From the course: Problem-Solving Techniques
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Ask the five whys
From the course: Problem-Solving Techniques
Ask the five whys
- Sometimes the cause of a problem might have an even deeper cause and it's necessary to track them right down to the root. For doing this, there's a great technique known as the five why's. The idea is that you ask why, maybe up to five times, certainly more than once until you get right down to the start of the problem. For example, the phone number is wrong in the internal directory. Phone number wrong. You could just put it right. But first, why is it wrong? Because Fred typed it in there wrong. Why did Fred type it wrong? Because Fred was a temporary intern who maybe didn't care or perhaps wasn't trained. Why was someone like Fred doing this job? Why wasn't Fred trained? Why didn't someone check what Fred was doing? Because there isn't a proper quality system for looking after interns. No quality system. Why isn't there a quality system? You could see how asking why a few times begins to uncover a whole…
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