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What is Root Cause Analysis?
Home » Management » Root Cause Analysis » What is Root Cause Analysis?When a company’s struggling to keep its head above water, whether from a rapid increase in business, a lack of manpower, or any other factor, it can cause defensive, rather than offensive, moves to occur. This means that management tends to put out fires, rather than prevent them. A smarter way to manage when problems repeat themselves is to get to the root of the problem, figure out what’s causing the problem, then determine a solution to prevent the problem from happening again. In a nutshell, this is called Root Cause Analysis.
For example, say your turnover rate is out of control. You’re losing employees right and left. Your response is to sigh, grumble while sifting through a pile of resumes gleaned after the last employee left, and call up a few more for interviews. You know the drill well, so you buck up and make the calls. You just don’t have time to consider why your employees are leaving. You just have to deal with the fact that they are.
With Root Cause Analysis, you’ll learn that determining the cause of the problem is much more important. Even though the process may take more upfront time than putting out the current fire, in the long run you’ll save yourself time, frustration, anger, and even money in most circumstances.
At the heart of many problems is a lack of an adequate business process. You can better control your business, and people’s reactions and responses to your business, through the three P’s: policies, procedures, and processes that work. During an Root Cause Analysis, you’ll likely find that one of the three p’s needs tweaking to prevent problems from recurring.
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