Customer Reviews

Root Cause Analysis: Simplified Tools and Techniques

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After looking through many books on root cause analysis, I came across this books published by the American Society for Quality (ASQ). While most books on root cause analysis go deeply into the theory and the concepts of the topic, this book presents, as the subtitle states, simplified tools and techniques that can be easily applied to any organization. At my employer -- a medical device company --, we have trained over 100 employees using the Andersen/Fagerhaug book to solve technical as well as staffing issues. I highly recommend the book for use at all levels of an organization.

I found this book most helpful in trying to learn quickly the techniques of solving cause and effect problems; to which I had no previous study or training other than common sense.

It gave me specfic ways of gathering information and using it as a basis of making decisions that effect our daily operation and to be able to find ways of improving the quality of what we do.

If you are looking for a basic, easy to comprehend text on problem-solving in your business or job role, this is the one for you. It will first explain you, what exactly root cause analysis means and how is it different from fixing the problem.

next it will take you to the various tools for root cause analysis. Author uses the following approach in categorizing the tools:

Tools for Problem Understanding -> Tools for possible cause generation & consensus reaching -> tools for possible cause & data collection -> tools for possible cause analysis -> tools for Cause & Effect Analysis.

Each tool is explained as follows:
Purpose & Application, Steps needed in using the tools, an example, a checklist for using the tool correctly and finally a template.

Last two chapters are on Tool selection and a case study, which are both useful. If you an advanced professional in this field, I'd recommend "The Quality Toolbox". And if you are an ASQ, buy it from there at cheaper price.

Good luck with problem solving!

The information provided in this book helped me determine the root cause of our safety problems. The primary root cause turned out to be managers and workers consciously deciding when they would obey the safety rules. Knowing this, Iam now looking for ways to change ingrained behavior and the safety culture of the organization. I just wish finding and implementing effective solutions for this problem were as easy as determining the root cause.

I used the first edition of this book several years ago to develop a course on root cause analysis. I'd looked at many other books on RCA, but none focused on the cognitive process fundamental to understanding cause & effect relationships. This book does this but in a simple way. The second edition includes significant enhancements.

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I was asked to choose a book from a list of books on problem formulation to report on for one of my classes in my MBA program. I ended up choosing this book. I was at first excited to see a different point of view on problem solving than the one we were discussing in class. However, I was very disappointed with this book.

The book comes out right up front and states that this is not meant to be an academic book, but a tool that can be used in helping define the root cause of problems. This book although great for the amount of tools to aid in finding root causes, seems to lack content in total problem formulation. The layout of the book flows nicely so that if you had a particular problem that you were working on you could easily go through step by step to work on finding the root cause. However, it doesn't focus enough on critical steps in problem formulation, such as the beginning steps, determining if there is actually a problem, and properly framing the problem (scope and domain). It also doesn't focus enough on the final steps to solve the problem such as generating a hypothesis and solution, and controlling the results so to make sure the problem does not re-occur.

In my opinion there are much better books out there to discuss problem solving.

This book may have some good ideas -- somewhere.

Their "Case studies" are written as if they are true. They are not true, they are made up. The book should have a disclaimer. Here's an example:

A case study on Welfare offices compares rates of abuse by clients on staff. They include physical abuse and murder and then compare the rates in different offices. Each office had murders to compare, no office had zero. What? Are you kidding me? Every office had staff killed by clients? That's what their chart shows.

In the next chapter (Chapter 3) they continue with the same case study and on page 38 come to the conclusion, based on their chart, that "Murders committed by clients" falls into the "OK" portion of the chart. Really!

To put this Welfare stuff in perspective -- I worked in Welfare offices for 15 years and I and other staff were yelled at plenty and we had angry clients on a daily basis. But, I never knew of any Welfare worker in any office out of about 20 in those 15 years who was ever even touched in an aggressive way by a client, yet alone murdered. Is it possible to have a murdered worker? You bet. Is it possible that it is happening on a regular basis in many offices. No way. The authors loose all credibility.

Be glad I read this book so you don't have to.