How to run a root cause analysis
An RCA isn't a blame exercise. It's an investigation into the system that allowed the failure, so the next one doesn't happen the same way.
Why it matters
Without an RCA, the same incident happens again under a slightly different costume. With one, the team learns something durable. The discipline is keeping the focus on the system, not the person.
Step by step
- Trigger criteria. P1 incident, repeat P2, customer impact > 1 hour, or any Live Support → rollback call.
- Schedule within 5 working days. Of the incident. Memory rots fast.
- Build the timeline. What happened, when, who knew. Pull from logs, alerts, Slack, not memory.
- Five whys. Against the proximate cause. Stop only when the answer is a system property, not a human decision.
- Identify contributing factors. Things that didn't cause it, but made it worse.
- Action items. Each one is a real ticket, with an owner and a due date, not "we'll do better".
- Publish the RCA. Internally always; customer-facing if the impact was customer-visible.
- Review action items at the next retro. Did we do them? If not, why not?
What good looks like
- Scheduled within 5 days of the incident
- Timeline reconstructed from data, not memory
- Five whys reach a system-level cause
- Action items are real tickets with owners + dates
- Blameless tone, focus on the system
- Action items are tracked to completion in the next retro
How Tenhaw runs this
The Live Support kit's customer-impact statement and follow-up RAID rows feed straight into your RCA timeline. Action items become real tickets and resurface at the next retro. Tenhaw won't let you forget what you committed to.
- Tenhaw RAID Logs
- Tenhaw Live Support kit
- Tenhaw retros
- Tenhaw action item tracking
Pair with the Live Support kit: the customer-impact statement and follow-up RAID rows from Live Support feed the RCA timeline.
Run this in your team
The Tenhaw product enforces every rule in this playbook so it doesn't sit on a wiki gathering dust. Try Tenhaw or book a working session with the founder.