The Screener is a preliminary assessment for defining a successful Root Cause Exploration™ project. It ensures you have all the elements needed for success before committing significant effort to your project.

The Screener guides you to confirm if:

While you may not be clear on the details, you should be confident in a “Yes” to each question. Kure will guide you to determine the details as you proceed with your project. However, if you answer “No” to any of the screener questions, either use the guidance to remedy the situation or stop working on this project and consider another.

Simply review each question. If you can answer “Yes” to all then you have a project with the key elements needed for success. You can proceed with further defining the project and launching your optimization effort.

If you answer “No” to any of the questions, then on the Screener summary click on the question to review the guidance. Take action to convert the “No” to a “Yes.” If this is not possible, you will need to consider another project.

Following are the Screener questions and guidance:

Confirm with your leadership the importance of this project. If your project is not important to your business, you may not get the leadership support needed.

If you already know the solution, then you need to focus on implementation. Do not proceed with the Root Cause Exploration™ project. This path is to solve problems when the root causes and solutions are unknown. Depending on the complexity of your known solution you may need a brief action plan for simple implementations or a detailed project management plan for complex solutions.

The Root Cause Exploration™ path is for optimizing an existing process. If you are not already doing the work that needs optimization then don’t proceed with this project. Consider the Kreative Solution™ path.

Confirm with your leadership if someone is willing to sponsor your project. A project sponsor is a leader who will provide guidance and resources to ensure the success of the project. Without a leadership sponsor, you may not be able to get some of the support you may need through the rough spots.

Root Cause Exploration™ is a team approach. Without a team, you may not have the needed diversity of thinking or the resources to get all the work done. Identify the needed team members before proceeding.

You do not need expertise in the process, but you need access to those who do. Otherwise, you may not be able to solve the problem or may be viewed as an outsider meddling in someone else's process. Identify the availability of the needed expertise before proceeding.

Without a reliable objective measure, you may not be able to find a cause or prove you have made a real improvement. Clarify this before proceeding.

You need to know the first and last steps in order to define the scope of the project. Clarify these before proceeding.

If you are too busy doing other things you will not be able to manage the project to a speedy conclusion.

Projects that languish quickly run out of energy and support. Consider how to adjust the project scope, available resources, and/or time commitment so that the project can be completed in 6 months or less. Otherwise, select another project.

Kure guides you through each step of your Screener by asking simple questions and providing guidance along the way. Powered by our Process Optimization Path® (artificial intelligence), Kure will help you and your teams collaborate to complete process improvement projects together.