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Why & When RCA is Needed

The primary purpose of RCA is to prevent the recurrence of problems and produce permanent solutions. Fixing an error is an immediate intervention; understanding why that error occurred is a strategic investment.

Core motivations for RCA:

  • Prevent the same error from recurring in different forms

  • Apply permanent fixes instead of temporary solutions (workarounds)

  • Minimize error cost at an early stage

  • Identify process and system vulnerabilities

  • Create awareness and a learning culture across the team

What Happens If RCA Is Not Performed?

When RCA is not applied, problems are superficially closed but the source is not eliminated. This leads to serious consequences in the medium and long term:

Situation Consequence
Same bug reopened with different tickets Development and testing effort is wasted
Production incidents recur Customer trust is shaken, SLA violations occur
Team deals with the same issue repeatedly Motivation drops, productivity decreases
Source of the problem remains unclear Technical debt accumulates, system complexity increases
Errors are not documented Organizational memory is not formed, same mistakes are repeated by new team members

When Should RCA Be Performed?

It is not practical to perform RCA for every error. The RCA process should be initiated in the following situations:

Critical Production Incidents

  • Service outage or loss of user access

  • Data loss or data inconsistency

  • Errors in financial transactions

  • SLA violation

Recurring Defects

  • Errors that appear multiple times in the same module or component

  • Bugs that are closed and reopened

  • Similar issues manifesting with different symptoms

Security Breaches

  • Identified security vulnerabilities

  • Authorization or authentication errors

  • Data leakage or unauthorized access

High-Impact Customer Complaints

  • Same feedback from multiple customers

  • Functional errors with high business impact

Critical Post-Release Issues

  • Unexpected behaviors emerging after deployment

  • Situations requiring rollback

When Is RCA Not Required?

RCA is not mandatory in every situation. Initiating a detailed analysis process in the following scenarios may create unnecessary effort:

  • One-time, low-impact errors: Minor bugs that affect an isolated user and do not recur

  • Cases with obvious causes: If the root cause is clearly visible (e.g., typo, missing null check), a simple fix is sufficient

  • Configuration errors: Environment-specific, easily correctable setting deficiencies

  • Temporary third-party issues: Momentary outages originating from external services and beyond control

In these cases, the standard bug fix process is sufficient. However, if such errors become frequent, it should be evaluated whether a pattern is forming.

Benefits of RCA

A regularly and correctly applied RCA process provides the following benefits:

Quality Improvement

  • Prevention of recurring errors

  • Targeted expansion of test coverage

  • Increased code quality

Cost Optimization

  • Reduced error correction cost (early detection, permanent solution)

  • Prevention of repeated effort

  • Decreased number of production incidents

Process Improvement

  • Identification and strengthening of weak points

  • Maturation of code review, testing, and deployment processes

  • Identification of automation opportunities

Team Development

  • Establishment of a learning culture

  • Increased knowledge sharing

  • Development of problem-solving competency

RCA and Continuous Improvement

RCA should be part of the continuous improvement cycle, not an isolated activity.

Problem Detection → RCA → Root Cause → Action → Implementation → Verification → Monitoring

The outputs feed into:

  • Process Updates

  • Test Strategy Revision

  • Automation Development

RCA in Agile and DevOps processes:

  • RCA outputs are evaluated in sprint retrospectives

  • Incidents are analyzed in post-mortem meetings

  • Preventive controls are added to CI/CD pipelines

  • Monitoring and alerting strategies are updated

RCA outputs should be added to the backlog and improvement actions should be tracked.