Draft an Incident Root Cause Analysis

What You'll Get

A structured root cause analysis for an operational incident, with contributing factors, control failures, and recommended corrective actions — in the format needed for regulatory reporting or audit committees.

The Prompt

Write a root cause analysis for this operational incident: [describe: what happened, when, systems/processes involved, financial or customer impact]. Use the 5 Whys methodology. Include: immediate cause, contributing factors, root cause, control failures, corrective actions with owners and target dates.

Tips

Give the AI the timeline and facts — the more specific, the better the RCA. Review the control failures section carefully before sharing externally; the AI will identify obvious gaps, but you know which controls actually exist in your organization.