely critical for improving my problem-solving.
The same things I heard in firm training. Issue trees made perfect sense in the mock problems. But when it came to real problems, I couldn’t get the same clarity and utility.
I felt the real pressure to learn this skill, but didn’t know how.
On top of that, there was one confusing contradiction.
My partners always talked about issues, but almost never created issue trees in real projects. I couldn’t see what best practices looked like and how they were applied in real projects.
Every time I created my own issue trees and showed them to my managers, they always cringed and dismissed them.
That is why in this post, I explain issue trees in a more direct, non-cryptic way. I also give you some practical tips on how you can apply them in your everyday work.
This post is a part of a series in which I reflect on Critical Thinking. I discuss different parts of critical thinking as an important part of problem-solving skills.
If you want to read another post from this series, here’s another important topic:
There will be more posts in this series. Stay tuned.
You know, it took me years to actually internalize this knowledge.
When I worked at McKinsey, I problem-solved mostly intuitively. And it worked fine until I had to teach consultants how to do that.
This is when I encountered serious limitations.
Apparently, what was obvious for me was not necessarily obvious for others, and vice versa. I lacked the right concepts and vocabulary to teach things that I knew intuitively.
At that time, I understood all my managers and partners, who felt the importance of issues, but couldn’t really explain it in a way that was understandable to first-year and even second-year consultants.
Now, in my coaching program, I teach consultants through practical exercises. That’s the best way to learn these complex skills by not only seeing how their own mistakes originate, but also what best practice outputs look like.
I have this special exercise to improve critical thinking.
Consultants solve a fairly complicated problem by writing their thoughts in an essay. They register every thought and statement. They label them as certain logical entities like issues, insights, assumptions, arguments, implications, hypotheses, solutions, and so on.
This approach reveals gaps in critical thinking. It shows specific steps where mistakes originate. It shows lapses in judgment and logic.
It’s quite revealing.
You know, the most damaging mistakes happen at the issue analysis level, basically, at the very beginning of their problem-solving process.
Then, it almost doesn’t matter what they do, because other thoughts are mere derivatives. If their issues are wrong, their solutions will be either wrong or not deep enough.
Let me show what the typical mistakes consultants make are.
But first, let’s start with the definition.
What is an issue?
An issue is a clearly stated question or problem that requires judgment, reasoning, or a decision to solve the overall problem. They break the problem into manageable parts.
There are two common mistakes consultants make in analysing their issues: not structuring them well or not going deep enough.
Let’s discuss them one by one.
1. Structuring
You’ve probably heard this many times.
You must break down and structure your issues.
The most common mistake here is not structuring your issues properly.
When you look at your problem as a whole, you don’t see nuances that can help you find unique solutions.
That’s why your solutions will be either wrong or not deep enough. You are risking missing big elements of your problem.
When it happens, you lose your battle in the very beginning. And then it almost doesn’t matter what you do afterwards.
Issue trees
Structuring issues is what most people mean by issue trees. Basically, it’s a nested structure that consists of multiple hierarchical elements of smaller issues.
As a consultant, I remember trying to make issue trees for my workstreams. It almost always resulted in some kind of soul-crushing exercise. I couldn’t quite nail it. And my managers were never happy with my issue trees.
I think my problem was that I was doing it mechanically without really understanding the importance of the issues. I struggled to make it specific enough.
Another common misconception is that issue trees are suitable only for large problems, like a project or a workstream level.
But when it comes to smaller problems, consultants neglect to break down and structure their issues.
They just accept issues as they were presented to them, without structuring and exploring them further.
That limits their problem-solving.
On the other hand, experienced managers and partners always go deep into analysing their issues. They don’t necessarily create issue trees. But they always think deeply about issues and structure them in their minds.
This is all happening below the surface that is invisible to consultants.
That’s why there’s a confusing contradiction.
Leaders push you to learn how to analyze issues, but don’t use issue trees in practical work.
That’s why you struggle to learn it, because you simply don’t see how it’s done.
Basically, my main message here is not to worry about issue trees per se, but make sure you break down and structure your issues properly.
2. Going deeper
This one is also quite a common mistake.
I am sure you’ve heard it many times that you must go deeper, ask yourself five WHY’s, and break down problems to first principles.
All these recommendations are super valid, but I think consultants practically struggle to understand where to apply them and how.
Here, it’s important not just to define the issue, but to push to understand the reality and why it resulted in the issues you observe. For some reason, this is where consultants struggle. They don’t question issues. They don’t try to understand the reality they are facing and experiencing.
But my experience shows that all elegant, non-trivial, and out-of-the-box solutions originate in a deep understanding of issues. You create the best solutions not because of creative brainstorming, but by deeply understanding the issues you are solving.
Root causes vs symptoms
The most effective way to push your thinking deeper is to think about symptoms and root causes. When analyzing issues, ask yourself what is driving the issues, and what are the mere consequences.
If you try to address symptoms, you get nowhere.
But if you identify the real root causes, the solution will be very effective and non-trivial. Because for external observers who hadn’t gone on this mental journey with you, your solutions will look like elegant, groundbreaking, and out-of-the-box thinking.
They will think that you are just a genius coming up with these unique ideas. But in reality, you just have a robust thinking system.
Insights
If you think about it, in essence, unique insights are just a deep understanding of the issues you are solving.
Specifically, if you find the underlying root cause of one or multiple issues. And that root cause is not visible on the surface. But if you address it, you solve the visible symptoms in an elegant way.
That’s how you create groundbreaking insights.
Real example
I know it all sounds too theoretical.
That’s why we use practical exercises in my coaching program to really learn these important concepts.
Let me give you a real example from my consulting practice.
One of my clients has had a significant problem with a dramatic increase in customer churn.
We broke down that issue into smaller components: poor customer service, high competition, poor product quality, and others. Then, we started checking each one of them by doing specific analyses.
In a couple of weeks, we discovered a groundbreaking one. Apparently, one of the sales regions was selling restricted products. They created a fraudulent scheme to meet their sales quota to receive higher bonuses.
But because these were not real sales, the churn on these products increased dramatically, spoiling the total average for the whole company.
That was a shocking insight for the client executives. They didn’t know it was happening in its own operations.
Basically, we found this insight in the place where you typically wouldn’t look when analysing churn. But because we were going through our MECE structure, we looked at every potential explanation and left no stone unturned.
Closing thoughts
In essence, analyzing issues is in fact the most important part of problem-solving.
Because if you discover your issues properly, solutions will be quite obvious but very effective.
And the opposite is true.
If you don’t analyse your issues, it will not matter what solutions you come up with because you risk being wrong or trivial.
Most consultants skip that step, and they make a big mistake. Make sure you spend sufficient time problem-solving on your issues before you move on to finding solutions.
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