Erica Salmon Byrne (erica.salmonbyrne@ethisphere.com) is the Executive Vice President of The Ethisphere Institute.
In 2017, root cause analysis — why it matters, how companies are (or are not) doing it effectively, and how to use the data — was a topic of conversation across industries. Part of this was driven by headlines around corporate scandals, including the significant emphasis put on root cause in the internal investigation report into the issues at Wells Fargo. Another part came from the guidance the Department of Justice issued in February 2017, which specifically directed regulators to consider root cause analysis with a set of pointed questions: “What is the company’s root cause analysis of the misconduct at issue? What systemic issues were identified? Who in the company was involved in making the analysis?”
