What are common RCA methods?

Common methods include the 5 Whys, Fishbone diagrams, Fault Tree Analysis, and Timeline Analysis.

What Is Root Cause Analysis in IT?

Q: What is root cause analysis in IT?

Root cause analysis is the process of investigating why an incident occurred and identifying the underlying cause to prevent recurrence.

Root cause analysis (RCA) is the process of investigating why an incident or problem occurred and identifying the underlying cause rather than just treating the symptom. RCA prevents recurring issues and improves long-term service reliability.

Why Root Cause Analysis Matters

Prevents the same issue from happening again
Reduces repeat tickets and support costs
Identifies process or design weaknesses
Builds organizational knowledge

Common RCA Methods

5 Whys: Ask “why” repeatedly until you find the root cause
Fishbone (Ishikawa) Diagram: Map causes across categories
Fault Tree Analysis: Work backward from the failure
Timeline Analysis: Map events leading to the incident

RCA Steps

1. Gather data about the incident
2. Identify immediate causes
3. Dig deeper to find root causes
4. Implement preventive actions
5. Document findings and share learnings

Industry Insight

Atlassian notes that effective RCA reduces incident recurrence by 60-80%.

Learn Problem-Solving Techniques

Root cause analysis is discussed on Wikipedia.

How TicketingNext Supports RCA

TicketingNext provides problem tickets, incident linking, and knowledge capture to support RCA workflows. See TicketingNext features or explore use cases.

Need help with root cause analysis? Contact our team.