One of the things I emphasize in my root cause analysis training is that decisions must be based on facts, not opinions.  So you can imagine the laugh I got when I saw this on the Atlanta Journal Constitution website today relative to the disappearance of the Malaysian Airlines 777: "Poll: How did flight crash?"

Any responses to the poll are pure conjecture, and likely by people with little knowledge of aerospace technology and procedures, and limited (and often inaccurate) information from news organizations.

I actually saw one organization that used this approach.  After creating a cause & effect diagram containing possible causes of a problem they would vote, then take action on whichever causes received the most votes.  What do you think of the viability of such an approach???