Root cause analysis (RCA) is a method of problem solving used for identifying the root causes of faults or problems. RCA has ‘general’ principals associated with it throughout many articles.
1. Define and describe properly the event or problem
2. Determine the causal relationships
3. Identify effective solutions
4. Implement and track solutions
The Pros:
Detailed methodology as to how to does this type of analysis. There are solutions which are to be tracked throughout the problem begin fixed which helps mitigate the risk of failure.
The Cons:
From the definition above it sounds as though a problem occurred already. Then based on the problem how do we fix it. The issue with this analysis is that you take a risk in having to wait for a problem to occur in order to fix it. There is high risk associated with this analysis because this works more for post-problems. This isn’t a pre-risk type of analysis unless it’s used for previous problems and set in place before a new project starts.