For a question such as: “a chain of gyms has been experiencing falling membership over the past 3 years and wants to know what is causing it and how to resolve it." What do you think is the optimal way to approach the initial structuring?

Option A: Buckets

A more generic way but I feel more MECE with this. I would investigate 3 areas (i) market (is it growing or shrinking? if its shrinking are fewer people working out or just not in gym? are competitors seeing the same trend?) (ii) customers (what are our key customer segments? are the preferences of these segments changing? are there other segments that we are missing? (iii) company (I would focus on product → are gyms in good condition i.e. right equipment, good location, clean? Price → are we pricing in line with the market? Promotion → are we marketing at all, targeting the right people/mediums?)

Option B: Issue Tree

If memberships are dropping, then that means either we are signing up fewer new customers, or churn is up. For the fewer new memberships customers either do not know about us or they do not like our product. For churn they are either switching to a competitor or leaving the market altogether. I feel like with this approach I end up asking the same questions as above relating to market, customer, etc. but this feels more structured and less MECE to me.