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Project Management & Agile · Foundational

Five Whys

Root cause technique of asking 'why' repeatedly, typically about five times, to move from symptom to underlying cause.

Definition

Developed at Toyota by Sakichi Toyoda; it is simple but can stop at shallow causes if not supported by data.

Example

Why was the release late? Testing ran over. Why? Environment unavailable. Why? ... until a process cause is found.

Exam tip

A simple root cause tool often paired with fishbone.

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