Root cause analysis (RCA) is a method of identifying and solving the underlying problems that cause service failures, errors, or inefficiencies. But how do you ensure that your RCA aligns with your strategic goals and customer needs? Here are some tips to help you conduct an effective and relevant RCA.
Before you start your RCA, you need to have a clear purpose and scope for your investigation. What are you trying to achieve? How does it relate to your vision, mission, and values? Who are your customers and what are their expectations? How will you measure the success of your RCA and the actions you take? Having a clear purpose will help you focus on the most important issues and avoid wasting time and resources on irrelevant or trivial matters.
This is a trick question actually. If you want to really further your mission, vision, values, etc, then they should be completely ignored when doing investigations and RCA. Why? Because your investigation needs to be completely unbiased and objective. And if you're too focused on your 'purpose' as it is, then it could bias your evidence gathering. Unless of course your purpose is about being fair and unbiased. Then once you've obtained the evidence and causes, consider how they allign with your M/V/Gs and what you need to do to re-allign what's actually happened.
There are many tools and techniques that can help you perform a RCA, such as the 5 Whys, fishbone diagrams, Pareto charts, or fault tree analysis. However, regardless of the tool you choose, you should follow a structured approach that consists of four main steps: define the problem, collect data, analyze causes, and implement solutions. Each step should be documented and validated with evidence and feedback. A structured approach will help you avoid jumping to conclusions, overlooking root causes, or implementing ineffective solutions.
One MUST for me is that you must use some form of RCA that includes a pre-defined list of root causes, detailed enough to really break down a problem. This means that everyone is applying the same set of labels (albeit never 100% perfectly) and you can then analyse and trend your finding, and spot patterns. Because I bet you've had more than one incident. And when using a list, you'll soon realise that 80% of your incidents stem from 20% of the list of causes. So you can then focus and make huge gains.
One of the key benefits of RCA is that it enables you to involve stakeholders in the problem-solving process. Stakeholders are anyone who is affected by or has an interest in the problem and the solution, such as customers, staff, suppliers, partners, or regulators. By involving stakeholders, you can gain different perspectives, insights, and ideas that can help you identify root causes and potential solutions. You can also build trust, collaboration, and buy-in for your RCA and the actions you take.
Once you have identified the root causes and potential solutions, you need to prioritize the actions you will take to address them. You can use various criteria to prioritize actions, such as impact, urgency, feasibility, cost, or alignment with strategic goals and customer needs. You should also consider the risks and benefits of each action, as well as the resources and support you need to implement them. Prioritizing actions will help you focus on the most critical and valuable improvements and avoid spreading yourself too thin.
The final step of RCA is to monitor and review the results of your actions. You should track the progress and outcomes of your actions using key performance indicators (KPIs), customer feedback, or other metrics that are relevant to your purpose and scope. You should also review the effectiveness and efficiency of your RCA process and identify any lessons learned or best practices that can help you improve your future RCA. Monitoring and review will help you ensure that your actions are achieving the desired results and that your RCA is aligned with your strategic goals and customer needs.
The root cause analysis is a bridge between the problems and the strategy. Nobody should start strategy based on "events" or "symptoms". You could be fighting the wrong enemy. Before jumping into decision, step back, see the whole elephant (system) and then understand its root causes before determining your direction. Simple like that.