Root Cause Analysis 

Name: 

OVERVIEW: 

A Root Cause Analysis requires you to look deeper to figure out what's causing the crime, and how to address the underlying issues. 

Root Cause Analysis (RCA) is a popular and often-used technique that helps people answer the question of why the problem occurred in the first place. It seeks to identify the origin of a problem using a specific set of steps, with associated tools, to find the primary cause of the problem, so that you can:

Determine what happened.

Determine why it happened.

Figure out what to do to reduce the likelihood that it will happen again.

RCA assumes that systems 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.

You'll usually find three basic types of causes:

Physical causes – Tangible, material items failed in some way (for example, a car's brakes stopped working).

Human causes – People did something wrong, or did not do something that was needed. Human causes typically lead to physical causes (for example, no one filled the brake fluid, which led to the brakes failing).

Organizational causes – A system, process, or policy that people use to make decisions or do their work is faulty (for example, no one person was responsible for vehicle maintenance, and everyone assumed someone else had filled the brake fluid).

ANALYSIS 

Category 

Question and Response (Respond directly in this area). 

Identify the Problem 

What is the problem?

What are the specific symptoms?