Early this year, I learned about the Five Whys technique while reading Lean Startup by Eric Ries. I was fascinated by some of the concepts he mentions, and I’m a better Product Manager after reading this book. You might be asking, how should I use this technique? Do I just need to ask why? It’s easy. This is what a child usually asks over and over, driving their parents crazy. I’d say, it can be more than that. 

The technique was originally developed by Sakichi Toyoda and was used within the Toyota Motor Corporation during the evolution of its manufacturing methodologies. The architect of the Toyota Production System, Taiichi Ohno (the father of Kanban, check here and here ❤), described the 5 Whys method as “the basis of Toyota’s scientific approach by repeating why five times to find the nature of the problem, as well as its solution, becomes clear.” 

How to complete the 5 Whys

• You should write a description of the problem. I’m a strong believer of the power of writing. Writing helps to organize your thinking, formalize the problem, ensure the entire team is on the same page, and also help to describe it with a better sense of details;
• Then you should ask Why the problem happens 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 wrote down in Step 1, ask Why again and write that answer down;
• In the beginning, you usually won’t find the root cause of the problem so loop back to Step 3 until the team agrees that the problem’s root cause has been identified.

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