No Time For RCA?

A common theme I hear among clients is that they see the value in performing high-quality RCAs on their problems, but they lack the time to do a proper RCA.  As a result, they often resort to shooting from the hip, or at best, using a basic approach such as 5-Why’s or Ishikawa diagrams just to deal with the situation and move on as quickly as possible.

This approach may be appropriate for problems that have very little impact on the organization.  After all, I would agree that we can’t complete a formal RCA for every undesired outcome.  This is why it’s important to develop threshold/trigger criteria that clarify when a thorough RCA should be performed vs leaving it to the problem owner’s discretion.  If a basic approach is used for all problems, the organization is accepting a higher risk of problem recurrence because, while approches like Ishikawa are great for brainstorming, they rarely dive deep enough to understand all of the causes, nor do they accurately portray the full and true picture of what happened.  You wouldn’t drive a car that was assembled without all of the necessary and sufficient parts, would you?  Then why operate in an environment that is riskier than it needs to be?  By not solving problems correctly the first time, we introduce increased risk to the organization – including the risk of wasting more time on the problem when it happens again and we are forced to re-analyze. Considering that a two-hour investment using a structured approach yields an average $25,000 savings, take a look at what is on your plate and see if you can find a task that yields greater results for the time invested.  

Recommendations for efficient RCA programs:

1. Develop threshold/trigger criteria for when RCAs are to be performed, and what level of analysis is expected (e.g. 5 Why’s, Fishbone, Sologic)
2. Build skills - invest in training for those expected to facilitate RCAs.  The payback is well documented.
3. Develop a rotation for your facilitators so they are continually using/refining their RCA facilitation skills (we recommend no more than one RCA/month/facilitator)
4. HINT: the more RCAs you facilitate, the easier and faster they will be!!
5. Show clear support from management for doing RCAs right the first time

Learn more about Sologic RCA