Recently, I came across a video explaining the philosophy of Aristotle—specifically, his idea of the four causes.
It’s a 2,000-year-old framework meant to explain why things exist the way they do.
My immediate thought was: This applies to Project Management.
Not metaphorically—structurally.
Because one of the most common challenges in delivery is not execution itself, but misdiagnosing the type of problem we’re dealing with.
When something goes wrong in a project, the default response is:
- Run a retrospective
- Perform a root cause analysis
- Use tools like the Five Whys
This approach is useful—but it assumes that every problem has a single causal chain. In practice, that’s rarely the case. They usually have multiple reasons.
Aristotle proposed that to truly understand anything, you need to look at it from four different perspectives:
- What it’s made of
- What structure it has
- What created it
- Why it exists
The Five Whys asks: “Why did this happen?”
Aristotle’s model asks: “What type of cause explains this?”
This is not a deeper question—it’s a different dimension of thinking.
Thinking with this framework can look like this:
| Cause | PM Translation | Type of Problem | Examples | Typical Wrong Fix |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Material Cause | Resources | Capacity / Constraints | • Not enough QA • Budget limitations • Tooling gaps • Unrealistic timelines | Pushing the team to “work faster” instead of adjusting capacity or scope |
| Formal Cause | System Design | Structure | • Poor backlog definition • Unclear processes • Weak architecture decisions • Misaligned workflows | Adding more meetings or micromanagement instead of fixing the system |
| Efficient Cause | Execution | Delivery | • Low productivity • Communication breakdowns • Lack of accountability • Ineffective ceremonies | Redesigning the process instead of coaching or improving execution |
| Final Cause | Purpose | Direction | • Misaligned priorities • Unclear business goals • Delivering output without value • Teams optimizing for the wrong outcome | Optimizing delivery speed instead of realigning goals and value |
Next time something goes wrong in your project, pause and ask:
- Material → Do we have the right resources?
- Formal → Is the system well designed?
- Efficient → Is execution effective?
- Final → Are we solving the right problem?
Arabela Navarro 