The Root Cause and the Route

Find the route that led to the root cause and eliminate it.

There can be no argument that addressing the root cause of a problem is a far better approach than merely addressing the symptoms or impacts of the problem.  However, eliminating the specific root cause may not be enough.  There could be other similar problems that will also appear at some point in the future.  Examining the route that the fundamental problem took can help uncover these similar defects.