In honor of the Discovery Channel’s “Shark Week”, we’ll use the problem of shark species at risk of extinction as an root cause analysis example. We’ll begin by building a Cause Map, which is a visual method of performing a root cause analysis.
We begin a root cause analysis with an impact to the goal. Shark species being at risk for extinction is an impact to the environmental goals. While I didn’t add this kind of detail, evidence has shown that a decrease in the number of sharks results in problems for the rest of the food chain.
We fill out the Cause Map by asking “Why” questions. Shark species are at a risk of extinction because the death rates of sharks are higher than the birth rates. Sharks have low reproductive rates (they mature slowly, have long gestational periods, and birth few young), and increasing death rates. The increasing death rate is due to over fishing (fishing without regard to population), injured sharks being left to die, and loss of habitat, caused by pollution. The combination of sharks being fished for sport, food, or products (which are rising in value; sharks are thought to cure cancer) and the lack of effective regulation has led to over fishing. Many sharks are injured, either as “bycatch” meaning sharks are brought up in fishing nets while fishing for something else, or by a practice known as “finning”, where a shark’s fin is cut off. (Shark fin soup is very popular.) In both cases, sharks are typically thrown back into the water injured and left to die. Many countries have a ban on finning, but the ban is not always effectively enforced.
Many countries around the world are trying to protect sharks. Some of the solutions they have implemented are to create shark fishing quotas, increase enforcement of fishing quotas and finning bans, decrease the market for shark products and shark fin soup, and limiting any fishing in known shark habitats. Solutions can be shown on the Cause Map, directly above the cause they control. Once solutions have been selected for implementation, as these have been, they are listed in the Action Items list. (To see the Cause Map and Action Items list, click on “Download PDF” above.)