What recurring incidents tell an organization

Mark Galley
President & Root Cause Analysis Facilitator

Every recurring problem is evidence that the way the organization addressed that problem was not effective. That makes a recurring incident more than another event to investigate. It is also an opportunity to examine the effectiveness of the organization’s problem-solving approach. What did the earlier investigation find? What did it miss? Why didn’t the solutions prevent the problem from recurring?

Tracking Incidents Is NOT Investigating Incidents

When the same type of incident happens more than once, it is natural to group the events together. Companies organize recurring incidents into categories such as equipment failures, procedure not followed, production loss, spills and human errors. Classifying incidents provides different ways to slice the data and allows organizations to identify trends over time.

Tracking incidents is useful, but it has a different purpose from investigation. Tracking looks across a population of incidents. Investigation looks closely at one specific event to understand exactly what happened, why it happened, and ultimately what specific solutions (corrective actions, controls) can be put in place to prevent similar incidents from occurring.

The distinction matters because categories (like date, location, equipment type) can help you find patterns within different incidents, but it doesn’t explain why an incident occurred. Prevention depends on understanding specific causes within the event, not just knowing which bucket it fits into.

"Tracking looks across a population of incidents. Investigation looks closely at one specific event."

The Opportunity Was in the First Incident

Here’s a regular situation we encounter: the organization has tracked 15 similar incidents over the past year. It’s considered a systemic problem.

But remember that there was one incident at the start of the trend. It was investigated and corrective actions were put into place. And then it happened 14 more times. Looking back at that first incident uncovers details that were available but overlooked: causal paths that were not fully explored, evidence that was not collected and, ultimately, solutions that were missed that could have changed the other 14.

When Recurring Problems Become Normal

Recurring issues can gradually become “normal.” They’re the weeds that keep growing back. Each occurrence seems like a mere nuisance, but the cumulative cost and future risk continue to grow.

The goal is not to get better at tracking recurring problems. It is to learn enough from each incident to prevent the next one. When the same problem keeps coming back, the recurrence itself is a reason to re-examine what the original investigation found, what it missed and whether the solutions addressed the causes of the incident.