Introduction: This tool helps in diagnosing the triggering event of a crisis, and provides some pretty good ideas about why the event happened.
Once these precipitating elements are discovered, strategies should be devised to make sure the underlying factors are fixed, which is a separate thing from resolving the crisis itself (that depends on the specific nature of the crisis and the steps required to fix it).
The goal here is to prevent future crises by learning from a current or recent one.
When using this tool, be very careful to avoid preconceptions. You may discover that what you believe to be an acute crisis actually results from more chronic performance issues.
If that is the case, see A Tool For Diagnosing Performance Shortfalls
Instructions: An individual or group can use this tool. It will be most productive in group applications, in which all of the people who own a piece of the process (or the outcome) are brought together to work through the diagnostic process.
The leader should play a listening role, as much as possible, even when your natural instincts may be to just tell people how to fix the problem. You need to draw your people into this process, get them thinking along the right lines, so that they will be able to deal with similar events effectively in the future.
While this may take more time to achieve now than just telling people what to do yourself, in the long run, it will save you time and grief by developing a staff that is capable of preventing crises from happening in the first place. Listen to the quality of their thinking.
Who understands what’s happening? Who seems clueless? Are there turf battles or ego issues that are getting in the way of a solution? Is there a shared definition of success? How well does this group work together? Step in as necessary to move the process along. Use what you learn to coach people later, as needed.