Causal thinking in groups requires the
participants to explicitly agree on, and then describe and illustrate, the causal
links between ideas that represent a cause variable and ideas that
represent its effect variables.
An effective and popular application of causal
thinking is found in Systems Thinking, where a causal loop diagram
explicitly illustrates the structural, causal relationship between system
variables. When causal links are used in causal loop diagrams, they are
represented by drawing arrows from the causes to their effects, and then by
“signing” the arrow to indicate the direction of the causality.
Another useful application of causal thinking is known as a causal
drivers diagram, or as a relations diagram. Using the Thinking with Hexagons technique to general ideas and cluster
labels, or other means, the group selects a number of factors to be considered
as either causes or effects within a system of interest. A facilitator asks the group to examine the
relationship of each possible pair of factors being displayed, and then answer
these questions: (a) Does a causal relationship exist between these two
factors? (b) If yes, then, which is the
cause and which is the effect. Then, the
facilitator draws a causal link arrow from the cause to the effect (the link is
not signed as described above). This
questioning continues until all pairs have been considered and arrows
drawn. Finally, the group counts the
number of arrows going into and out from each factor. The factors that have more arrows going out
are known as drivers because they have a greater causal impact than the
others. The factors with more arrows coming in that going out are known as drivens
or indicators.
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