April 3, 2024 | Mark Paradies

4 Signs You Need to Improve Your Investigations

Are you Reading the Smoke Signals?

If you want to improve your incident investigations and root cause analysis beyond simple techniques that yield incomplete results that don’t stop problems, you have probably already recognized the most basic signs that you need to improve, and you are ready for the first step in improvement:

Implementing the TapRooT® Root Cause Analysis System.

However, many find that after implementing the TapRooT® System, they can still make even further improvements.

Four Signs You Need Continuous Improvement

Here are four signs that you’re ready for more improvement:

Investigator Bad Habits – Before your investigators were trained to use TapRooT® RCA, they probably had some other method they used to find “the root cause.” The bad habits they learned probably aren’t completely corrected in a single 2-Day or 5-Day TapRooT® Root Cause Analysis Course. They may have previously been trained that there was only one root cause. They might not know how to interview or collect information (facts). They may need to practice drawing complete SnapCharT® Diagrams or identifying all the Causal Factors. Therefore, they may need more training or some coaching to complete the development of their skills.
Insufficient Time & Resources – Even if you have great investigators, they need time to collect evidence and complete an investigation. If management provides too little time or resources, the TapRooT® Training alone can’t make your investigations excellent.
Inadequate Investigation Review – Investigators need feedback to improve their skills. Where do they get expert feedback? It could come from management if they are experts in root cause analysis. If management doesn’t understand root cause analysis, the feedback they get may not improve future results. Therefore, you should probably implement a “peer review” before management’s review. The “peer review” will be done by one or more root cause analysis experts to identify areas for improvement BEFORE the investigation is presented to management. The best peer reviews are conducted while the investigation is being performed. Think of this as just-in-time coaching.
Insufficient Practice – Even with great training to start with, people become “rusty” if they don’t practice their skills. Of course, you don’t want to have more serious incidents to get more experience for your investigators. What can you do? Three things …
- Use the TapRooT® System to investigate less serious but potentially serious incidents. The book, Using the Essential TapRooT® Techniques to Investigate Low-to-Medium Risk Incidents, can show you how to do this without wasting time and effort.
- Use the TapRooT® System to prepare for, perform, and analyze the results of audits. Learn to do this in the upcoming pre-Summit course, 2-Day Auditing & Proactive Improvement Using TapRooT®. Or get the book, TapRooT® Root Cause Analysis for Audits and Proactive Performance Improvement.
- Have a refresher course for your investigators (contact us for info by CLICKING HERE) or have them attend a pre-Summit Course and the Global TapRooT® Summit to refresh their skills. One course to consider is the 2-Day TapRooT® Advanced Case Study Workshop.

How to Improve Investigations?

Are you ready for more investigation improvement? Would you like to learn more about improving your implementation of the TapRooT® System and changing the culture of your company’s investigations and root cause analysis? Then get registered for the 2024 Global TapRooT® Summit coming up on April 29 – May 3.

Another idea to get your management more completely involved in performance improvement is to hold a TapRooT® Executive Leadership’s Role in Root Cause Analysis Course. Get more information about the course HERE. Then call us at 865-539-2139 to schedule a course.

Do you need to discuss other ways to improve your incident investigations and root cause analysis? Give our TapRooT® Implementation advisors a call at 865-539-2139. They are knowledge brokers with extensive root cause analysis and performance improvement experience across a wide variety of industries.