**Understanding the real problem, iteratively.** Popularized by the Toyota company, 5 Why Analysis is a root-cause finding, problem-solving technique. The process is what it sounds like. When a problem occurs, ask why it occurred. Look at the reasons given. Ask why those things happened. Ask again. Ask yet another time. It is diving **deep** to the core of the problem. It's not treating the symptoms, it's making the causes known, so that _they_ may be treated. Asking Why 5 times is what gets you from _"I was late because I lost track of time"_ to _"I was late because this event wasn't important enough to make me stop thinking about an argument I had with my spouse"_. > If I had an hour to solve a problem I'd spend 55 minutes defining the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions. - Albert Einstein 5 Why analysis isn't limited to applications in the world of manufacturing systems and business - the practice has great potential for helping you understand yourself. **** # More ## Source - [[The Toyota Way]] - [[Grit (book)]] ## Related - [[5 Why to Your Values]] - [[Continuously Solve Problems]]