Advantages and Disadvantages of Root Cause Analysis

Root Cause Analysis (RCA), as name suggests, it a process of analyzing main cause of defect within system. It is process of identifying main activity or process that causes occurrence of defects which resulted in an undesired outcome and takes corrective measures. After identifying main cause, find or determine different ways to eliminate or remove or reduce impact of that by taking some essential measures and actions. The importance of root cause analysis it allows to take essential measures and actions to resolve defect so that these defects don’t re-occur in future. It basically provides various ways to determine and identify breakdowns in processes and systems also that contributed to defect and how to prevent future occurrence of defect. Its main points are given below :

• Improves software quality by minimizing total number of defects.
• To identify defect, use of expertise is very effect-full and important.

For conducting Root Cause Analysis (RCA), one needs to be very focused and hard worker. Therefore, focused team is required to perform RCA. Team might include research staff, health staff, social staff, and communication staff if available. It should be conducted as part of situation analysis. RCA is technique that focuses on identifying real cause of defects and dealing with them. It is process that basically helps out stakeholders to know and understand well enough about main cause of defect simply to achieve permanent resolution of defect.

Advantages :

1. RCA usually helps in determining and identifying defect and main causes of defect. By identifying root cause, once can find out permanent solution to it so that possibility of its future re-occurrence can be reduced or eliminated.
2. It helps in developing a logical approach to solving problems. After identifying main cause of defect, one will try to figure out and find out major problem-solving approaches with help of information that is already present.
3. Once defect is determined, we can identify what all changes are required for software quality improvement. We can identify current needs as well as future needs for improvement of organization and system.
4. It also helps in establishing repeatable and appropriate step-by-step processes in which one process might confirm result of another process.
5. It is used to analyze different activities of organizations like :
   • Analyze Quality Control
   • Analyzing failure in maintenance
   • Analyze process of system
   • Analyze different system-based processes
   • Analyze risk and change management

Disadvantages :

1. The main problem in RCA is that it only presupposes i.e. assume and focus only one root cause of defect. But in reality, situation can be more complex. There might be more than one root cause of defect. So, one needs to focus on all aspects related to defect and need to think about all root cause of defect.
2. Organizations use RCA only to identify negative things that are happening in organization. RCA can also be used to identify good things that are happening in an organization. RCA technique that is used to identify root causes of defects can also be used to identify why some processes perform very well in an excellent manner. Identifying positive points gives another opportunity for continuous improvement.