Blog

A year ago, we had just launched Sologic's improved RCA method, training curriculum and software. During the last year, we've focused on continuing to improve those foundational elements, resulting in the first client delivery this week of our Causelink Enterprise version and the release of Causelink v2.0 Beta. During the next year, we plan to continue improving, starting with our training curriculum and releasing Causelink v2.0 Gold.

Other experience may not be transferable, but RCA will 

A Forbes article written last year states that “74% of the workforce would consider leaving their current job if another offer came along”.1  Whether you are looking for a new opportunity or not, having solid problem-solving skills will benefit your current organization immediately, which is a definite plus.  But if you do move on, RCA skills will be transferable, whereas much of your technical, job-specific training will not.  

Throughout our days as Apollo Associated Services, our root cause analysis students told us through their class critiques that our training was effective and valuable for them. Consistently, 99% told us they would recommend the training to their colleagues – to us, a powerful indicator that we were doing our job well. We are proud to find – and to report to you – that during the first six-plus months since we launched our improved RCA method and training curriculum under the new company name Sologic™, our track record of excellent student reviews continues.  

When we ask our root cause analysis students to share what part of conducting an RCA might feel the most uncertain to them, though they hesitate to admit it, we often hear that it’s the thought of facilitating a group of people through the process.  After all, many of our students are analytics who would rather wrangle predictable and controllable technical data than facilitate a group of people with differing work styles and opinions.  But students learn in Sologic training that facilitation skills may be even more important than analytical skills -- there’s no getting around it.  So, how do you take the mystery out of building facilitation skills?

What makes people good at root cause analysis facilitation, and how do you find them? I was recently asked these questions by a client who was about to kick off an RCA program.  I’m glad he asked. The reality is, the best choice is sometimes counterintuitive at first glance, so organizations often choose people who aren’t the best fit. Although it might take a little more thought and time to identify the right RCA facilitators, rather than jumping to the easy or typical choices, the pay-off will come in many ways, such as more effective problem elimination and prevention, improved problem-solving culture, new opportunities for certain employees, and distribution of work load. 

Over the years, we've seen maturation in IT with respect to Problem Management. Three years ago, I remember most people wondering what we were doing there. Last year, we heard a lot of comments like "we're getting Incident Management off the ground, and then we'll focus on Problem Management." And this year, we had many conversations about the intricacies of a Problem Management program and how root cause analysis fits. This growth is admirable, no doubt. However, in my opinion the IT sector in general still has tremendous opportunity to more fully understand the potential of a sophisticated root cause analysis program.

It’s no fun to show up to lead a root cause analysis when the only supporting evidence participants bring is their assumptions.  This, unfortunately, has happened to me more than once.  As a consultant, I’ve learned the hard way to make sure participants have a clear idea what we will need in order to facilitate the investigation.  People need to know what is meant by the word “evidence,” and have a very clear idea of what it means when they are asked to collect evidence to bring to the analysis.  Hopefully this simple overview will provide you with a basic understanding of evidence, evidence types, and how it is used in an investigation.

Over the last week, we’ve had the opportunity to talk with many of our key clients around the globe about our new suite of product-service offerings. We’ve been demonstrating the features, capabilities and benefits of our new RCA method and Causelink RCA software…all a direct response to clients’ needs and requests. It’s been rewarding and validating to hear clients’ enthusiasm and eagerness to embrace Sologic’s offerings. I’ll let their own words speak for themselves from here.

Root cause analysis is most well-known as a tool to react to problems after they've occurred, but RCA is a powerful proactive tool -- identifying preventive actions that help reduce the risk of potential future problems from occurring.  Here are some highlights from our presentation on this topic at UBM Canon ASQ Quality Expo 2011.