The 5 Whys Method - All Posts - Ze'ev Ronen - Business Excellence

The current series of articles focuses on the important KPIs every business must monitor. I have written articles regarding this very important issue over the past few years. However, the current series presents KPIs in a concise form, easily expanded, when required.

In this part I mean to focus with more detail on each method, and see the differences between the levels of familiarity with the method and its use, and the success it generated. As you'll see, there are methods which are widely used but fail to generate success, while contrastingly there are methods which are rarely used, but the majority of managers who've used them report success.

We may often be faced with a specific problem, a breakdown. The breakdown may be in production, in purchasing, in sales or in any other realm. Our first goal is to resolve the problem: to find the reason, to come up with a solution and to carry on.

If a motor burns out because it is old, and it is ten years old, and if our objective is to prevent breakdowns, then we must replace all the motors approaching or exceeding this age. In order to attain the root cause for a breakdown, we can use what is known as the "fishbone" technique, or the 5 Whys.