10 Free Root Cause Analysis Templates

Download these 10 Free Root Cause Analysis Templates in MS Word and MS Excel format to help you conduct your own analysis with ease. You might also be interested to see our collection of Market Analysis Templates and Industry Analysis Templates.

When you are running a business, there are lots of problems and errors, and delays that you handle on a daily basis. Usually, there is always a new mistake or error that stops the entire process or causes a big delay in the execution but occasionally some errors are repeated. Encountering a new problem every time is not the problem because you can only try as much to prevent these problems from happening and the actual issue is seeing the problem repeating itself. This is something that shouldn’t happen and as soon as the problem occurs for the first time, you should take necessary precautions to prevent it from occurring again. Analysis of the basic reason or root cause of the problem is important because it will allow you to see why the problem happened and how it can be prevented in the future.

Key Elements of a Root Cause Analysis:

Investigation of the materials and raw materials
Human error due to lack of knowledge or training
Problem or defect in the equipment
Natural disasters that can’t be avoided
Handling management mishaps
Information about wrong methods or procedures
Miscommunication or deliberate negligence

Free Root Cause Analysis Templates

Here is a preview of this Root Cause Analysis Template in MS Word Format,

The download link for this root cause analysis template 01 is here,

You can download this root cause analysis template 02 in MS Word Format from the link below,

Please click on the download button below to start downloading this root cause analysis template 03,

You can download this root cause analysis template 04 in MS Excel Format from the link below.

Here is the download link for this root cause analysis template 05 in M Excel format inside a ZIP file.

Application Guidelines for Root Cause Analysis:

Explanation of the event/problem:
To start a root cause analysis, first, you need to explain the incident or event that occurred. This will not only help you to understand the event and its various components and elements but it will make it convenient for the readers to understand the incident quickly. You can either talk to some eyewitnesses and explain the incident in your words or ask a witness to write the step-by-step story of the incident for you that you can copy as it is in the analysis report.
Gather the facts and involved causes:
After you fully understand the incident, it’s time to start asking questions and gathering information. The most important part of this step is to gather information about all possible causes and reasons for causing the problem or incident. At this stage, you shouldn’t just focus on a single cause or decide if a particular cause is the key reason for the incident but you need to have an open mind until all the causes and reasons are evaluated.
Find the root cause of the problem:
At this stage when you have the data of all the causes and reasons of the incident, it’s time to look closely and try to find the root cause among all the factors. Although they might look equally important and responsible for causing the incident surely there is a specific cause that triggered the chain reactions of incidents resulting in a big disaster. You need to find that very root cause because if that cause was handled, the whole incident could have been avoided.
Find suitable and applicable solutions:
After finding the real culprit or the root cause for an incident, it’s not that difficult to join heads and come up with possible solutions to prevent the same problem from happening again in the future. Seeing a problem or error is not the issue but letting a problem repeatedly happen is the real big concern. Not only that the solution that you find for the problem should be realistic but it should be applicable as well.
Apply the solution and measure effectiveness:
At the end of the analysis, you should give a conclusion about implementing the solution and its outcome i.e. it has prevented the problem from occurring since then or the solution isn’t very effective so the team might need to come up with a different solution.