A root cause is an initiating cause of either a condition or a causal chain that leads to an outcome or effect of interest. The term denotes the earliest, most basic, 'deepest', cause for a given behavior; most often a fault. The idea is that you can only see an error by its manifest signs. Those signs can be widespread, multitudinous, and convoluted, whereas the root cause leading to them often is a lot simpler.
In plain English a "root cause" is a "cause" (harmful factor) that is "root" (deep, basic, fundamental, underlying, initial or the like).
The term "root cause" has been used in professional journals as early as 1905.
Fantin (2014) describes the root cause as the result of the drill down root cause analysis required to discover which is the process that is failing, defining it as "MIN Process" (meaning a process that is Missing, Incomplete or Not followed).
In Buddhism, the three poisons are the root causes of suffering. For example, projects may fail due to unrealistic expectations.
Video Root cause
See also
- Causation
- Forensic engineering
- Proximate and ultimate causation
- Root cause analysis
- RPR Problem Diagnosis
Maps Root cause
References
External links
- Bill-Wilson.net Discussion of Root Cause
- Thwink.org Discussion of Root Cause
Source of the article : Wikipedia