Root Cause Analysis Tip: Are You a TapRooT® User?
Had an interesting conversation the other day.
Had a student in one of our classes tell me that he worked with someone who was “using TapRooT®” to find root causes but had never been to a TapRooT® Root Cause Analysis Course. In fact, the individual didn’t even have the TapRooT® Book.
He claimed to have learned TapRooT® by reading about it “online.”
The student said that he came to our training to learn the real way to use TapRooT® because he couldn’t believe that the guy was using it right.
By the end of the course, he told me the guy wasn’t doing anything like what we taught in the course. The course attendee was going to go back to work and straighten things out.
Another “bad example” was a guy who called me before he started an investigation. He was going to “use TapRooT®” because he was required to use it. What was wrong? He had been to training five years before and had never used it. He called me to ask, “What do I do first?”
Why do I bring up these bad examples here? Because not everyone who claims to use TapRooT® has a real understanding of the magic behind the system. They really are NOT using TapRooT®.
The minimum training that I would accept to call someone a TapRooT® User is our 2-Day TapRooT® Incident Investigation and Root Cause Analysis Course. However, before I would send someone out to do, or facilitate, a major investigation, I would insist that they have attended a 5-Day TapRooT® Advanced Root Cause Analysis Team Leader Course.
But that’s not all. That’s just the start. At any facility that says they “use TapRooT®,” I would ask them, “How do you keep TapRooT® Users proficient?” Also, … “How do they make their investigators better over time?”
Three things that I would like to hear in their replies are that they:
1. Attend the TapRooT® Summit every year.
2. Attend advanced/refresher training every year.
3. Have a peer review group for investigations that provides real improvement ideas for investigators.
Before you let people claim they are using TrapRooT® to investigate accidents at your company, make sure they are really trained to use it and that they keep themselves proficient and improving!
Don’t let your investigators be a bad example.
