Five Whys and fishbone
diagramKeep asking why until you reach something you can change. Group causes into people, process, tools, environment, incentives.
Journey dashboard
Day 21 / 60Week 3 · Performance ConsultingLesson
Root cause analysis
Learning goal
Trace a performance symptom back to its actual cause.
Estimated time
30 minutes · self-paced
Warm-up
'People keep making errors in the form.' What are three possible causes?
Main lesson
Evidence over opinion
Collect data: error logs, ticket categories, observation, short interviews. One conversation is an anecdote; five is a pattern.
Root Cause Navigator
exampleUse the ID Power Hour Learning Intelligence Lab Root Cause Navigator to structure your analysis: symptom → evidence → candidate causes → solution type.
Examples from practice
- — 'Training issue' traced to a form field that defaulted to the wrong currency.
Interactive quiz
Reflection
Where have you accepted a stated cause without evidence?
Daily challenge
Run Five Whys on a real problem at your workplace or study group.
Portfolio task
Start 'Project 3 — Performance analysis' with your problem statement and evidence list.
AI design tools
Ten assistants for this lesson
AI Mentor
Instructional design questions only
Hi! I'm your ID Mentor. Ask me anything about root cause analysis — or instructional design in general.