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Five Whys

TTool · Five Whys

By , Editor · · What’s Next

The same problem has come back. You patched it last time. It's a different shape now but underneath it's the same thing.

Five Whys is Toyota's root cause technique. You take the problem in front of you, ask why it happened, then ask why again of that answer, and keep going until you reach something you can act on. Five is a guideline; some problems need three iterations, some need seven. The discipline is in the answers — each one has to be a verifiable fact, not a guess about motive.

A descending chain starting from "the product shipped late" and stepping through repeated "why?" prompts to numbered answers, with a marker for "the standard stopping point - keep going", ending at 05 "structural cause: the workflow doesn't reserve capacity for quality".
Method visual — Five Whys
A move inside a Playbook

“The dashboard says we're fine but I don't believe it.”

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