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Thinking Process Workshop · Lesson 8 of 9

Building the current reality tree

The current reality tree connects the UDEs to their causes with if-then logic, and validates that the core conflict really produces them. Learn the snowflake method and the core-cloud method, explore a worked tree, and build your own.

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What a current reality tree is

A current reality tree (CRT) is a logical structure of cause and effect in the part of reality you are analysing. It connects the visible symptoms, the UDEs, to the causes that produce them. Two things to keep in mind:

  • It is not a complete picture of reality. It shows only the part that is unfavourable.
  • Its purpose is a deeper understanding of the core problem behind the major UDEs, so that the solution targets the right thing and effort isn’t wasted.

It uses sufficiency logic, read from the bottom up: if… (and…) then…

Two ways to build it

Top down: the snowflake method. Start from the UDEs and connect them with cause and effect, working downwards until the clusters converge.

Bottom up: from the core conflict. Start from the consolidated core cloud, and show with cause and effect how it produces every UDE. This validates the core cloud.

The snowflake method

  1. Define the system or situation you want to improve.
  2. Define its objective.
  3. Define its necessary conditions.
  4. Find the gaps.
  5. List the UDEs in the area, worded by the rules.
  6. Link at least two UDEs that have a clear cause-and-effect relationship. The more UDEs, or clusters of UDEs, you link, the better.
  7. Use the categories of legitimate reservation to test and perfect each connection in each cluster: clarity, entity existence, causality existence, cause insufficiency.
  8. Add entities, arrows and ellipses where needed. Stop only when each cluster is “tight” on its own. Reposition related clusters beside each other.
  9. Look for additional causes: other, independent causes of the same effect. Each must be realistic and probable; connect it to the right effect.
  10. Look for lateral connections across clusters, and connect them.
  11. Build each cluster’s chain downward, asking “why does this exist?” for each lowest cause. Label any negative reinforcing loops. Stop when you reach causes within the decision maker’s sphere of influence, and when all clusters have converged into a single tree.
  12. Review the whole CRT.

From the core conflict

  1. Take the final consolidated core cloud and rotate it by 90 degrees: A at the bottom, B and D on the left, C and D′ on the right.
  2. Connect the core cloud to the UDE map with cause-and-effect arrows, adding connecting statements.
  3. Unfold every arrow with logical reasoning, bringing in the supporting statements that explain each step.
  4. Validate that the core cloud causes all the UDEs.
  5. Check every arrow with the categories of legitimate reservation.

A worked tree: the plant

Here is a tree for the plant from the last lesson. Read it from the bottom up. It converges on a measurement, and it contains a loop: expediting breaks batches, which makes more orders late, which causes more expediting. Press Check my work to see the reservations it raises about each arrow.

Notice where the tree ends: “Every work centre is measured on its own utilisation”. That is not a physical limit; it is a policy, a measurement. This is typical. The core of most current reality trees is a policy or a conflict that people live with, which is exactly why it can be changed.

Pause and think: someone challenges the arrow “if urgent orders wait behind long batches, then too often orders ship late” by saying, “Late supplies of material also make orders late.” Which reservation is that, and what do you do?

  • Clarity: reword the entity
  • Additional cause: if realistic and significant, add it as a second cause
  • Cause insufficiency: add it with an ellipse to the existing cause, since both are needed
  • Entity existence: delete the arrow

Late material is a separate cause that can produce late orders on its own, so it gets its own arrow, not an ellipse. An ellipse is for a condition that is needed together with the cause.

Workbook: your tree

Use your UDEs from lesson 1 and, if you built one, your core conflict from lesson 7. Enter the UDEs, tick them as UDEs, and add causes as you ask “why does this exist?”. Then add the arrows, ticking two or more causes when they are needed together. Watch the tree draw itself, and press Check my work to get the reservation questions for every arrow.

Check your understanding

Answer all five. Get four right to complete the lesson.

1. A current reality tree…

  • Is a complete picture of the current reality, the good and the bad
  • Uses necessity logic
  • Shows the unfavourable part of reality and connects UDEs to their causes
  • Lists solutions

Sufficiency logic, read bottom-up.

2. When do you stop building downward?

  • At causes within our sphere of influence, all clusters joined
  • After five levels
  • When everyone is tired
  • At the first cause found that everyone in the room agrees with

Step 11 of the snowflake method.

3. To build a CRT from the core conflict, you first…

  • Delete the UDEs
  • Write the injections
  • Build a negative branch from the core cloud
  • Rotate the core cloud 90 degrees, A at the bottom

Then connect it to the UDE map.

4. An additional cause is…

  • A condition needed together with the cause
  • A separate, independent cause of the same effect
  • The core conflict
  • A UDE

It gets its own arrow, not an ellipse.

5. The core of a current reality tree is very often…

  • A physical limit nobody can change
  • A person
  • A policy, measurement or conflict
  • A UDE

Which is why it can be changed.