The IT Skeptic - root cause

No such thing as Root Cause

skeptic — Thu, 09 Jul 2015 03:52:56 +0000

I've never really been comfortable with the concept of Root Cause. It's time to be explicit: there is no such thing.

Conducting a root cause investigation on a 3rd party

Vespasian — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 12:44:10 +0000

Dear ITIL Wizard,

Our problem is this: We are being expected to conduct root cause on problems that impacted us but which are owned and maintained by 3rd parties who will also have their own Problem and Incident teams. This means spearheading investigation and exploring ways to remedy problems at another company! It's like sorting out your mate's wife's gambling addiction because it's making YOU have to fork out for John's beers whenever you go out! No, John should be telling YOU what he's doing to sort the problem out.

Great paper on failure of complex systems

skeptic — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 09:12:17 +0000

It is not often you read something that completely changes the way you look at IT. This paper How Complex Systems Fail rocked me. Reading this made me completely rethink ITSM, especially Root Cause Analysis, Major Incident Reviews, and Change Management.

Defining terms in Root Cause Analysis - let's be clear what we mean

skeptic — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 22:35:12 +0000

We have a great discussion going regarding Root Cause. As usual so much comes down to precise definition of terms. What does Root Cause mean?

Root Cause Analysis can't be done by machines

skeptic — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 03:51:27 +0000

Vendors are making a fuss about their Root Cause Analysis (RCA) features in their tools. People Process Things once again: who says Root Cause is in the technology?