Friday Jokes
Friday Jokes are memes, videos, and anything funny! Tune in every week for another joke that may (or may not) relate to root cause analysis.
Follow the Instructions
06/19/2026
Are workers failing to follow procedures? Don’t be so quick to blame their competence. Just because the instructions are technically correct doesn’t mean they’re intuitive:
🖼️ Bad Graphics
Graphics are seldom blatantly wrong like this, but they are sometimes unclear, confusing, or unhelpful. Take a look at your procedures and ask: do these graphics enhance or disrupt the process?
🏃 Too Many Actions Per Step
Step-by-step procedures should only have one action per step. Otherwise, a worker can easily miss a step or experience information overload.
❓Poor Formatting
Even if the task is complex, the procedures should be as easy to navigate as possible. If the procedure is not properly indented, sequenced, or even punctuated, a reader is bound to make a mistake eventually.
The Domino Effect
06/12/2026
“We don’t have time to sweat the small stuff.”
Maybe that’s because you wait until it snowballs into something big.
Many companies only use root cause analysis reactively, waiting until disaster has already struck to look into the system failures.
These failures can be caught and fixed well before a major incident occurs.
If you were to perform an audit of day-to-day operations right now, chances are that you would find something wrong:
• A missed step in the procedure, likely one that is commonly unfollowed.
• A piece of equipment that has never worked quite right.
• A slight surplus or deficiency of materials.
Before you brush it off as something not worth investigating, take a moment and ask, “Could this problem contribute to a major accident?”
If the answer is yes, we recommend investigating it now rather than later.
🧥
06/05/2026
“Why are you not wearing your PPE?”
Maybe because it feels like this: 🧥🧥🧥
PPE enforcement can be a headache for many teams. In management’s eyes, putting on some extra protection is such a simple task. To operators, there’s more to the story…
❌ It’s bad gear for the job.
Sure, throwing on some gloves is easy, but performing the work while wearing them might not be.
Can workers make precise movements in a bulky pair? Can they stay cool in a heavy set?
There’s likely an alternative more conducive to the operators’ environment.
🤝 Enforcement is more than discipline.
Punishing workers caught without PPE will not magically solve a cultural problem.
Is leadership setting the example? Do operators know how to voice their concerns?
Fixing a company culture is a long-term process that takes communication, commitment, and time.
⚠️ There’s more to safety than PPE.
Enforcing the rules is important, but PPE is at the bottom of the Hierarchy of Controls for a reason.
Protective gear is the last line of defense against a hazard. It should serve as a redundancy in case other controls fail.
A workplace that is reliant on PPE to reduce incidents is not a safe one.
All in all, reminders or scoldings won’t fix repeat PPE violations. There’s more complex issues worth investigating.
Actions Speak Louder Than Words
05/29/2026
If you punish truthfulness, you’ll make an opponent out of your interviewee! 🤼
This is a tricky subject for many investigative interviewers.
On one hand, we want to build rapport and gather accurate testimonial data. On the other, that data could be used against the employee or their colleagues. In many cases, it’s not entirely in the investigator’s hands.
Here are our suggestions to handle this situation:
👂 Listen to the whole story.
If someone admits to making a mistake or violating a procedure, gather as much information behind it as possible. The more context you have regarding human error, the more you (and management) can understand the systemic failures that facilitated the behavior.
🤞 Don’t make promises you can’t keep.
If you expect your interviewee to be honest, the least you can do is show truthfulness, too. Never tell someone they won’t get in trouble if you don’t know that with certainty — especially for major incidents.
💡 Involve management in the process.
You’ll always have a hard time getting accurate information from your interviewers in a blame-oriented culture. Teams notice when workers are punished for honest mistakes. No one wants to self-incriminate themselves.
That’s why it’s important for management to understand the root cause analysis process. There’s no point to find systemic improvements if leadership only chooses discipline as the corrective action.
A simple walk-through of the investigation can make the difference between progress and punishment.
Not to Lecture, But…
05/22/2026
“Does TapRooT® RCA use Five-Whys?”
No, we do not.
Five-Whys is a simple but popular root cause analysis methodology. It involves asking “why” five (or more) times until a root cause is defined. It has gained so much traction for a number of reasons:
✔️ It’s quick and easy.
This methodology is perhaps the least resource-intensive one out there. An investigation can be complete in a matter of minutes, which is especially appealing for those juggling investigations on top of normal workloads.
While we don’t want investigations dragging on, event-learning is still meaningless if it’s not effective. Time in an investment, so consider what’s at stake before choosing the easy route.
🤝 It’s not proprietary.
Five-Whys is not copyrighted. Anyone can teach it, no matter their experience, knowledge, or intent. This is why so many other RCA groups teach Five-Whys or even incorporate it into their own systems.
As such, the method has spread like wildfire. Keep in mind, though, that common practice is not always the best practice.
🤔 It initiates deeper thinking.
Credit where credit is due, Five-Whys does push investigators to look past surface-level problems.
Stepping into an investigation with an inquisitive mindset is beneficial, but the method provides no guidance from there. So many Five-Whys investigations end in weak corrective actions, like training and procedures, because the investigator doesn’t have the tools for effective problem-solving.
Even though Five-Whys is so popular, TapRooT® RCA will always preach for better investigations.
Changing His Tune
05/18/2026
The supervisor when I make a mistake: 👹
The supervisor when he makes a mistake: ☺️
Human error can be frustrating for the entire team. Management can get sick of dealing with recurring incidents, and operations can feel like their discipline is unfair. Here’s how to balance enforcement and fairness:
🧠 Understand Our Biases
Actor-Observer Bias is the natural tendency to blame internal characteristics (laziness, incompetency) when others make mistakes, but to blame external characteristics (workload, stress level) when we make mistakes.
With this heuristic in mind, an incident investigator should focus more on evidence than personal opinions.
⚠️ Avoid Inconsistency
If a supervisor can avoid repercussions from the same mistake that got an operator disciplined, the workforce will notice.
Always give the involved employee the benefit of the doubt. Otherwise, when someone trusted makes the same error, inconsistent enforcement will be interpreted as favoritism.
🔧 Fix Systems, Not People
Discipline achieves nothing if someone is bound to make the same mistake later down the line. Instead of warning or punishing workers, investigators should work to create better human factors design.
Don’t let human error be a bed of thorns. Nurture your event-learning into a stronger system!
I Must Break You
05/08/2026
Operator error can feel intimidating, especially for your poor equipment.
Many technicians mistakenly end Failure Analysis (FA) at human error. Incorrect use will break equipment, yes, but the root causes stem deeper. Here are a few areas to investigate:
🖋️ Procedural Discrepancies
Double check if your procedures are all correct and up-to-date with your latest equipment upgrades.
Even if the procedures are technically accurate, a confusing format or inaccessible location will facilitate mistakes, too.
📋 No SPAC Enforcement
A strong set of procedures won’t achieve anything if they aren’t being enforced. Is your management team conducting regular audits?
🤷 Poor Human Engineering
A nonintuitive interface will always invite misuse, no matter how many times the supervisor says to “be more careful.”
Investigate the equipment’s labels, displays, and controls to see if the complexity can be reduced.
The Code
05/01/2026
Are your company policies rules or suggestions? Here’s why enforcement matters:
🌀 The Normalization of Deviance
If we tolerate even a smidge of noncompliance, then someone will decide a smidge over the smidge is acceptable, and so on.
Enforcement needs to be soon and certain for any violation. (And that entails investigation BEFORE discipline!)
😒 The Illusion of Safety in Familiarity
Even if our rules are well-communicated, their importance fades as workers become desensitized to their everyday hazards.
Management needs to understand violations may stem from our natural heuristics, rather than a lack of care or competency.
❗ The Role of Rules
Rules are important, but administrative controls are a relatively weak safeguard compared to engineering controls or hazard reduction.
Your systems should embrace human behavior instead of attempting to fix it.
Too Much
04/24/2026
Take it from us: there IS such a thing as too much RCA. If you feel you’re spending too much time on investigations, consider the following advice:
🚫 Stop when there’s nothing more to learn.
For low-to-medium risk investigations, the TapRooT® Process asks the following question after the evidence collection phase: “Is there anything more to learn?”
If the problem wasn’t any deeper than a paper cut or a dead bulb, your time is better spent elsewhere.
👋 Say something!
Leadership can’t fix a time-consuming reporting system if no one brings it up.
It might be tempting to just disregard the company policy if common sense says not to investigate something small, but that attitude can easily snowball into a culture of distrust and dishonesty.
🤝 Step into this issue with gratefulness.
Many organizations miss the warning signs that precede major incidents due to a lack of reporting.
If you feel like your company is on the other end of the spectrum, understand your leadership team has the best of intentions — they want to be proactive about safety.
Same Energy
04/17/2026
This “root cause” is too long to say in one breath!
Beware root cause analysis advice from the internet. Complex doesn’t necessarily mean solution-oriented.
