A Practical Guide on Root Cause Analysis

We often think the world of problem-solving is easy – one cause for a problem. Reality check, it’s not. Problem-solving is dirty, chaotic and full of uncertainty. In real life, it’s even unusual to have a single cause and only a single effect. Systems contain many cause-effect relationships that interrelate in complex ways, so it is often unclear what causes it. Deciding what to change is often even more problematic because the people with experience often have only a narrow view of the parts of the system they interact with. They don’t see the bigger picture. So yes, this cause analysis is essential in finding solutions.

Ideally, when approaching this course's final module, you have found the cause underlying the problem. At this point, you start looking at solutions to remove the cause from the equation. We hope this is the result you achieve when following the course. However, we do give you some final pointers as well for when the result is inconclusive.