To Be or Not To Be...

Hypotheses are interesting things. They are, or they are not. There is no middle ground. Now on the other hand, you may have some measure of confidence (which we will discuss in a later post) as to whether the hypothesis is, or is not. When pursuing an investigation, you are inundated with hypotheses.

What are hypotheses, relative to an investigation? Well, once you know what the Loss Event is, you have to hypothesize different scenarios that might have caused the loss event. Some of those hypotheses will be the result of data that you collect immediately after the event and when you build your time line. Others will be what if's based on SME knowledge of the process surrounding the Loss Event. Others still, will be subordinate to the first level hypotheses. In other words, cause of the cause.

Ultimately, what you wind up with is a Fault Tree of hypotheses. You will begin collecting data that will enable you to prove your hypotheses with some measure of confidence. As you work through all the hypotheses in your fault tree, you will eventually begin to discern either Root Cause, or one or more interactions leading to the Loss Event. In the end, a Fault Tree is a grouping of hypotheses either related and/or subordinate to one another, and which lead to the Loss Event.

With respect to the truth of any hypothesis found on a Fault Tree:

To be or not to be...

That is the question!