According to the SAFe DevOps Practitioner 6.0 study guide1, root cause analysis is a technique that

helps identify and eliminate the underlying causes of problems or defects in the Solution. Root cause

analysis can be used to address impediments to continuous delivery by finding and fixing the root

causes of issues such as delays, rework, waste, and errors. Root cause analysis can be performed

during various phases of the PI, such as during the Iteration Retrospective, during the management

review and problem-solving portion of PI Planning, or during Inspect & Adapt (I&A). However, the

most effective time to use root cause analysis is during I&A, which is a significant event held at the

end of each PI, where the current state of the Solution is demonstrated and evaluated. Teams then

reflect and identify improvement backlog items via a structured problem-solving workshop. The

result is a set of improvement backlog items that go into the ART Backlog for the next PI Planning

event. Therefore, root cause analysis can help teams address impediments to continuous delivery by

improving their performance and quality in the next PI.