Root cause analysis is an important concept, not just in business. Say you have a giant water stain on your ceiling. Simply trying to paint over it won’t eliminate the problem in the long run—you have to find its root cause. Is there a leak somewhere in the house? Has a pipe burst? Treating the underlying cause of the stain helps ensure that it won’t return.
When working at a company, things often work the same way. The problems that affect your business’s success sometimes cannot be easily identified. This is where root cause analysis becomes important. The Harvard Business Review finds that 87% of company executives believed flaws brought significant financial losses, and 85% felt that organizations were terrible at diagnosing their issues.
Root cause analysis is a game-changing process that allows organizations to fully understand, diagnose, and treat issues. In this article, we will look at root cause analysis, how it works, and how to use it for problem-solving.
What is Root Cause Analysis?
Root cause analysis is identifying all of the underlying causes of a problem your company is facing, as well as suggesting specific solutions. Root cause analysis, or RCA, can help companies find the main major contributors to an issue, so rather than treating the symptoms, the root of the issue can instead be addressed. Let’s take a look at how to conduct root cause analysis.
How To Conduct Root Cause Analysis
1. Identify Gaps
The first step towards RCA is to identify any issues in your performance, also known as performance gaps. These refer to how your department or organization may be failing to function or deliver its products. This step is also an important way to identify any opportunity gaps, which are innovative ways to create more value. You are essentially finding defects by looking for answers to “What is the problem?”
This can help you define the issues you have to deal with, their symptoms, and possible outcomes. Crafting a “problem statement” during this step can also be helpful. Problem statements include:
- A detailed description of the problem
- What the symptoms of the problem are
- What your goals are
2. Collect Data
The next step in RCA is to collect all relevant data pertaining to the problem. This could include:
- How long the issue has been going on
- Proof of the problem
- Impact of the problem
To effectively develop a solution plan, knowing everything possible about the issue is necessary. All information gathered during this stage must also be carefully documented for later use. Involving different teams and colleagues to analyze your findings is also essential, as it can offer different perspectives to develop a more well-rounded understanding of the issue.
3. Identify Possible Causes
The stage of RCA is to find the possible underlying causes of your issues. This allows businesses to determine which components of their organization, processes, employee training, or customer service practices must be changed or adjusted.
According to Harvard Business School Online’s Business Insights Blog, there are three main types of underlying causes for most issues. These could be:
- Structural or Systemic Issues: These refer to problems regarding your formal organization, product development, talent management, and accountability systems.
- Work Culture: This is the intangible part of your business, referring to the values, attitudes, beliefs, norms, habits, and standard practices employees follow.
- People: This involves the individual profiles of each employee, the overall composition of the workforce, employees’ experience, skills, attitudes, and values.
4. Identify the Root Causes
After collecting the necessary data and finding the possible causes, it is time to determine the causes of the problems you are facing. There are several root cause analysis techniques to choose from for this step. Root cause analysis templates can also be useful. The most popular ones include:
- The 5 Whys: This involves asking “why?” five times. For example, let’s say customers are facing problems with their online payment portal, and payments keep failing.
- Why? Because their payment keeps getting declined.
- Why was it declined? Because the payment request did not go through correctly.
- Why didn’t it go through? Because the system timed out.
- Why did it time out? Because it was overloaded.
- Why was it overloaded? Because the system’s infrastructure wasn’t built to handle high transaction volumes.
- Fishbone Analysis: Also known as a “Cause-and-Effect Chart,” it is a visual representation of any potential causes and effects of a problem. It takes the shape of a fishbone, where the head is the problem, and the bones are the significant root causes.
- Pareto Chart: This bar chart is sorted from the highest to lowest (or descending) frequency. Each bar reflects the impact or frequency of a problem an organization is facing. It helps organizations to prioritize problems easily, treating those with the highest impact first.
5. Create an Action Plan
The final step of this process is to create and prioritize your problems based on their impact and organization. Then, it is time to create an action plan to address the root causes identified in the previous step. There are many different methods companies can use to find solutions. For example, brainstorming is a fantastic way to come up with a variety of potential solutions. Interviewing multiple people and involving several different teams can also help.
Wrapping Up
In 2025, maintaining high-quality standards has become more crucial than ever. Global compliance regulations (such as ISO 9001) and customer expectations have become higher than ever, meaning organizations now have to prioritize quality, efficiency, and excellent customer service.
A simple way to ensure high-quality standards is to implement QMS software and ISO 9001 frameworks.ISO standards require companies to continually improve, and this corrective action makes it easier for organizations to find and address the root causes of several problems they may be facing. Root cause analysis also ensures that problems are not only solved in the present but do not occur again in the future.
If you are looking for quality management software (QMS), consider Effivity. Our platform offers you a one-stop solution for all your diverse needs, whether governance management, risk compliance, automating repetitive tasks, calibration, maintenance, employee training, customer support systems, and more.
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