Ask One Why, Not 5-Whys

For Your Next Root Cause Analysis

If you are about to start a root cause analysis using 5-Whys, I have a suggestion …

Ask Yourself One Why First

And what should that one why question be? Ask yourself, “Why am I using 5-Whys?”

Two Positive Reasons Why

Here are two reasons why 5-Whys might be appealing.

First, it is easy. Just ask “Why?” five times and you’re done. Just like this…

Oh, I forgot about “problem definition.” That’s a little more complicated. And there are a few more things they need to learn.

Of course, some experts say that you may need to ask why more than five times. And you may have to figure out if there is more than one problem to ask why about. And each of those would have to include five or more whys for each problem.

The most whys I’ve ever seen asked were over 50.

So, 5-Whys might get complicated.

Second, everyone knows how to ask “Why?” Even a three-year-old can ask why. But sometimes they don’t know when to stop asking why.

So, maybe you just ask why until someone says OK.

Why Not Use 5-Whys

We’ve written about the problems with 5-Whys many times. So, we will just list several major reasons here.

I Already Know the Answer

People often use 5-Whys because they already know the answer. All they have to do is find five whys to ask that lead to the answer they already know.

On a fundamental basis, this is jumping to conclusionms. The PhD words for this is “Confirmation Bias.” Read more about the problems with confirmation bias HERE.

Favorite-Cause-Itis

This 5-Why problem is similar to jumping to conclusions. It is common to all cause-and-effect system (of which 5-Whys is one). People with experience tend to find their favorite root causes.

For example. I know a human factors expert whose specialty is fatigue and fatigue caused errors. Guess what he is likely to find when doing an investigation? Fatigue caused errors.

I guess that wouldn’t be a problem if all incidents were caused by fatigue. But you may wonder how many causes are overlooks because someone using 5-Whys found their favorite cause without looking for other possibilities.

Human Error and Blame

Most people using 5-Whys have never had any human factors training. That means that they tend to stop at human error as a root cause rather than identifying the cause or causes of the human error.

When human error is the root cause the corrective action often turns to discipline. This may start by counseling the operator to be more careful next time. If that doesn’t work, maybe the person should be fired?

Thus, finding human error as the root cause can lead to blame.

And blame leads to mystery incidents (nobody knows anything about how the incident happened). And that means you won’t have answers to your five why questions in the future investigations.

Can’t Go Beyond Your Current Knowledge

Cause-and-effect (which 5-Whys is one type) rests on the assumption that someone who observes an effect knows that cause because of their experience. They have seen that cause-and-effect pairing before.

But what if they haven’t seen that cause before. Or, what if there are multiple potential causes for an effect and the investigator using 5-Whys only knows one of them?

A common problem with 5-Whys is that asking why based on your experience can only lead you to answers you already know. The investigator can’t discover the causes of problems that are beyond their experience.

Again this is especially troublesome for investigators without years of human factors training.

Different Teams – Different Results

If you assign two different teams to investigate an incident, and both teams use 5-Whys, the result is that the two teams answers will be different. Different root causes and different corrective actions.

Are they both right? That’s doubtful. Do they both have some of the answer? Maybe.

Could they both be wrong? Perhaps.

We don’t know because each teams answers are based on their experience and their assumptions.

And that is a problem.

Finding a Solution

So, if asking one why about 5-Whys leads you to doubts about 5-Whys’ effectiveness, why not try a system for root cause analysis that:

• Is based on advanced human factors and equipment reliability best practices.
• Has been proven effective by leading companies around-the-world.
• Has guaranteed training.
• Has patented, award winning software.
• Is continuously improved.
• Passes on improvements and best practices to their users in a Summit every 18 months.

What system meets these goals? The TapRooT® Root Cause Analysis System.

Find our more about the TapRooT® RCA System HERE.

Learn more about the TapRooT® Software HERE.

And learn more about the world-class, guaranteed TapRooT® Training HERE.

Finally, see the upcoming dates and locations for public TapRooT® Training HERE.