Root Cause Analysis is a means to answer to why we keep seeing the same problems over and over again. When we treat the symptoms, the root cause remains.
In Lean there is a supporting process of 5S's. 5S's is a workplace organization method that uses a list of five words seiri, seiton, seiso, seiketsu, and shitsuke. This list describes how to organize a work places for efficiency and effectiveness by identifying and storing items used, maintaining the areas and items, and sustaining the new order. The decision making process usually comes from a dialogue about standardization, which build understanding around the employees of how they should do their work.
At one client we are installing Microsoft Team Foundation Server, for development, Release Management and Test Management. The current processes relies on the heroics of many on the team every Thursday night to get the release out the door.
We started the improvement of the development, test, and release process with Root Cause Analysis. In this domain Cyber and Security are paramount, so when there is a cyber or a data security issue, RCA is the core process to address the issue.
The results of the RCA have show that the work place is chaotic at times, code poorly managed, testing struggles on deadline, and the configuration of the release base inconsistent. It was clear we were missing tools, but the human factors were also the source of the problem - the symptom of latent defects and a break fix paradigm.
There are many ways to ask and answer the 5 Whys and apply the 5 S's, but until that is done and the actual causes determined, and the work place cleaned up, the symptoms will continue to manifest in undesirable ways.
If we're going to start down the path of 5 Whys and NOT actually determine the Root Cause and develop a corrective action plan, then that is in itself a waste.
