II - INTRODUCTION TO THE ANALYTICAL METHOD: THE OBJECTIVE AND CHOOSING THE RIGHT QUESTION

 

Before analysing a situation which may be a simple state of affairs or a modified state of affairs, it is first necessary to define an objective for the analysis to be carried out.

Once the objective has been defined, you need to ask yourself the right questions, questions that will enable you to achieve the objective you have set yourself through the ensuing analysis.

WHAT IS THE OBJECTIVE?

This objective may simply be to understand the situation, either for research purposes, to learn lessons that could improve or modify it, or simply out of curiosity. This is the case when the situation is alien to any notion of modification that may or may not be caused by any disorder, whether a simple alteration or a malfunction.

The aim, when faced with a situation whose state has changed, is either to understand the change that has taken place and what has brought it about, or to return it to the state it was in before the disorder arose.

A malfunction occurs. It is a problem, but it is not the problem. It is only the visible part of an underlying problem, a symptom of a deeper problem which only becomes apparent through its effects on a given situation.

When faced with an alteration or dysfunction, there's no point in rushing into it or tackling it without first studying it. And to study it, you need to ask yourself the right questions that will help you to understand it before being able to remedy the situation it has created.

The right questions to ask don't come naturally, and it's often the most difficult stage of the process, preceding the analysis, that will enable you to achieve your objective.

It's important not to get discouraged, and above all not to throw yourself headlong into the dysfunction, and even if you don't come up with any ideas, it's better to let the question rest for a good night's sleep before tackling the task again.

Obviously, when faced with a malfunction, the question that immediately springs to mind is how to remedy it.

But the objective should not be to focus on the malfunction itself, or on the problem that caused it.

On the contrary, the objective is to restore the situation, which may be a program, a machine or the human body, to its original functionality, that of before the malfunction occurred: Restoring the program, the machine or the human body to its pristine state must therefore be the objective pursued.

Therefore, resolving the problem that caused the malfunction is simply the way of achieving the goal, the means used to get there.

To do this, we need to take the problem at its source, and if it's a program, a machine or even a human body, to find this source we need to start the analysis from the moment when the program, machine or human body was working, and ask ourselves the right questions to help us achieve this objective.

And the first question to ask is: WHAT?

WHAT?

An analysis always begins with an observation, which answers the question WHAT?

What is it about?

It's about taking stock, establishing an inventory of the situation.

The more precise it is, the easier it will be to analyse it to find the causes and thus understand it.

Because a situation, whether problematic or completely unproblematic, always has a reason for being, and understanding that situation will necessarily involve looking for its reason for being, its root causes, what motivated it or what caused it. A situation, whatever it may be, is only ever a result and never a whole in itself.

In the process of analysing a situation, asking yourself this first question is essential. It must cover all facets of the situation, not just the most obvious.

The more complex the situation appears to be, the greater the number of WHATs that need to be asked, because each WHAT will lead to its own analysis in order, ultimately, to understand the current state of the situation or, if it is a problem, to find a solution.

As an example of a simple situation that is easy to understand, apart from any alteration or malfunction, we can think of the fact that it doesn't snow in the countries located on the equator.

The description of the situation, which answers the simple question of WHAT, is: It doesn't snow on the equator.

An example of a more complex situation is that of the global climate, which requires a number of observations to be made: The climate in South Asia is not the same as that in Europe or South America, because several factors, such as altitude, parallels, ocean currents and prevailing winds, to name but a few, determine the climate regions.

Describing the situation will mean drawing up an inventory of all the different types of climate, each time asking the same question: WHAT?

But if the situation is that of an altered state where the cause of the change in state is clearly apparent, there will be no need to carry out any analysis whatsoever in order to remedy the situation. This is the case of the plane that runs out of fuel over the ocean because the pilot thought he had filled his tanks with a certain number of gallons of fuel when in fact he only filled them with litres! (a true fact).

If the situation is that of a modified state due to the occurrence of a malfunction, the aim of the doctor, technician or computer engineer will be to return the body, machine or programme to its initial state. To do this, they will need to draw up a report on the situation as it existed BEFORE the problem arose and a report on the situation created by the problem: what was the initial state and what is the current state.

WHY

Once the scope of the analysis has been defined and the purpose of the analysis is clear after answering the first question, or questions if the situation is complex, the next step is to understand why the situation exists or has changed. To do this, we need to ask the question WHY?

And to each WHY will necessarily come the answer BECAUSE.

But you must never be satisfied with asking the question of WHY just once, but ask it in a cascade, with each answer you get, until all the answers, or the last of them, have made it possible to achieve the set objective, or at least to come close to it.

For example, in the simple example of finding that it doesn't snow at the equator, where the objective is to find out why it doesn't snow, we would ask why: Why doesn't it snow at the equator?

The answer to this first question is: Because it's hot.

This answer immediately leads to a second question: Why is it hot there? The answer is: because the distance between the equator and the sun is the shortest.

And in order to understand the situation, we need to ask ourselves a third question: Why doesn't it snow when it's hot? to which the answer, Because snow only forms at around zero degrees, will have the effect of explaining the situation to which the observation relates.

So, in order to understand this situation, we need to ask the question WHY three times.

In the case of a situation which has been modified as a result of a malfunction, and where the aim of the analysis is to restore the situation to the way it was before it was modified, the first question of WHY will relate to the situation before the modification: Why did it work? But to find out all the reasons why it worked, the WHY question will have to be rephrased with each answer, until the situation as it existed is fully understood.

Then you have to do the same for the new situation.

HOW 1

Once we know why the situation we are analysing used to work and why it no longer does, or why it works differently, it is time to find out the reason(s) and ask how.

Ask yourself these two questions: How did it work before? How does it work now? This will reveal the way in which the object of the analysis functioned and the way in which it functions after the dysfunction occurred.

HOW 2

Once you have asked yourself this question and have acquired knowledge of how the object of analysis worked, both before and after the dysfunction appeared, you need to ask yourself the same question again, this time with the aim of finding out how it can work as if the malfunction had not occurred: How can it be made to work as before?

The table below is only a summary of the analytical approach. It should serve as a guide for those who need to analyse a situation. It is only a summary, because each question corresponds to an answer that must be studied in order to understand it, by asking the same questions each time, in the order indicated:

-         WHAT? This is the observation question. It involves observing and describing, or collecting data on, as the case may be, what the analysis will focus on: What is it about? This question must be answered by describing the subject of the analysis in as much detail as possible.

 

-         WHY? This is a question for reflection: we ask ourselves why we have observed something, why it exists, to find out what caused it. But this question must be repeated until it covers all the aspects that the answer to the first "WHAT" question has revealed.

 

-         HOW? It's a question of understanding: we try to understand what it is and, depending on the case, we try to understand how to repair, improve, modify or obtain a result.

In other words, we observe (look), we reflect, we understand and we act.

 

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