New book: “Beyond the Five Whys: Root Cause Analysis and systems thinking,” published by Wiley in November 2023.
Over the past 10 years, I have been working increasingly on Root cause analysis with a number of clients. This work has resulted in a range of approaches which have proved to be powerful in ‘cracking’ many long-standing problems across a range of different contexts.
The results of these efforts are now encapsulated in this book in overview form which seeks to cover both root cause analysis techniques and ways of thinking systemically. To bring home key messages board members, senior executives, and a range of other colleagues (from public service, medicine, aviation, manufacturing, and internal audit) have been prepared to speak, often for the first time, about some of the subtle ways that you can do 90% of the right things and still end up with a big problem or set-back. The book also covers insights from a range of public inquiries, including 9/11, the 2007-2008 financial crisis, Grenfell Tower and going back to the two inquiries into the Titanic tragedy of 1912. As you will discover, neither the iceberg, nor the crew, nor the number of lifeboats were root causes for that tragedy.
The book is written for a general audience but includes Appendices covering the implementation of Root cause analysis in an organisation as well as guidance for audit professionals who want to get to the bottom of problems (whether these are significant, or just recurring minor setbacks).
James has helped me and my team in a number of areas, examples being improving the way we conduct and report on our audits and helping with our assurance mapping. This has all been done in a positive and supportive manner, helping the team to embed learning from these sessions.
I contacted [James] for advice as to how Assurance Mapping techniques could be applied in my own authority. Not only were his ideas very constructive, his approach was very professional yet carried out in a friendly, easy going manner which greatly helped my understanding of the issues involved. James was then always happy to deal with any follow up queries I had and he helped to fine tune and discuss the approach with the rest of my team who similarly very quickly formed the same positive view of James’s style and manner. We have recently introduced this new approach into my authority and the results and comments to date have been very encouraging, thanks in no small way to James’s advice and assistance. I would have no hesitation recommending James to anyone.