Digital Marketing Strategist

Marketing Insights

Issue Trees: A Powerful Tool For Digital Business Success

Avatar photo
  • December 20, 2022
  • 6 min read
[addtoany]
Issue Trees: A Powerful Tool For Digital Business Success

In the fast paced world of digital businesses, problems are becoming more complex, and using tools or frameworks like issue trees become essential to the art of solving them. Even though this sort of diagram is quite popular these days in several fields, they’ve actually been used for decades, particularly in highly complex business contexts, such as large consultancy companies like McKinsey and others. These companies couldn’t possibly tackle a problem as a whole, so they gradually developed their own systems to break down problems into more manageable chunks.

What is an issue tree?

An issue tree is a visual representation of a large problem, along with the various factors that contribute to or affect it. The issue tree is typically build from left to right (sometimes from top to bottom), and the issues become more specific as you add a new group of branches. It is a useful tool for breaking an issue down into smaller components, making it therefore easier to tackle, to discuss, and to make decisions about it.

Benefits of using issue trees

Issue trees are a powerful tool for helping to identify, prioritise, and solve problems. Here are some specific benefits of using issue trees in a business context:

  • They are a “map” of your problem: Once your issue tree is completed (and if done correctly), you will have a blueprint of your problem. This is beneficial in multiple ways: it covers the whole problem, in a structured manner and without going into too much detail (there’s a maximum of two layers within the problem).
  • Helps identify issues: Issue trees allow you to break down a complex problem into smaller, more manageable chunks. This can help you better understand the root causes of the problem.
  • It’s the perfect tool for “dividing and conquering”: an issue tree is the perfect team tool. Everyone becomes acquainted with the problem at hand, clearly structured into categories, making it much easier to assign tasks.
  • Improves decision making: By breaking down a problem into its component parts, you can more easily evaluate the pros and cons of different solutions and make informed decisions about which course of action to take. This can help minimize the risk of making costly mistakes and increase the chances of success.
  • Issue trees are great for prioritisation: Once you list your difficulties, from complex to simple, you’ll see that prioritising becomes more natural, because you will see which issues you should be tackling first, whether it is based on importance, difficulty to complete, or perhaps a mix of both.
  • Helps in the development of effective solutions: You will come up with targeted solutions that address the underlying issues rather than just treating the symptoms. This can lead to more long-term and sustainable solutions that address the root causes of the problem and prevent it from happening again in the future.

How to create an issue tree for digital marketing

Here is a step-by-step guide on how to create an issue tree in your digital business:

  1. Define the problem: Start by clearly identifying the problem that you want to address. This could be anything from a decline in website traffic, a drop in conversion rates, an increase in customer support tickets, etc.
  2. Identify the root cause(s): Next, consider the root causes of the problem or issue. These are essentially the second layer of the issue, the underlying factors that are driving the problem or issue.
  3. Identify the contributing factors: Once you have identified the root cause, consider the contributing factors that may be contributing to the problem or issue.
  4. Create the issue tree: Now that you have identified the problem, the root causes, and the contributing factors, it’s time to create the issue tree. This can be done using a visual representation, such as a diagram or flowchart.
  5. Develop a plan of action: Once you have identified the key components of the problem or issue, you can develop a plan of action to address it. This could involve implementing new marketing strategies, analysing data to identify trends and patterns, or making changes to your website or digital marketing efforts. An issue tree will give you a visual representation of your problem, and will make it easier for you to come up with different tasks and angles to try and tackle the problem.
  6. Monitor and evaluate: As you implement your plan of action, it is important to monitor and evaluate the results to see if the problem or issue is being effectively addressed. This will help you identify any areas that may need to be adjusted or fine-tuned in order to achieve the desired outcomes. You may even build additional issue trees as you go.

Additional things to consider

There are two principles that should be followed when creating an issue tree to ensure that we end up with a consistent document, and an actual roadmap to solving the problem.

MECE Principle

MECE stands for ‘mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive’.

Mutually exclusive means that each of our smaller issues shouldn’t overlap with each other. This is essential as it will ensure there is no duplicate or repeated work. Collectively exhaustive means that our list of small problems should include all possibilities and shouldn’t miss any critical topics to explore, meaning there are no gaps in our analysis.

Pareto Principle

This is a very famous principle that is applicable to almost everything you may think about. Also known as the ’80/20 principle’, it states that 80% of the results come from 20% of the effort. In a business context, an example would be that 80% of the sales come from 20% of the customers. And here’s something very cool: we can also apply the 80/20 rule to the rule itself, and end up with the 64/4 rule. Basically, 96% of our business or marketing activities are unimportant compared to the main 4%. Even though this sounds too generic, it does apply to most of the cases.

How is this relevant in the context of our issue tree? Basically, you don’t have to solve every issue in your list. If you start by focusing on solving issues that account to 80% of your problem (the ones with the greatest impact), you may realise that the additional ones may become irrelevant at the end.

Conclusion

As you can see, an Issue Tree can be tremendously beneficial for solving problems. This type of data structuring is becoming very popular, particularly in digital businesses. Did you find this interesting? Here are more examples of great tools you can use: Mind Maps, Empathy Maps, Fishbone Diagrams, and Affinity Diagrams.

Using issue trees – or similar diagrams – can lead to more successful and sustainable problem solving. Whether you’re trying to identify problems, improve decision making, or develop effective solutions, issue trees can be a valuable tool in your digital toolkit.

If you’d like to discuss this topic – or anything else about your digital strategy – do not hesitate to send me a message or book a strategy call.

Avatar photo
About Author

Rui FZ