True Causes.

Free online deliberation platform · root cause analysis for groups, teams and communities

Find the root cause of a problem that keeps coming back, together.

Ask the people who live with it. Each writes down the causes they see; then the group judges, one pair at a time, which cause drives which. You get a map of root causes — not a vote on symptoms — and a list of what to change that nobody can wave away.

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Already decided? Browse finished maps on open questions →

One room, one question: why are deliveries late?a finished map
ROOT CAUSE WHAT PEOPLE FEEL No supervisor at night 0 VOTES Paperworkchecked late 4 VOTES Radios on thewrong channel 2 VOTES Scanner logsout every hour 5 VOTES Deliverieslate 11 VOTES · MOST
The card with the most votes is where every arrow ends. The cause it rests on got no votes at all. A vote finds what hurts; the map finds what to fix.
75%Every link on the map was certified by three quarters of the people asked, one pair at a time.
Kept, not averagedWhere a group splits, the map says so. Nothing is smoothed into a majority.
12 to 60,000A room splits into groups of about fifteen; rooms on one question fold into one map.
50 yearsThe method, published and tested since Warfield. True Causes runs Structured Democratic Dialogue online, at any size.

How it works

Three things people do, one thing you get. People take part from their phones, a few minutes at a time, with a facilitator or without one.

Routes too long Scanner logs out Paperwork checked late Radios wrong channel Deliveries late No supervisor at ni

Ask

Open a room, send the link. Everyone writes the causes they see on their own cards, before seeing anyone else's. No names on the cards.

About ten minutes each
Does this make that worse? No supervisor at night Paperwork checked late Yes No 11 of 15 · A LINK

Judge

Everyone answers one short question at a time: does this cause make that one worse? A link goes on the map only when three quarters say yes. A split is kept as a split.

A few hours in all, at your own pace
No supervisor Paperwork late Radios wrong Late ACTIONS Night lead on each shift reduces the root

Map, then act

Root causes on the left, what people feel on the right, disputes marked. Then the group proposes actions and judges each one against each root — not a wish list.

Yours to keep, cite and embed

Root causes are the default. The same method also maps a future, actions, steps in order, claims and reasons, evidence, options to weigh, and priorities.

How it works, in full: the seven stages, the rules and the evidence →

Who uses it

The same rooms and the same rules, wherever a problem is shared by many people and owned by none of them.

Cities and citizens’ assemblies

Many neighbourhood rooms on one question, and one map of causes for the council, with every link on the record.

Civic deliberation →

Organisations and teams

Incident reviews, patient safety, failures that keep coming back: the people who see the problem map it, not one analyst.

Incident investigation →

Campaigns and communities

From what everyone is angry about to demands with the causes behind them, which a group can count and come back for.

For organisers →

One question, any number of rooms

A room splits into groups of about fifteen, each with its own wall. Any number of rooms can take up the same question, and their maps fold into one that says how many groups found each link. Nobody has to administer it.

How rooms federate without anyone administering them. One question is published. Rooms open themselves to an email domain, so a confirmed address is the only key. Hundreds of rooms of up to a hundred people run the same question, each splitting its wall into groups of fifteen. Their maps fold into one, which says how many members joined on an address and how many were invited.
Sixty thousand people, nobody administering it: the question is published, an email domain is the door, and the people of a place open its room themselves.

How it works at scale →

Bring a question that has been argued about too long.

One group can run the whole thing in a few effective hours, spread as it likes. You finish with a map, a list of roots, a record of what could not be agreed on, and every connection showing how it was settled — a document that outlasts the meeting, the campaign and the people who ran it.

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