Human Error
How many times have you read a news article about a major problem or incident, and seen Human Error in the headline? A quick search...
The Rootisserie check for doneness prior to consumption
Why-Trees
One of the most widely-used root cause analysis tools is the why-tree, otherwise referred to as a cause tree, root cause tree, causal factor tree,...
Root Cause Tools
I’ve just posted (in June 2005) the first article in my (hopefully) continually evolving series on root cause analysis tools. This first article provides my...
Readiness to Investigate
How do you know if your organization is ready to investigate and analyze events? Being ready involves a lot more than just having a root...
Root Cause Roundup – May 2005
I’ve been taking a break from writing for the past 3 months, but that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten about this website. There will be a...
Root Cause Analysis Software Demos
Root cause analysis can be a fairly data-intensive process. You need a way to store, organize, and track individual pieces of data. On top of...
Patterns of Response
Problems happen all the time. How we respond ought to be a function of the problem’s importance… but how do we decide what is important?...
Interfaces and Contradictions
DrPat reads a lot, and frequently writes about books on Paper Frigate. One recent blog entry caught my eye, a review of Beyond Engineering by...
Models in Root Cause Analysis
Models are representations of reality. They can be detailed or abstract, complex or simple, accurate or misleading. Whether we realize it or not, everything we...
Meaning of Root Cause, Part II
A previous article discussed the definition of the word root as it applies to the concept of Root Cause. However, that article did not provide...