RCA TRAINING

Root Cause Analysis training by Sologic provides the tools, skills, and knowledge necessary to solve complex problems in any sector, within any discipline, and of any scale.
Learn More
 

SOFTWARE

Sologic’s Causelink has the right software product for you and your organization. Single users may choose to install the software locally or utilize the cloud.  Our flagship Enterprise-scale software is delivered On Premise or as SaaS in the cloud.
Learn More


Is Root Cause Analysis a fundamental aspect of effective Risk Management?

risk management blocksIn the current climate of uncertain economic conditions and constrained demand, businesses that wish to maintain and grow profits need to have dynamic processes for managing the risks associated with achieving their stated strategies and objectives. 

Risk management is often overlooked as a key component of controlling costs. It is true that large losses can be suffered even when risk management is first-rate because organisations are in the business of taking risks. However, when risk management fails there are some often some fundamental issues.

Traditional risk management generally has relied on looking to the past to identify future risks on the assumption that historical data provide a good approximation of future events. However, our world is changing at an unprecedented rate and past data cannot always predict the effects on today’s situations. For this to be a sound basis for risk management the data needs to cover an historical period with adequate fluctuations.  Relying on historical data can lead to risk management failure is.

Too often risk management within organisations take too limited view of risk, focusing on narrow measures or those measure that the loudest voices air, thereby ignoring other risks that should be taken into account.

Along with this rather narrow view of risk, there is a danger of looking at risk in isolation, focusing on known risks and there by overlooking knowable risks. One type of knowable risk that is often overlooked is risk outside the normal risk class. This is a particular danger if risk management has been reduced to a form filling exercise. In addition many organisations manage their risks separately, ignoring correlations and associations among these risks that could be more easily identified with a firm wide assessment of risk.

Risk management is not only a process it is a culture. In fact your risk management will only be as good as the data that feeds it. So a risk management will fail in a culture that lacks openness, where risks are concealed, ie if people responsible for incurring risk do not report it.

There is little point in knowing about the risks if there is a failure to communicate clearly, without distortion and in a timely fashion. Risk management must be communicated effectively to the senior management and/or the board who are ultimately responsible for making decisions about risk. They also need to have a realistic understanding of the risk management capabilities of the organisation so they do not have unwarranted confidence in the organisation’s ability to measure risk.

Risk management is a dynamic process and risk managers need to constantly monitor, hedge, and mitigate a firm’s known risks to make sure the firm only takes the risks it wants to take. Risk needs to be managed in real time

How can we improve our risk management capabilities?

Any risk management models used should be augmented with scenario analyses of how crises may unfold depending on organisations’ reactions.

Root Cause Analysis can be a key tool in this process. Instead of focusing on the idea that the probabilities of catastrophic risks are extremely small, the organisation can have scenarios built using visual RCA charting showing all the causes contained within this scenario for these catastrophic risks and can design strategies for surviving these risks.

In addition in order to have a culture changing, embedded and effective risk management process organisations need to understand the importance of engaging managers and staff’s thinking about risk. An effective Root Cause Analysis process will not only help you understand your risks, identify and design strategies for managing and surviving risk it will also provide you with a powerful tool for Employee Engagement.

Learn more about Sologic RCA

Contact Us



 

RCA TRAINING

Root Cause Analysis training by Sologic provides the tools, skills, and knowledge necessary to solve complex problems in any sector, within any discipline, and of any scale.
Learn More
 

SOFTWARE

Sologic’s Causelink has the right software product for you and your organization. Single users may choose to install the software locally or utilize the cloud.  Our flagship Enterprise-scale software is delivered On Premise or as SaaS in the cloud.
Learn More