Effective Incident Investigation With TapRooT (R)

Effective Incident Investigation
with TapRooT®
Per Ohstrom, Vice President
Pennsylvania Governor’s Occupational Safety & Health
Conference, October 2018
System Improvements, Inc.

238 South Peters Road, Suite 301
Knoxville, TN 37923, USA
Phone: +1-865-539-2139
Blog: www.taproot.com/blog
© Copyright 2017 by System Improvements , Inc., Knoxville, TN. All Rights Reserved Worldwide. Duplication Prohibited. Page 1
A Big Small Company
• Head office Knoxville, TN
• Trainers located in many countries and regions
➢ 30 year history from start in nuclear power
➢ 100,000+ professionals trained
What can TapRooT do?
• Environment, Health and Safety- accidents, near-misses,

environmental releases or human errors
• Quality issues
✓ Improve human performance

✓ Understand and reduce equipment related failures
✓ Improve effectiveness and impact of corrective actions
Easy to Use Systematic, Reduces Expert Human

Consistent Saves time Investigator system Performance
results and money bias based
© Copyright 2017 by System Improvements , Inc., Knoxville, TN. All Rights Reserved Worldwide. Duplication Prohibited. 3 Page 3
TapRooT method flow
1. Understand what
happened, collect data
and draw a SnapChart®
visual timeline
Anything more to
learn? If so, continue!
2. Find out why a

5. Develop fixes with
problem occurred -
the Corrective Action
determine Causal
Helper®
Factors
3. Work through Root

4. Develop Root Causes
Cause Tree® to find
using the Dictionary
Basic Cause categories
It only takes a second
Start with a SnapCharT®
• Visual timeline
• Plan, collect data
• Basis for rest of
analysis
What Happened?
Incident
Events Events
Only proven facts

Conditions
and questions,
NO opinions,
judgments,
names…
SnapCharT in software
Who does what?
“Lack of
action”
General
information
“Undesired Policy
action” information
Find Causal Factors
“mistake, error, or failure that
directly leads to (or causes) an
Incident, or fails to mitigate the
consequences of the original
error”
Indicated by triangle symbol
Initiate/ Stop/ Catch/ Mitigate
Analyze Causal Factors, find Root Causes
“The absence of a best

practice or the failure
to apply knowledge
that would have
prevented the problem”
Root Cause Tree®
Causal Factor Name Here
Human Performance expert system
15 Questions
relating to
Causal Factor:
- Cross off NO
- Circle YES
- Keep going
Circles point to
categories on
back of page
Basic Cause Categories
Evaluate for
Root Causes
Other categories
are eliminated
Example: Finding root causes
Develop fixes
Corrective Action Helper®:
• Suggestions
• References
What are good Corrective Actions?
STRONGEST
1. REMOVE / REDUCE THE HAZARD
2. REMOVE THE TARGET
3. GUARD THE TARGET
4. IMPROVE HUMAN PERFORMANCE

with good Human Factors Design

with Rules, Procedures, Signs…

with Training, Supervision, Discipline…
WEAKEST
3 Secrets of Investigations
1. Your knowledge can get in the way of a

good root cause analysis
2. Interviews are NOT about asking
questions
3. Trending helps you get better
1. Your knowledge can get in the way
• You must know cause and effect

relationship to find the root causes
• Inexperienced Investigator Trap:
– Don’t know all the potential causes (maybe
only one!)
• Experienced Investigator Traps:
– No Psychology / Human Factors Knowledge
– Favorite-Cause-itis
2. Interviews are NOT about asking questions
• Stimulate memories and collect best

possible information
• Cognitive Interviewing Techniques
– Use the SnapChart®
– Ask to explain in own words
– Ask “how” and ‘what”, not “why”
– Listen, don’t interrupt
– Ask for ANY important info they can share…
3. Why Trend?
• Spot bigger, underlying issues

• Prove routine variation is NOT a trend
• See impact of improvement over time
Why does TapRooT® work?
Other Methods TapRooT®

• “Easier to use and do not • Not depending on investigator
limit thinking when looking expertise like deductive
reasoning methods
for root causes”
• Less confirmation bias
– Cause-and –effect
• TapRooT® provides structure
– Fishbone analysis for use by non- experts:
– 5-Whys – Focus on human error
• Software programs – Thorough information collection
– More than one root cause
– Timeline of events? – More efficient problem solving
– Jump straight to “root cause” – Consistent results enable
– No support for corrective trending over time
action development
TapRooT® RCA offerings
Public and On- site Training:

• 2-Day TapRooT® Root Cause Analysis
• 5-Day TapRooT® Advanced Root Cause Analysis Team Leader
• 3-Day TapRooT®/Equifactor® Equipment Troubleshooting and Root
Cause Failure Analysis
TapRooT® VI Software
• Multi- User Corporate License
• Single user SaaS subscription
Consulting
• Complex or high stakes investigations
• TapRooT® implementation

Effective Incident Investigation With TapRooT (R)

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What is TapRooT and what does it do?

What is TapRooT and what does it do?

What are some benefits of using the TapRooT method compared to other root cause analysis methods?

What are some benefits of using the TapRooT method compared to other root cause analysis methods?

Effective Incident Investigation

System Improvements, Inc.

• Environment, Health and Safety- accidents, near-misses,

✓ Improve human performance

Easy to Use Systematic, Reduces Expert Human

2. Find out why a

3. Work through Root

Only proven facts

“The absence of a best

Causal Factor Name Here

4. IMPROVE HUMAN PERFORMANCE

5. IMPROVE HUMAN PERFORMANCE

6. IMPROVE HUMAN PERFORMANCE

1. Your knowledge can get in the way of a

• You must know cause and effect

• Stimulate memories and collect best

• Spot bigger, underlying issues

Other Methods TapRooT®

Public and On- site Training:

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