The lion and gazelle have to be at the top of their game each and every day. If they get lazy, they lose.
A Root Cause Analysis methodology can help you maintain a competitive advantage, but only if you use it completely and consistently.
How are you ensuring that you maintain and improve your lead?
Can you measure what you have achieved since your Root Cause Analysis training, or has it become just another initiative that didn’t work?
You spent the time and effort learning a proven methodology that solves event-based problems every time, and perhaps it has become a company standard tool. But the creation of the cause and effect chart and incident report are only steps on the journey. We also need to focus on creating an effective problem-solving culture. The culture part of the equation can be easy to overlook, but it is this holistic approach that will help you get the most out of your Root Cause Analysis.
If we do nothing after the initial implementation of Root Cause Analysis, entropy kicks in and the system begins to unravel. Any shortfall from the potential gain becomes considered “normal” and root cause analysis just gets accepted as another initiative that didn’t work.
With this in the back of our minds, we have to put supports in place to develop a solid platform on which incremental change can be applied to achieve ever greater gains.
To help enhance your company’s problem-solving culture and get maximum benefit from your Root Cause Analysis program:
1) Ensure your senior leadership team is fully aware of your efforts
Try to get an influential sponsor to regularly mention root cause analysis in group communications. Remember that everyone’s reality is different, so time and energy spent with this team creating that common reality is going to pay dividends.
2) Implement Leader Standard Work
This ensures the ball is kept rolling from leadership down the chain. Developing formal, measured business processes can really help with this, along with good visual management tools.
3) Increase awareness of the benefits and gains brought about by your successes.
Celebrate the gains!
4) Involve union and safety reps
If this is done correctly, these folks can be your biggest evangelists. You can then use them as a resource. Adopting a “No Blame” approach in your Root Cause Analysis program should make it easier to sell.
5) Create a robust, visible, and measured action tracking system
Unlike work orders that are in a CMMS, these actions tend to fade away. Ideally, you would create one place for all actions, making them easy to prioritize.
Ultimately, you have to use it or lose it and these five tactics have the potential to help a great deal towards establishing a problem-solving culture and embedding it into an organization.
