1: Introduction: A Focus on the PAST?

Hello!  My name is Bob Nelms.  I'm the founder of Failsafe Network.  Please view the short video-clip before you read this article. 

You are presently viewing the initial module of Failsafe Network's Correspondence Class.  This initial module is entitled "What is Latent Cause Analysis -- an Introduction."  This module contains a series of 9 articles, each with an introductory video-clip, supported by a Discussion Forum.  Finally, a quiz is also available to test your learning after completion of this module.

This correspondence class is intended to cover all the material presently covered in Failsafe's 4-day class entitled "The Latent Cause Experience." We have offered this first module of the correspondence class at no fee to help us fine-tune this means of training, and also to give people a taste of what is to come in future modules.

We feel strongly that if you actively participate in the DISCUSSION FORUMS imbedded within each of these modules, your experience might even be better than if you attended the live, 4-day class. Expressing ourselves (either verbally or in writing) and then having these thoughts challenged by others, is what helps all of us change the way we think about anything.

Access to the DISCUSSION FORUM is at the end of each blog article.

In return for offering this class at no fee, we are asking you to help us improve on this series of Correspondence Classes by doing two things for us.  At the end of the 9 modules, you will be asked to take a short QUIZ, and also to fill-in a short CLASS EVALUATION.

Let us begin!

Your initial question is probably "What is Latent Cause Analysis?"

Latent Cause Analysis (or LCA) is Failsafe Network's version of Root Cause Analysis.  As the founder of Failsafe, I decided to change the name of our approach from RCA (Root Cause Analysis) to LCA (Latent Cause Analysis) in 2009 in response to years of feedback from the classes I've been teaching.  Before 2009, class attendees accurately asked:

Why do you call this root cause analysis when the method does not define root causes?

Class attendees were correct.  As you will see, Latent Cause Analysis defines the Physical, Human, and Latent Causes of things that go wrong.  Even more, this method strongly discourages the use of the phrase "root cause."  None of the investigative methods that are currently being used truly identify root causes, not even this one.     

Let's take a simple example and investigate some of its causes to show you what I mean.

I'm looking around my office right now, and see a bucket of broken gadgets laying near my office door.  They've been laying there for about 4 weeks.  It's not really too much of a problem, but the bucket full of broken gadgets should not be there after all this time.  I should have taken it out to the trash a long time ago.

In the following dialogue, let's pretend that you are asking me the italicized questions, and I am providing the answers:

Why has the bucket been laying there for 4 weeks?

Because I put it there 4 weeks ago and have never taken it outside to the trash.

There are multiple facets of this problem, but we'll only purse one of them to make my point.  Let's pursue the following:

Why did you put it there 4 weeks ago?

Because that is when I was cleaning up my office, getting rid of gadgets that were no longer working.

Again, let's pursue just one of the facets.

Why didn't you get rid of broken gadgets as soon as they broke?

Because I didn't want to take the time to throw each one of them away at the time that they broke.

Why didn't you want to take the time to throw them away at the time that they broke?

Because I was working on something that demanded my attention and I didn't want to loose my focus at those particular times.

Well then why didn't you simply throw these items away immediately after you finished each of your demanding tasks?

Because each of the times this happened, I forgot about the broken gadget after I had finished the task and merely went onto some other task.

Why did you forget about it each of these times?

Stop it! You're driving me crazy!

There are two major points I'd like to make about this simple example. 

First, notice that investigations usually start at some present (as opposed to past) state.  The box of gadgets is currently laying on the floor.  But notice what happens when we begin to dig into its causes. Each successive layer (or answer) is a step back in time.  As we dig deeper and deeper into the causes of our problems, this always happens -- we end-up looking farther and farther back into the past.

The reason why there is a box of gadgets is because they had accumulated over a long period of time. 

The first gadget probably broke about 4 years ago. 

Therefore, to really understand why this condition exists today, we'd have to go back to the first gadget that broke 4 years ago and query why I behaved in that particular manner at that point in time. 

But if you think about it, if you try to understand a behavior of mine that occurred 4 years ago, you'll discover that it has its own causes.

Surely, a whole lot of my present personal behavior is due to the way I was raised, and the experiences I have had over my life.  The same is true for all of us. 

If the way I was raised has influenced me so much, then I probably need to wonder why my parents raised me the way they did. 

Both my mother and father lived through the Great Depression.  My mother was raised in Pennsylvania Dutch country and was a high school home economics teacher.  My father was a World War II Veteran who saw active duty during the Normandy Invasion and the Battle of the Bulge.  Imagine how both of them were influenced by their experiences, and then consider their influence on me.  I'd bet that a lot of my own personal behavior was ultimately influenced by the Great Depression, World War II, and the Pennsylvania Dutch culture.  Isn't it amazing to think about this string of influences?  It's a never ending probe -- going farther and farther back in time.

In other words, I can literally trace the causes of the bucket of gadgets in my office to the way my parents raised me, and even to the way my grandparents were raised, and so on.

There is only one problem with all this:
 

What good is it to find out that the causes of today's problems are things that happened in the past?

Important Points:

• The Correspondence Class contains eight modules.  Each module contains a series of articles.
• Each module also has a Discussion Forum.
• Each module also ends with a Quiz.
• Latent Cause Analysis is Failsafe Network, Inc.'s brand of Root Cause Analysis.
• Latent Cause Analysis defines the Physical, Human, and Latent Causes of anything that goes wrong.
• Latent Cause Analysis does not define Root Causes.
• Failsafe Network, Inc. strongly discourages the use of the phrase "Root Cause."
• If you are not careful, your investigative pursuits will lead you farther and farther back in time, blaming everything that goes wrong on past people and events.
• Latent Cause Analysis does not focus on the past. 

DISCUSSION FORUM

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