TapRoot’s Top Ten Incident Investigation Mistakes

Every company that investigates incidents will no doubt encounter challenges when working to complete their investigations.  Mark Paradies recently posted a top ten list of common mistakes observed when performing investigations, as voted by attendees of the first TapRoot Summit in Gatlinburg, Tennessee in 1994. The list was also later published in the August, 1994 Root Cause Network™ newsletter:

1.      Management revises the facts. (Or management says "You can't say that.")
2.      Assumptions become facts.
3.      Untrained team of investigators. (We assign good people/engineers to find causes.)
4.      Started investigation too late.
5.      Stopped investigation too soon.
6.      No systematic investigation process.
7.      Management can't be the root cause.
8.      Supervisor performs investigation in their spare time.
9.      Fit the facts to the scenario. (Management tells the investigation team what to find.)
10.   Hidden agendas.  

For anyone who is not familiar with the TapRoot incident investigation system, please visit their website: www.taproot.com. You will find a wealth of information relating to their investigation system as well as articles posted by many of their company representatives.

If your company needs assistance in performing incident investigations or mentoring your personnel on effective incident investigation practices, please visit the contact page and reach out to us.

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