COEPD – Center of Excellence for Professional Development Happy Learning
Root Cause Analysis
An unexpected outcome / repeating incident which is caused by an error which leads to a the outcome / repeating incident through chain based events.
RCA helps in finding the error or the origin of faults which caused the unexpected outcome. In other words, RCA helps in finding the root cause of the unexpected outcome.
RCA focuses on the conditions and systems rather than the individual performance. This is a group acitivity.
RCA Process
- Identify the unexpected outcome.
- Select a team / SME’s
- Identify all the events / factors which lead to the outcome
- Identify the root cause
- Take corrective action (Lessons learned)
Sometimes there can be 2 or more root causes contributing the one Intermediate cause and 1 root cause contributing to two or more intermediate causes.
Advantages of RCA
- Avoids quick fix
- Quality improvement
- Helps stakeholders understand how a unexpected outcome folded.
Some of the RCA techniques are listed below
- Tunnel Vision
- Brainstorming
- Fishbone Diagram
- 5 Why technique
