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Every effective program implementation is a process with stages of growth. Start small, and then grow the approach by demonstrating results. Pick an area or group to focus. Develop the Cause Mapping skills to conduct thorough analysis of your problems. Initially teaching every employee in your organization cause and effect analysis is less important than teaching a handful of employees that will generate results. People tend to copy what works. There should be an owner of the overall investigation program. Expectations from management should be outlined, written down and communicated effectively. Experiment with the program. Find out what’s working and what could be improved. Get feedback from those using the process. Make sure that they know they’re part of pilot program. They are the experimenters and evaluators. People tend to be more open to a new approach when it’s their process to test. Ask them if it’s working. Why not? Get specific causes. Everyone already has full time jobs so remind them that the goal is not to do analyses all day, but when they do encounter an issue that keeps them from meeting their goals they now have a tool to address it. The idea is to get some practice and demonstrate some results. Don’t worry about tackling the biggest issues in your business. Build from some smaller successes to gain experience and momentum. Experiment with what is most effective for your organization, it’s size, it’s business, it’s needs, it’s goals etc. There is no “right” way to make root cause analysis an effective tool for you. In fact avoiding the term “root cause” will be a big help. Instead, discuss causes and solutions. Regardless of what business you are in, cause and effect will apply. Until you know the causes of an incident and control them you are at the mercy of the “stuff happens” mentality.
As more cause and effect analyses are conducted and the Cause Maps are captured common issues that relate across an organization will surface. Industry specific issues will be part of every organization and group in that industry. Cause Maps therefore can be shared across an organization to leverage knowledge that is gained on each investigation. A thorough analysis captured on a Cause Map for a particular piece of equipment will be useful to any other group in the organization that has the same equipment. A simple plan to use a shared drive with an organized library of Cause Maps can be a significant competitive advantage to an organization. The Cause Map library contains valuable corporate knowledge. Groups begin to understand that there is a difference between individual and organizational experience. People gain an incredible amount of individual experience over their careers, but when they move on or retire all of that experience leaves the group. A learning organization captures investigations and problems, as they happen, to develop organizational experience. This organizational experience documented on Cause Maps stays with the group even when experienced people leave. Cause Maps provide a visual history of specific problems and what action was taken to reduce the probability of occurrence. The Cause Map library can be an effective training resource for new people starting within a group or department.
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