Incident Investigation and Root Cause Analysis

Incident Investigation and Root Cause Analysis is a five-day practical course delivered by Mars Training Centre UK across Europe, the Gulf and Asia — for HSE professionals, line managers and supervisors who lead investigations into workplace incidents, near misses and high-potential events.

Most workplace investigations stop at the immediate cause and recommend more training. The same incidents then recur, usually within twelve months, sometimes more severely. Credible investigation goes past the immediate cause to the underlying organisational and management-system factors that allowed the event to happen at all. That is the discipline this course is built around: finding the real causes, writing recommendations that actually stop the recurrence, and producing a report senior leaders can act on without re-investigating it themselves.

Across five focused days you apply structured investigation techniques to realistic case material drawn from energy, construction, manufacturing and public-sector settings. You practise interviewing, evidence handling, causal-tree analysis and recommendation writing, and leave with a personal investigation toolkit you can put to work the following Monday.

What You Will Learn

• Explain the purpose of incident investigation and why most investigations stop too early.
• Plan and lead a structured incident investigation, from initial response to closure.
• Secure, gather and preserve physical, documentary and digital evidence.
• Conduct investigative interviews using cognitive-interview principles.
• Apply structured causal-analysis techniques including the five whys, fishbone and causal tree.
• Distinguish immediate, underlying and root causes — and root causes from contributory factors.
• Apply the principles of just culture to investigation conclusions.
• Write recommendations that target management-system causes, not just front-line behaviour.
• Produce an investigation report that senior management can use without rework.
• Build investigation learnings into the organisation's wider HSE system.

How You Will Benefit

You will leave with a practical investigation toolkit, a structured method you can apply to any incident, and a Mars Certificate of Completion.

Your organisation will gain a more disciplined investigation process, better recommendations that actually reduce recurrence, more credible reporting to leadership and regulators, and a deeper bench of competent investigators.

Who This Programme Is For

The course is designed for HSE managers, coordinators and advisers; safety officers and supervisors; operations supervisors, line managers and site managers; quality, risk and compliance professionals with investigation responsibilities; maintenance and engineering managers; project managers in construction and engineering; and internal auditors with HSE coverage. The seniority floor is supervisor or HSE adviser level and above.

The week frames why investigations matter and why most disappoint, moves into investigation planning, evidence and scene management in the first 48 hours, dedicates a full day to investigative interviewing, then turns evidence into causal analysis and recommendations, closing with report writing, organisational learning and a personal action plan.