RCA Program Development: Solution tracking, roles and responsibilities

For the fourth installment in this blog series on the key steps of RCA program development we are covering step #5 – RCA and Solution Tracking Systems and #6 – Roles and Responsibilities. 

Remember, to have a successful implementation and adoption of your new (or redesigned) RCA program, it’s crucial to have all the elements of an effective and efficient program clearly identified and agreed upon in advance. 

Here's what we’ve covered in this blog series so far:

• The Key Steps of Designing Your Program
• Defining Goals and Current Status
• Setting KPIs and Establishing Trigger Thresholds

Now we’ll dive into the important aspects of tracking your RCA solutions and the responsibilities of each role that must be played within your RCA processes. 

RCA and Solution Tracking Systems

It is very important that the status of outstanding RCAs and solutions be monitored for two basic reasons: To assure timely completion of the tasks, and to measure their effectiveness in preventing recurrence of the undesirable incident.

When a formal RCA is triggered and assigned to a facilitator, the assignment should also include a reasonable completion date that is agreed upon with the facilitator. I emphasize the word “reasonable” because human nature is to cut ourselves short on schedule time leading to rushing and taking shortcuts, which in turn can result in an inferior work product.  I’ve not known anyone that has ever been admonished for completing a task ahead of time, so be sure the due date is readily achievable.

Once an RCA has been completed, a list of possible solutions will be submitted for approval.  As with the RCAs, solution implementation should have a realistic due date and a responsible party for completion. Progress towards meeting the due dates must be tracked to ensure timely completion. In addition, solution effectiveness, as measured by incident recurrence (or hopefully the lack thereof), should be monitored as well in order to demonstrate the value of both the individual RCAs and the RCA program as a whole.

When discussing action tracking, often the first thought is to create a new system. However, I suggest thinking about your existing systems and technology first and whether there is an opportunity (and if it makes sense) to integrate action tracking into those. Solution and action item lists can be exported from RealityCharting® to Excel® and then imported into your current action tracking system. If you don’t have an existing tracking system that will serve all your needs, then consider an enterprise RCA tool, such as Cordant™ Asset Defect Elimination enterprise RCA tool.

Roles and Responsibilities

An effective, efficient, and sustainable RCA effort will require a number of functions to be fulfilled at various levels of the organization. There must be distinct RCA program roles to accomplish this, each with either a unique set of responsibilities or, in some cases, shared duties. The responsibilities of each role must be clearly understood to assure that the appropriate personnel are assigned to the proper roles while at the same time balancing existing position duties with any added RCA workload.

Here are the necessary functions:

1. Steering committee – What existing management team will oversee the RCA effort?
2. Program Champion – Who will be the RCA sponsor that brings legitimacy to the effort?
3. RCA Methodology Expert – Who will quality-check completed RCAs or facilitate the most difficult ones?
4. RCA Facilitators – How many and who will be trained as standard RCA facilitators?
5. First Responders – When a triggered event occurs, who will be responsible for preserving evidence?
6. Skills Participants – What people will participate in RCAs?