November 15, 2024 | Alex Paradies

Should I Do A TapRooT® Investigation?

Short Answer: Yes… if you think, “Should I do a TapRooT® Investigation?” the answer is yes.

What? You want more guidance on when to do a TapRooT® Investigation?

We get the question, “When should I do a TapRooT® Investigation?” a lot from students in class. There are tons of incidents where people are uncertain if it is worth the effort to do a thorough TapRooT® Investigation. Our answer is simple. You should do a TapRooT® Investigation when you believe there is something worth learning from in the investigation.

However, some people want a more definitive answer. So, how about a short list of when it is appropriate to do a TapRooT® Root Cause Analysis Investigation?

When someone makes a mistake resulting in fatality, injury, equipment damage, production loss, or environmental issues.
When legal action is pending or likely.
After a near incident where the potential for a severe incident was narrowly avoided.
When you want to understand the difference between work as imagined and work as actually done.
When it meets your company’s prescribed threshold for investigation.
When you find a nonconformity during an audit.
When the probability of recurrence and the potential harm of recurrence are above your company’s risk tolerance. (When the risk of it happening again is more than the business is comfortable with.)

I don’t think that is an exhaustive list, but it should give you an idea of how to build guidance for your investigation policy.

We have two fantastic options for learning more about all the places you can use TapRooT® Root Causes Analysis.

Attend 5-Day Advanced TapRooT® RCA Team Leader Course

In the 5-Day Advanced TapRooT® RCA Team Leader Course, you will cover the following:

When to stop a lower-risk investigation.
What are the differences between low and high-risk investigations?
When to use advanced investigation techniques.
How to use TapRooT® Root Cause Analysis to evaluate your systems proactively with audits, learning teams, and precursor investigations.

Click the button to find the next available course near you.

Attend the Improving Investigations & RCA Best Practices Track

The second place to learn more about investigation best practices is at the Global TapRooT® Summit. We even have a track for this. Check out the Improving Investigations & RCA Best Practices Track