RCA Articles

Listed below are some of the better Root Cause Analysis articles from my weblog. I'll start the list with what is probably the most popular article on my whole site... the one that's been linked to by many blogs and websites (some run by government agencies), cited by others in several journal articles, presentations, and even discussed in a couple of books. (Not trying to brag here, but it's pretty cool to find such references.)

Five-by-Five Whys

Purpose and Definitions

Meaning of Root Cause, Part I

Meaning of Root Cause, Part II

Phases of Root Cause Analysis

Processes and Tools

Introduction to Root Cause Analysis

RCA Tool Comparison

The BOGUS Test

Risk and Significance

Event Frequency and Severity

Root Cause Analysis - Large or Small Events?

The Fortunate Near-Miss Event

Last 5 Posts

Re-Defining the Problem

August 27th, 2020

Today, I saw a definition of Problem that I disliked VERY MUCH. Granted, this was in a [[Root Cause Analysis]] manual, so I expected much complexity. Still, the definition annoyed me. (This might be misquoted slightly, but it captures the gist.) A current behaviour or course of action (by people or equipment) that is producing unexpected, inapp[...]

Top 5 Reasons for Failed Root Cause Analysis

December 5th, 2014

Root cause analysis is one of the best ways to solve difficult or significant problems, but sometimes, root cause analysis efforts fail because the corrective actions weren't effective. If the original problem happens again, or the needed improvements haven't materialized, or a new problem arises because of the corrective actions, you need to figur[...]

Root Cause Analysis of Microsoft Azure Service Interruption

November 24th, 2014

Microsoft recently experienced a significant interruption of their Azure cloud service. Since a decent amount of data was available for this incident, I decided to do a partial root cause analysis. All of my source data came from Microsoft's official Azure blog post on 2014-Nov-24. I did this primarily to create a sample analysis that could [...]

Followup... System Focused Root Cause Analysis of Complexity

November 18th, 2014

My previous post about root causes in complex systems, in retrospect, looks a little bit like a rant. That doesn't bother me too much, really... but I wish I had included the following info: it is one way to go about resolving the mess that complex systems can make of your [[root cause analysis]]. Basically, when you need to analyze a proble[...]

Systems Thinking, Complexity, and Root Cause

November 15th, 2014

I'm getting so very tired of safety/accident researchers claiming that [[root cause analysis]] is an invalid, blame-focused practice that ignores systems and complexity. Most root cause investigators that I know are pretty well oriented towards process, organization, and system issues as the fundamental sources underlying problems and accidents... [...]

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Last updated: October 10, 2014 at 9:37 am

Purpose and Definitions

Processes and Tools

Risk and Significance

Last 5 Posts

All Earlier Posts

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