What is Root Cause Analysis (RCA) With real examples

In my previous article I have given details about application support engineer day to day activities in detail with example. This article will give you information about Root Cause Analysis in detail with real industry examples. Root cause Analysis is nothing but the documentation regarding why incident has occurred. It is nothing but the finding out the cause of the problem. The key reason for doing Root Cause Analysis (RCA) to find out the reason of issue and finding corrective actions so that issue will not come in future.

What are steps to do Root Cause Analysis (RCA)?

These are following steps to do Root cause Analysis (RCA) :

Identify the Problem:

Identify the problem is first step to perform RCA. First step is to state the issue clearly and gather the data accordingly.

Example: Application is not working and getting 521 error.

Identify the logs and collect data :

Second step is to identify the issue observing the application logs and collect the data from various tools.

Example: If application is down first step is to check the application logs and collect the data from multiple tools like – Control m tool, JIRA and other tools.

Analyze the problem using problem identifying technique :

Third step is to analyze the problem using multiple problem identifying techniques.

Example :

For server 521 error you need to analyze why the issue is happening and document that accordingly. Using Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) technique. For above example you require to check log errors , reason for failure and document that properly.

Identify Root Cause :

This step is important step to analyze the correct root cause and pin -point it accordingly.

Example :

For 521 error application engineers found out in the logs that server is not working, and application is not able to connect to server properly.

Taking the corrective actions:

Next step is taking the corrective actions regarding the issue so that it will not cause going forward.

Example :

You got to know that 521 error is due to server down . So as an application support engineer you need to have action item on properly monitoring the server.

These are few action items you require to do for doing the RCA properly.

What are multiple and popular techniques used for RCA?

There are multiple techniques used for RCA. The key Techniques are as following :

1. 5 Why Techniques :

The first technique is 5 Why technique where you require to ask the Why question 5 times to get correct and close answer regarding cause of the incident.

Example :

For above server down issue following questions might ask

1. Why the issue has not identified before business hours?
2. Why Server monitoring is failed and server down issue occured?
3. Why Application was not moved to other server and application was also down?
4. Why this issue root cause is not identified and documented in Knowledge base?
5. Why the maintenance of server has missed from vendor side?

2.Failure Mode and Effect Analysis Technique (FMEA)

This is really good method for systematically evaluating the potential failures and access the impact accordingly.

What are Benefits of Root Cause?

The question here is why we require to do the root cause analysis? There are multiple benefits performing the root cause analysis. The first and important benefit of performing root cause analysis to avoid the recurring issue.

1.Reccuring issue Avoidance :

The first benefit of performing root cause analysis is to avoid the recurring issues and try to avoid that recurrence.

2.Cost Saving:

The second benefit is saving cost avoiding recurring issues and resolving it at first step.

3.Improve efficiency:

Root cause analysis is helping support team to improve efficiency and accuracy. I hope you like this article and you got clear idea about the Root cause analysis and perform the root cause analysis.

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