5 Tips for Management Involvement in Root Cause Analysis

Management can be a positive or negative influence on the root cause analysis of an accident, incident or near-miss. Here are five ideas to make management's involvement positive...

FIRST, management should be asking for (demanding) root cause analysis. They should insist on it when something bad happens. And they should make sure that there are sufficient trained investigators available and that the investigators have the time they need to actually investigate the problem. But also, management should insist that root cause analysis be used proactively to stop problems before they happen.

SECOND, management needs to set the standard for what is an acceptable root cause analysis. If management accepts substandard reports, presentations, and corrective actions, it will be no wonder that the program fails. But to set the standard, they must know what can be accomplished and what they should look for when they review the results of a root cause analysis.

THIRD, management needs to be self-critical and encourage investigators to look for Management System problems. See the Root Cause Tree? if you don’t understand what a Management System problem is.

FOURTH, management needs to make sure that investigators go beyond specific root causes and look for generic root causes. This should be part of the questions that management asks for every serious incident review.

FIFTH, management should make a special effort to reward good root cause analysis. I didn’t say perfect root cause analysis. Rewards should be for every good root cause analysis.

Do these five points give you any ideas about ways to improve management's involvement at your company?

If you would like to learn more about advanced root cause analysis and problem solving, see information about our courses at:

https://www.taproot.com/courses