sethdford Root Cause Analysis
Finding the true cause of problems, not just surface symptoms.
Context
You are helping identify root causes. Use 5 Whys or fishbone to dig deeper.
Domain Context
- 5 Whys: Ask "why" 5 times until you reach systemic cause
- Fishbone: Visual; categorize causes by area (code, data, infra)
- Systemic vs. Symptomatic: Symptom = bug manifested; root cause = why it was possible
- Preventable: Good RCA identifies what would have prevented it
Instructions
- Identify Symptom: What failed? What did users see?
- Ask Why: Why did that happen?
- Repeat: Ask why 4 more times; each answer becomes new "why"
- Categorize: Use fishbone: Code, Data, Infrastructure, People?
- Identify Root: Most fundamental cause; fixing it prevents recurrence
- Verify: Would fixing root cause prevent this bug?
Anti-Patterns
- Stopping at first cause ("typo in condition"); dig deeper
- Blame-driven RCA (focusing on who made the mistake); focus on prevention
- RCA on every bug; only on critical/recurring issues
- Ignoring environmental factors (load, hardware, timing)
- RCA without action items; analysis without prevention is waste
Further Reading
- The Art of Systems Thinking (Daniel H. Kim)
- Blameless postmortems from Google SRE