Hi murray-t

Its hard there are a huge number of both technical Root Cause Analysis type courses and techniques such as Taproot , ICAM Kelvin Topset , Risk Based Investigations etc I have done all of them ( due to differing client and employer requirements) and they are all based around a similiar methodology and process. These tend to be pretty expensive and set up so a 1 day is participating and 3-5 days is leading etc so can be prohibitive.

If it is a general incident investigators course that you fancy doing , the IOSH incident investigation course is good as it covers the general requirements , the root cause aspect and also some of the legal context of evidence gathering if god forbid something ended up in front of the Judge. A number of previous colleagues did the IOSH one and found it to be excellent.

I believe that nearly all will provide a certificate to demonstrate attendence , the competence aspect is another discussion!!

Hi Murray,

I have done three different types of A&I courses
Kelvin Top Set
CRM
TapRoot
All of these are good in their own way but I would say that TapRoot is the best due to the software that is provided. Thisis very helpful for establishing Root Causes it can alos be used for auditing etc.

I do beleive you can still download a trial version of this software from the TapRoot website but you really need to do the course to fully understand how to use it.

Hi Murray

I also have done the TapRoot, CRM & Topset systems and by far find the Topset system to be the best one. To me it follows a more logical sequence in determining a root cause and makes use of the 5 Whys technique.

Ultimately they all have their strengths and weaknesses and 2 seperate people investigating the same incident can often come up with different root causes but the quality of the investigation is often far higher and certainly in my industry (not all), the client often insist that you have a recognised incident investigation system in place before you can even tendor for work.

Thanks for all your thoughts and recommendations, just started a new position so I'll see if I can persuade my new employer to put me on one.

Murray

I did TapRooT but found it to be quite compartmentalised which goes against the free thinking approach that I tend to favour. The methodology is quite good but the way that the accident root cause had to meet one or more of the criteria allocated by TapRooT I did not enjoy, on the one accident I used this for it was like putting a square peg in a round hole and squashing it until it did fit regardless of practicality.

I am not a fan of "designed" accident investigations as you might have noticed and prefer to explore the Sherlock Holmes approach of "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth".