I was very pleased recently to be asked to do a new course on Root Cause Analysis (RCA). Of course, most people feel that they can do this anyway – and during my time as head of internal audit I realize I did as well – and therefore might wonder what the point of having a course is.

However, with five years working as risk and audit consultant, it has become clear that there is much more to RCA than meets the eye. I think one reason it is easy to think that RCA is straightforward is because if an issue appears to have a solution, its tempting to think the Root Cause has been identified.

Consider the case of the Jefferson Memorial where the stone of the memorial was starting to deteriorate because of frequent washing due to bird droppings. At face value the RCA looks like:

Issue: Stone getting worn
1st Reason: Stone having to be washed often
2nd Reason: Bird droppings

So the solution seems to be simple – lets put netting on the memorial to stop the birds!

However, if we utilize the “5 whys” technique, we must push beyond the “obvious” solution that arises after a digging into a couple of reasons (in the case above we have just “two whys”)

So lets go beyond the first two reasons:

Issue: Stone getting worn
1st Reason: Stone having to be washed often
2nd Reason: Bird droppings
3rd Reason: Birds attracted to spiders in the monument
4th Reason: Spiders attracted to midges flying around the memorial
5th Reason: Midges attracted to lights (turned on an hour before dusk)

So after more questions, we find other reasons for the bird droppings – and the solution ends up being to turn on the lights one hour after dusk, rather than one hour before dusk!

In an audit context I have seen clients who have perfectly sensible actions for audit points, but they still find themselves with similar findings subsequently or in other areas. To my mind recurring issues and common themes are symptomatic of not really getting to the heart of the reasons for issues.

Thus the benefits from a high quality RCA approach can include:

• Getting to the heart of issues behind findings;
• Helping audit to better understand key control themes
• Getting a deeper understanding about the risk culture of an organization

In addition, effective RCA can also help audit write shorter reports (as individual facts are combined).

Further information about the Root Cause Analysis workshop is contained on the Training and events section of my website.

Also see my ‘thought piece’:  Culture: Surveys vs. Root Cause Analysis (PDF)