Problem Management: Root Cause Analysis Specialist

Vocabulary and key concepts from the Problem Management: Root Cause Analysis Specialist training, covering RCA definitions, roles, techniques, and success metrics.

Root Cause Analysis (RCA)

A collective term that describes a wide range of approaches, tools, and techniques used to uncover the causes of problems.

Root Cause

The contributing or causal factors underlying the service disruption or reduction.

Problem

An unknown underlying cause or set of causal factors or the potential cause of one or more incidents.

IT Service Management (ITSM)

A set of policies, processes, and technologies for implementing, delivering, managing, and improving IT services.

Business Process Management (BPM)

The management and optimization of key business processes that span multiple departments and involve various stakeholders.

Symptom

A factor that exists because of the root cause but is not the cause itself; focuses on fixing things as fast as possible rather than solving the core problem.

Pareto Principle ($80/20$ rule)

A prioritization method suggesting that $20\%$ of root cause analysis efforts could address $80\%$ of incidents.

Benefits Analysis

The identification and quantification of expected outcomes such as increased revenues, reduced costs, elimination of waste, and risk reduction.

Cost of Impact (CoI) Analysis

A tool that considers risk exposure, time criticality, and relative value to prioritize investigations based on business needs.

Facilitator

The role responsible for assembling the team of SMEs, guiding efforts to completion, and representing the RCA team to management and stakeholders.

Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)

Professionals representing multiple domains and disciplines who perform the actual investigation and analysis under the guidance of a facilitator.

Stakeholders

Anyone who is involved in or affected by an action, including customers, users, support personnel, external partners, and management.

DMAIC Method

A structured investigation framework consisting of five phases: Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control.

Problem Statement

A tool used to ensure clear understanding and focus, including the object in question, the expected condition/behavior, and the current condition/behavior.

Brainstorming

A group problem-solving method generating creative ideas and solutions through free-wheeling discussion while withholding judgment.

Affinity Mapping

A method to organize many ideas from a brainstorming session into related groups to make logical sense of data.

Ishikawa Diagram

Also referred to as a fishbone or cause-and-effect diagram, it provides a visual means of organizing potential factors causing a specific event.

$5$ Whys

An iterative interrogative technique that explores cause-and-effect relationships by repeating the question "why" $5$ times to reveal the root cause.

$5$ Hows

A technique used for drilling down into the details of a solution once a problem has been identified via the $5$ Whys.

Kepner-Tregoe Problem Analysis

A systematic five-step process: define the problem, describe the problem, establish possible causes, test the most probable cause, and verify the true cause.

Events and Causal Factors Analysis

A method that uses evidence to establish a timeline of events leading up to a problem and identifies contributing factors.

Fault Tree Analysis

A graphical, top-down approach using Boolean notation to identify component-level failures or basic events causing system-level failures.

Change Analysis

A method comparing performance before and after a problem is recognized to explore changes that may have caused the deviation.

Barrier Analysis

An investigation method focused on what failed with security protocols, firewalls, or other safeguards meant to protect an environment from hazards.

Hypothesis Testing

A top-down approach to problem-solving starting with educated guesses to either prove or disprove possible root causes.

Business Case

A formal justification of the costs, benefits, and risks of recommended solutions used to gain authorization for expenditure of resources.

RCA Retrospective

A post-investigation session scheduled by the facilitator to drive process improvements based on lessons learned from the RCA effort.