It is no secret that external audits are under unprecedented levels of scrutiny these days. With that in mind, it's a good idea to turn to root cause analysis (RCA) for improving audit quality. Also, RCA can help identify and nurture positive outcomes and aspects identified in individual audit engagements or across various types of audit engagements. This is true for both internal and external audits. Auditors can use RCA to identify various issues, including performance effectiveness, governance risk, and control environment problems. Such insights can lead to improvements that affect the long-term effectiveness and performance of the organization. This short course will give a basic overview of some common techniques used in root cause analysis. This overview course may be appropriate for professionals at all organizational levels.