Practical application of key root cause analysis techniques

Presented by: James Paterson

The Global Internal Audit Standards requires that internal auditors implement a methodology for root cause analysis (RCA) as part of their documented audit methodology. It also requires that they report root causes and best practices to senior leaders and the board/audit committee.

Building on the one-day introduction to RCA, this new one-day course helps guide audit teams on how they can apply RCA key techniques in practice.

Who should attend?

• Auditors and senior auditors (for themselves).
• Audit managers and audit quality leads (for support as they lead/quality control the work of others).

What will I learn?

Recap of RCA fundamentals:

• the difference between immediate, contributing and root causes
• why there can be no such thing as one root cause
• how to address the question of blame, considering human variability and the Just Culture framework
• the different types of RCA techniques that exist.

It goes on to look at three out of five of the following RCA techniques most popular with internal audit teams:

• the Three way five whys
• the Bowtie diagram
• the modified Fishbone diagram
• the fault tree
• causal loop diagrams; and gives practical help on how to use these techniques
• on completion you will be confident how to apply three key RCA techniques and be able to explain these to other colleagues.

Course programme

• hands on use of key RCA techniques examining a range of risk, compliance, and governance examples
• a clearer understanding of how such analysis can get ‘off track’ and how to correct this
• making the connection between RCA and understanding best practices in GRC
• seeing more clearly the pros and cons of different techniques.

CPE competency areas covered

• Performance (Organisational governance | Risk management | Internal control | Engagements)
• Environment (Organisational strategic planning and management)

7 CPE points