5 Whys

Home » Improve » Improvement System Toolkit » 5 Whys

Data Gathering and Evidence and '5 Whys'

Gathering data and evidence about a problem you want to solve is vital to any attempt to improve performance or quality, and is also needed to assess the impact of an improvement.

How Do Data Gathering and the '5 Whys' Help?

When gathering data you learn about the area you are aiming to improve and gain a greater understanding of the problem. Data can help to assess if you have a problem but it won’t necessarily explain why the problem exists.

The idea of using '5 Whys' is to simply ask why something is done as it is. To the response another why is asked. This continues until you drill down to an understanding the basis for an action or process.

Easy to complete but can give a great deal of information.

The data gathered can be reviewed and shared and will help to:

Identify the problem.
Create a set of data as part of defining the problem and asking why.
Think about the problem differently
Clarify what the real problem is and what is a target for improvement.
Indicate what is causing the problem. This is useful in targeting an area for improvement.

How You Might Use This Tool/ Method

5 Whys is great to use in any situation in day-to-day work life where you need to understand more about a process/problem/action.

How to complete the 5 Whys

Write down the specific problem/issue.
Writing the issue helps you define the problem and describe it completely.
It also helps you or teams to focus on the same problem.
Ask Why the problem happens or Why did a process fail and write the answer down below the problem.
If the answer you just provided doesn't identify the root cause of the problem that you initially wrote down, ask Why again and write that answer down.
If the second answer still doesn't identify the root cause of the problem, ask Why again and write that answer down.
Continue asking Why until the team is in agreement that the problem's root cause is identified. This may take fewer or more times than five Whys.

A key phrase to keep in mind in any 5 Why exercise is "people do not fail, processes do".

Moving into 'fix-it' mode too quickly might mean dealing with symptoms but leaving the problem unresolved, so use the 5 Whys to ensure that the cause of the problem is being addressed.

If you don't ask the right questions, you don't get the right answers. A question asked in the right way often points to its own answer.

Templates