June 26, 2019 | Mark Paradies

Root Cause Training for Simple and Complex Investigations

Can You Have It Both Ways?
Training for Simple & Major Incident Investigations

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What training do you need to investigate and find the root causes of simple incidents and complex, major accidents? This article discusses:

What is an incident and how do you find root causes?
What do you need to know to analyze a low risk (simple) incident?
What do you need to know to analyze a complex incident (major accident)?
Where do you get the training to investigate simple and complex incidents?
Can you get a root cause analysis training discount?
Upcoming 2019 root cause analysis training.

What is an incident and how do you find root causes?

An incident is something that went wrong that has an adverse consequence. It could be a:

Lost time injury
Quality escape
Equipment failure
Production upset
Medical treatment case
Cost overrun
Fatality
Explosion
Fire
Environmental Release
Hospital sentinel event
A near-miss for any of the above (precursor incident)

As you can see, there are many different types of incidents. Some are very serious, some are not as serious, and some are perhaps potentially serious.

To find an incident’s root cause, you perform a root cause analysis. You would think that there would be a standard way to find root causes, but if you do detailed research, you will find that people recommend many different ways to find root causes. Not only that but much of the advice is really bad. They recommend tools that have been shown to work, at best, inconsistently.

Why is the bad root cause analysis advice so devastating? Because if you don’t find and fix the root causes of the smaller incidents, the problems will repeat. Sometimes those problems will repeat in a slightly different way to cause a major accident. In other words, a near-miss that isn’t fixed might become an explosion, fire, fatality, major customer complaint, or major cost overrun.

Don’t take bad advice and get someone killed (or get yourself fired).

To evaluate the advice you get, you need to understand root cause analysis fundamentals. Therefore, we wrote an article about it. CLICK HERE to read about root cause analysis fundamentals and make sure you are starting with the right goals. Here’s the video that sums up the fundamentals…

Now that you understand the fundamentals, you probably understand why so many people pick TapRooT® for their root cause analysis. The TapRooT® Folks invented the fundamentals. Plus, we know advanced root cause analysis.

What do you need to know to analyze a low-risk (simple) incident?

We wrote the book on investigating simple incidents (low-to-medium risk). No, really … we wrote the book…

Using the Essential TapRooT® Techniques to Investigate Low-to-Medium Risk Incidents is our best seller. CLICK HERE to find out more about why we wrote it and what’s in it.

We used the book for the outline of our 2-Day TapRooT® Root Cause Analysis Course. It teaches what you need to know to investigate simple incidents without getting too complex.

Here’s the simple investigation process…

Thus, you just need a 50-page book and a 2-Day TapRooT® Course to analyze simple incidents. That’s a great start.

What do you need to know to analyze a complex incident (major accident)?

But what about complex incidents or major accidents? You need something more than the 2-Day TapRooT® Course.

But you don’t need quantum mechanics or other complex nonsense. You do need additional tools and training. The tools are shown in the process diagram below and explained in the book: Using TapRooT® Root Cause Analysis for Major Investigations.

Where do you get the training to investigate both simple and complex incidents?

We decided that many investigators would need to do both – investigate simple incidents and complex, major accidents. Therefore, we developed training to teach both the quick/easy way to apply TaRooT® for root cause analysis of simple incidents and a systematic/thorough way to apply TapRooT® for major investigations.

(By the way, we sell the two books – one for simple incident investigation – Using the Essential TapRooT® Techniques to Investigate Low-to-Medium Risk Incidents, and one for major accidents – Using TapRooT® Root Cause Analysis for Major Investigations) – together as a package. Click on the books below to order them as a package.)

To teach both, we revised our 5-Day TapRooT® Advanced Root Cause Analysis Team Leader Training to teach both simple investigations and leading a team to investigate a complex, major accident. Thus, the 5-Day Course teaches what’s in both books … plus more.

If you need to regularly investigate simple incidents (precursor incidents or ACE (Apparent Cause Evaluation) investigations AND you may occasionally be called upon to investigate more complex human error incidents or a major accident, then attend the 5-Day TapRooT® Course!

Can you get a root cause analysis training DISCOUNT?

What if you have already attended a 2-Day TapRooT® Course provided by SI? Then we offer a $500 discount on our public 5-Day TapRooT® Training. Before you register, you will need to contact us to get this discount coupon. CLICK HERE to get your discount coupon for attending a previous 2-Day TapRooT® Course, or call 865-539-2139 and tell them that you are a previous 2-Day tapRooT® Course attendee. They will look you up in our database and give you a discount code.

Do you have three or more people to attend any of our public TapRooT® Courses? You can get a $100 discount for each participant by contacting us for a discount code.

What if you are at a licensed TapRooT® Site (a site license for the TapRooT® Software)? We have discounts for that too. Call us to find out more.