Every B2B SaaS company will encounter growth problems and as the CEO, COO, GM or a senior executive (such as a VP of Sales) will need to identify the root causes before making plans to fix them.
Here are the key 7 steps of a typical Root Cause Analysis:
- Identify the apparent problem then define the problem and clearly state the actual problem
- Collect the data (both explicitly and by talking to the people on the team)
- Identify the Symptoms and Possible Causes: use 5 Why’s, Drill Down, Cause and Effect Diagrams, Fishbone Diagrams, etc.
- Determine which are Symptoms and which ones are the possible root causes
- Distinguish the symptoms and causal factors (and correlation) from the actual root causes
- Figure out necessary corrective actions and solutions to help resolve the problem
- Implement the action plan and solution.
In B2B SaaS, there are just a few general types of causes that impact Revenue Growth:
- People – someone did something wrong or didn’t have the right plan or didn’t execute the plan well
- Organizational – the culture, system, process or guidelines in place were wrong or sub-optimal