Problem Solving stage 2: Root Cause Analysis

The second step in problem solving is to understand the root cause of the problem. One need to assess what may be the source of a problem (e.g., domain and cause), and the types of solutions that may lead to the best outcomes for the problem.

During my decade long stint in the IT industry, I worked as a mobile app developer. In one of the projects we were created a new next level piece level cargo tracking software for one of our clients. After working for close to 2 years building the product, we rolled it out & the application failed within the first 45 minutes. We along with a couple of engineers, product managers of the client company and end users were sitting in the “War Room”, when the first bug got reported there was almost a war. After everything settled down, we figured out the root of the problem, what we realized is that the application was not handling a specific type of cargo. The problem was that just 2 weeks before the planned release the team had changed the target cargo hub to Boston from LAX and due to lack of time no check done to re-verify the types of Cargo the Boston hub handled.

Once the problem & the root cause was known, we decided to move all the cargo type handling to a database on mobile phone instead of maintaining it on the server since the check was being done only at the mobile app and was not needed at the server. This helped us not only to solve the problem within an hour & also any future problems that can happen with handling cargo types could be now solved without making any changes to the code.

Root Cause Analysis is a useful process for understanding and solving a problem. We need to figure out what is causing the problem and then look at the complex systems around. Finally, determine solutions to address those key points, or root causes. We need to determine what happened, why it happened and figure out what to do to reduce the likelihood that it will happen again.

Most of our problems and events are interrelated. An action in one area triggers an action in another, and another, and so on. By tracing back these actions, you can discover where the problem started and how it grew into the symptom you're now facing.

There are usually find three basic types of causes for a problem to occur:

1. Physical causes - Tangible, material items failed in some way

2. Human causes - People did something wrong or did not do something that was needed. Human causes typically lead to physical causes

3. Organizational causes - A system, process, or policy that people use to make decisions or do their work is faulty.

To get to the root cause of a problem we first need to Define the Problem, Collect Data and analyze a situation fully before you can move on to look at factors that contributed to the problem, Identify Possible Causal Factors like, ‘what sequence of events leads to the problem?, what conditions allow the problem to occur?, or what other problems surround the occurrence of the central problem?, Identify the Root Cause(s) and finally Recommend and Implement Solutions.

Analyze your Cause-and-Effect process, and identify the changes needed for various systems. It's also important that you plan ahead to predict the effects of your solution. This way, you can spot potential failures before they happen.

PS: This is article is the second one in a part of a 5 article series, in case you have missed the first one please read at

https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/5-stages-problem-solving-stage-1-rangaraj-bhatracharya/