why, why, why, why, why
The root cause isn’t what broke; it’s why it broke.
We can usually understand what went wrong relatively easily, but understanding why it went wrong requires a deeper look.
It doesn’t have to be a single thing. Like ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events’ - it can be a journey of trials, tribulations, and questionable decisions.
For example, let’s analyse why my door didn’t open:
why? the hinge was incorrect for the door
why? the incorrect hinge was selected from the hardware store
why? this writer didn’t understand the words on the packaging
why? she didn’t pay attention in 1998 Woodworking class
why? she preferred drawing cartoons in her school books
why? because she was more interested in design than practical work
By asking why repeatedly, we find more valuable information about why something broke. There is value in the stubbornness of not accepting the first explanation.
~ Establish the fact ~ Ask why ~ Investigate the answer ~ Ask why again ~
However, there is a danger of going too far down the rabbit hole.
For me, too far is when the answer wouldn’t change the outcome.
Identifying the why doesn’t always give us the fix. It’s not practical for me to jump in a time machine to 1998 and start paying attention.
Would knowing I favoured design over practical work in 1998 stop a door from breaking in 2026?
Answer: Probably not
Would understanding that I don't understand the technical language on a packet of hinges help me make a better decision next time?
Answer: Possibly
In fact, in the above scenario, the fix enters at the second point, and the treatment would be to go buy the correct hinge.
So when do we know when to stop?
The idea of the Five Whys is working out (with evidence) the solution that will or could prevent future occurrences. The whys before the last why could be contributing factors or other root causes; the last relevant why is the root cause, the one where the evidence supports the preventable action.
This could be after five whys.
This could be after more.
When we find ourselves analysing the interests of a 14-year-old for a broken door on the other side of the world 28 years later, we've probably gone far enough.
We’re not looking for every reason why something happened; we are looking for the earliest moment that could have prevented it.
So in practice…
Tomorrow, when you’re faced with a service-related complaint (as many seem to be), the first explanation might be ‘the agent needed to find the answer’… but if we ask why, we might find:
~ Why did the agent need to look for the answer? It wasn’t easy to find in the knowledge hub
~ Why wasn’t it easy to find the knowledge hub? The indexing wasn’t clear
~ Why wasn’t the indexing clear? Because the answer crossed over multiple topics
~ What do we do with multiple topic questions? Link in all applicable areas
~ Why wasn’t this one linked in the alleged obvious area? Because no one had suggested it
~ Why had no one suggested it? Because it wasn’t clear whose responsibility it was
And that’s where it gets interesting - we started with agent knowledge being the cause of the complaint, but by asking why, we have revealed it was the process around the agent that had failed.
