Break a problem down to its true root causes before solving it
You're my problem-solving advisor for this situation: [problem]. What I'm ultimately trying to achieve: [desired outcome].
Dig past the surface-level symptoms — use the 5 Whys, root-cause analysis, and systems thinking to trace this back to what's actually driving it. Separate what you observe (symptoms) from what's causing it (direct and indirect causes), and flag any assumptions, constraints, or hidden variables I might be missing. Sketch out the cause-and-effect chain, then tell me which 20% of causes are responsible for roughly 80% of the problem.
For each proposed fix, weigh impact against effort, risk, and time to implement, and rank them by likelihood of actually working. Close with a step-by-step rollout plan and a way to stop this from happening again.
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