Five Whys is a technique used to explore the cause-and-effect relationships underlying a particular problem. Each "Why?" answer should be the basis for the next question. "Five" was derived arbitrarily as the number of times to ask questions to arrive at the root cause, but it is possible to identify a root cause with fewer or greater than five questions.
The last answer should point to a process failure or defect. This is one of the most important aspects of the "5 Whys" approach - the real root cause should point toward a process that is not working well or does not exist.
A key phrase to remember in any Five Whys exercise is "People do not fail, processes do."
Steps:
- Create aproblem statement.
- Then begin asking, "Why?" (Why did this happen?)
- Continue asking, "Why?" (Recall that each successive question should be based on the resulting answer from the prior question...) until the root cause has been identified.
- State the root cause.
