It is common for businesses to have specific issues or severe situations that require increased attention and need to be addressed carefully. In order to do that, the company’s team may have to learn the core cause of this problem and think of the best steps to improve the situation. While there are many techniques that are considered helpful, carrying out root cause analysis may be key to finding the primary cause and eliminating it. This technique includes several tools like Five Whys, Fishbone Diagram, Pareto Chart, and others (Okes, 2019). The purpose of this paper is to provide an example of an organizational issue that can be solved by the RCA.
For instance, a company may face an unexpectedly sharp drop in sales. To analyze this situation, the RCA technique and precisely Five Whys are used. It is hard to disagree that a vast number of factors may cause this problem, so the first question is the following: Why did it happen? Because a global error was found on the company’s website, and many products were displayed as out of stock, people could not buy them. Why was there an issue with the website? Because the firm’s programming team could not foresee the possibility of a technical failure and prevent it. Why could they not do that? Because they did not comply with the new software requirements. Why did they not follow them? Because the software was recently updated, and the team members did not know how to work with it properly. Why have the employees not familiarized themselves with the new requirements? Because the company did not provide them with an appropriate training program after the introduction of the new software.
Therefore, the Five Whys allowed to find the root cause of the drop in sales, and it was not the employees’ fault that an error occurred. At the same time, it is possible to suggest that if the RCA technique is not used, the firm’s management may blame the programming team for this difficult situation. To solve the issue, it is required that the software error is eliminated, and the employees get a training program and learn all the details related to working with the new software.
Reference
Okes, D. (2019). Root cause analysis: The core of problem-solving and corrective action (2nd ed.). ASQ Quality Press.