A branching tree of whys growing downward from a single dark node, crossed by three rust-coloured horizontal lines at different depths, each marking a different place where the asking stopped, with the roots below fading out.

What Is the Root Cause

“What was the cause?”, “the root cause” and “what caused it” ask for the one thing that produced an outcome, found at the bottom of a chain of whys. Derived from the definition of a condition, which does not cause, the question welds two others: what the outcome rested on, which has many answers of equal standing, and where the asker will step in, which is the asker’s to say. … readWhat Is the Root Cause

Dark indigo cover for the essay What Is an Opportunity, with a warm amber glow falling through an open bracket at the right edge and the subtitle: a prerequisite does not cause, does not make possible, and does not happen.

What Is an Opportunity

An opportunity is ordinarily described as a window that opens, makes something possible, and closes. Derived from the foundation’s definition of a condition, the word turns out to name a prerequisite and then credit it with three things the definition denies — which is why two people can stand in front of the same opening and only one of them is standing in front of anything. … readWhat Is an Opportunity