Jasper talked with Peter about the priorities and has now a prioritized list of projects he can start on with a root cause analysis.
Jasper was looking at the list he just made.
The first project he had to go through had more than 4.000 defects. “That’s going to be a hell of a job.” He thought.
But first he had to go a little bit deeper into the theory behind root cause analyses.
He started looking online for information and started to write what he found.
The Root Cause Analysis is a structured approach to identify the factors that resulted in the nature, the magnitude, the location, and the timing of the harmful outcomes (consequences) of one or more past events in order to identify what behaviors, actions, inactions, or conditions need to be changed to prevent recurrence of similar harmful outcomes and to identify the lessons to be learned to promote the achievement of better consequences. ‘Success’ is defined as the near-certain prevention of recurrence.
The root cause information concerning analyzed defects is used to:
- identify the best moments for improvement in the SDLC to prevent defects in the future, and
- improve the monitoring of (test) projects.
This will result in a better quality of the complete SDLC and the system under test and in a reduction of the number of detected defects in the test levels.
The practice of RCA is predicated on the belief that problems are best solved by attempting to address, correct or eliminate root causes, as opposed to merely addressing the immediately obvious symptoms. By directing corrective measures at root causes, it is more probable that problem recurrence will be prevented. RCA is often considered to be an iterative process, and is frequently viewed as a tool of continuous improvement.
RCA is typically used as a reactive method of identifying event(s) causes, revealing problems and solving them. Analysis is done after an event has occurred. Insights in RCA may make it useful as a pro-active method. In that event, RCA can be used to forecast or predict probable events even before they occur.
Jasper reminded himself he had a lot to do before he had evaluated all 4.088 defects and that he had to start as soon as possible. But first he sent out his table in an email to Peter. Asking him is some things needed a change, but also to see the whole picture. As Jasper thought that Peter had lost that among the way.