Root Cause Analysis (RCA)

Root Cause Analysis (RCA)
Root Cause Analysis (RCA)

Published Version: 1.1

Summary

After reading this document we may aware about the concept of Root cause analysis and why its required, 2 techniques how to do RCA with real examples.


Root Cause Analysis (RCA) is a structured and effective process to find the root cause of issues in a Software Project team. If performed systematically, it can improve the performance and quality of the deliverables and the processes, not only at the team level but also across the organization.

Advantages of Root Cause Analysis

  • Prevent the reoccurrence of the same problem in the future.

  • Eventually, reduce the number of defects reported over time.

  • Reduces developmental costs and saves time.

  • Improve the software development process and hence aid quick delivery to market.

  • Improves customer satisfaction.

  • Boost productivity.

  • Find hidden problems in the system.

  • Aids in continuous improvement.

Steps To Do Root Cause Analysis

  • Form RCA Team.

  • Define The Problem - Use the SMART rule to define your problem.

  • Identify Root Cause - Use the Fishbone diagram or 5 Why Analysis method or both to arrive at the root cause(s).

  • Implement Root Cause Corrective Action (RCCA) - Correction action involves giving a fix to the solution by identifying the real root cause(s).

  • Implement Root Cause Preventive Action (RCPA) - The team needs to come up with a plan for how such a similar issue can be prevented in the future.

Root Cause Analysis Techniques

  • 5 Whys Technique - 5 Why technique is used standalone or as part of a fishbone diagram to drill down to the root cause of the problem. The number of steps is not limited to 5. It can be less or more than 5 until the diagnosis of the problem has arrived. 5 Whys are relatively a simpler technique and a faster way to arrive at the root causes. It facilitates quick diagnosis to rule out the symptoms and arrive at the root cause.

  • Fishbone diagram (Ishikawa Diagram) -  Fishbone diagram is a visual root cause analysis tool to identify the possible causes of the identified problems hence it’s also called the Cause and Effect diagram. It allows you to get down to the real root cause of the issue rather than solving its symptom. The Fishbone diagram resembles the skeletons of a fish with the problem forming the head of the fish and causing forming the spine and bones of the fish.


Here we have RCA with 2 very common scenarios which may be arises time-on-time within any project using both the 5 Whys Technique and the Fishbone diagram (see below);

Example 1: Production release rollback


5 Whys Example

Fishbone Diagram

Example 2: Sprint ticket spillover

5 Whys Example


Fishbone Diagram


Pareto chart


"Remember, Learning is a journey, not a destination." - Prasun Das
Location: Kolkata, West Bengal, India

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Coding best practices - Part 3

Image
Coding best practices Published Version:  1.0 To check the 2nd part click the below link; Coding best practices - Part 2 DRY Principle DRY  stands for  Don't Repeat Yourself . Also known as  DIE :  Duplication is Evil . The principle states: " Every piece of knowledge must have a single, unambiguous, authoritative representation within a system. "  —  Wikipedia The purpose for most applications (or computers in general) is to  automate repetitive tasks . This principle should be maintained in all code, even web applications. The  same piece of code should not be repeated  over and over again. For example, most web applications consist of many pages. It's highly likely that these pages will contain  common elements . Headers and footers are usually the best candidates for this. It's not a good idea to keep copying and pasting these headers and footers into every page. Instead, put that header and footer code  in separate source ...
Read more

Coding best practices - Part 2

Image
Coding best practices Published Version: 1.0 To check the 1st part click the below link; Coding best practices - Part 1 Avoid Obvious Comments Commenting your code is fantastic; however, it can be overdone or just be plain redundant . Take this example: Fig 1: Incorrect example with Avoid Obvious Comments When the text is that obvious , it's really not productive to repeat it within comments. If you must comment on that code, you can simply combine it to a single line instead: Fig 2: Correct example with Avoid Obvious Comments Note: If you have to write more than a one-line comment to explain what the code is doing, you should consider rewriting the code to be more readable.
Read more

Coding best practices - Part 1

Image
Coding best practices Published Version: 1.0 What Does Coding Really Mean? The definition of " coding " means inputting commands in a language that computers can understand, to build websites, apps and software. Computer coding is the process of using a programming language to deliver instructions to a computer. The code tells the machine what tasks to perform and how to perform them. These detailed instructions are written in multiple lines of code, and a document full of code is called a script . The script directs the computer to carry out your desired actions. You have to ensure your code is correct, simple, clean and readable.  Purpose of Having Coding Standards Maintaining the coding standards is the best practices at the time of coding as because of; A coding standard gives a uniform appearance to the codes written by different engineers . It improves readability, and maintainability of the code and it reduces complexity also. It helps in code reuse and helps to de...
Read more