System Root Tracing

CORE DEFINITION

System root tracing is the practice of following a problem upstream along its causal chain, asking why repeatedly and comparing cases where the problem occurs with cases where it does not, until the cause that actually generates it is identified. The core proposition is that symptoms are the downstream effects of causes located elsewhere in the system, so treating symptoms guarantees recurrence while changing the generating condition removes the problem. The key qualification is the distinction between a root cause and a contributing factor: tracing must stop at the level where an intervention is both effective and actionable, and correlation along the chain is not proof of causation.