Why- Why Analysis Techniques…!
For every impact there is always a cause.
when a problem occurs, the temptation to blame others or not analysing the reality starts. In which the root cause of problems often lies closer to home.
The why why analysis is vastly used and can result in better root cause analysis when applied by a team. The five basic steps to apply why why analysis technique are:
- Make a team and right down the problem statement. After this decide whether additional individuals are needed to resolve the problem or not.
- Ask the first “why” to the team: why is this or that problem happened? There will probably be two or three sensible answers. Right down these all on a whiteboard, or use index cards taped to a wall.
- Ask Three more successive why’s, repeating the process for every statement on the white- board, or index cards. after each answer near its parent, Follow up on all possible answers leading to the causes.
- Among the several or so answers to the last asked “why” look for systemic causes of the problem. Discuss these identified answers and decide the countermeasure on the most likely systemic cause to the problem.
- After settling on the most suitable and appropriate root cause of the problem and obtaining confirmation of the logic behind the analysis of the same problem, develop an appropriate corrective and preventive actions to remove the identified root cause from the system. Prior to resolution towards each cause.
This is the Sheet that can be used to analyse each why to the cause done to the problem happened.
When we should use a 5 Whys Analysis
You can use 5 Whys for troubleshooting the occurred issue, quality improvement in a process, and problem solving of a scenario occurred in the line, but it is most effective when used to resolve simple or moderately difficult problems or sporadic occurred problems.
It may not be fruitful if you need to tackle a Chronic or critical problem which has multiple root causes. This is because 5 Whys can lead you to a single thread of the problem solving, or a limited number of threads, in fact, there could be multiple causes to a problem.
This 5 why analysis is a simple technique which can often take you to a quickly root cause of a problem. So, whenever a process isn’t working properly or optimally, you must give it a try before you try on a more in-depth approach.
Know When to Stop on 5 why analysis ?
When You’ll know that you’ve arrived on the root cause of the problem after asking chain of “why’s” and that produces no more useful replies, and you cannot go further. An satisfactory and appropriate counter-measure or process change should then become visible.
