The practice of the 5 Whys is deployed when a problem arises and a team wants to find and fix, not just the symptom, but the root cause of the issue. A problem statement is created and then the team simply asks, “Why,” until the root cause is revealed. The actual number of “whys” needed varies, but five seems to be about right. Here’s a simple example:
The customer is unhappy.
Now the team knows why the customer is unhappy and exactly how to prevent the same problem from happening in the future.
When deploying the 5 Whys, keep in mind that you are looking for flawed processes, not people. The idea is not to place blame, it is rather to uncover problems with processes, procedures or standard work. In our example, Alice did not fail the customer, a support coverage oversight did.
The 5 Whys technique is an effective way to sort through a wide range of problems. Keep in mind that some problems have more than one root cause, so for complex issues, it may need to be repeated by asking several different starting “why” questions. These three little letters could become one of your most potent problem solving tools.