I think root cause analysis is perfectly capable of scaling to the type of system that we're talking about here. It just means you need to iterate and backtrack

I think root cause analysis is perfectly capable of scaling to the type of system that we're talking about here. It just means you need to iterate and backtrack. Maybe consider something like fault tree analysis or whatever, but tailored for your system. Yeah, we get it, complex systems fail due to multiple failure points. So iterate your root cause analysis until you find multiple failure points. The entire point of root cause analysis is to stop from mitigating the wrong things without thinking. Where you mitigate is purely a business value decision. Sometimes mitigating at a higher level (either by stopping your root cause analysis early, or by deciding that mitigating at a lower level is not possible or desirable) is the way to go. Case in point, the root cause of my car (I live in Canada) rusting out early is cause we salt the shit of our roads every winter and that my car is made of corrodable materials. I mitigate that by applying undercoating that I have to reapply, instead of addressing the root cause (I live in a terrible climate, and my car is made of metal). Having the causal tree of events is only useful when paired with the set of possible solutions.