You just did a 5 why lol. Interestingly enough, for the plant it took you a while to arrive at the fact that the seed is the true cause of all those plants grow

You just did a 5 why lol. Interestingly enough, for the plant it took you a while to arrive at the fact that the seed is the true cause of all those plants growing where you don't want them. Next you'd ask why there were those seeds in the field in the first place, and you might realize they're being blown from some other field by the wind. Now you know what to address. That said, you're right,maybe there are many sources of the seed coming to the field, and in a 5 why you can recognize that, but target the biggest bang for your buck first. And in your other example: > Because the sales targets for the enterprise are unrealistic" > "Why?" > "Because the Board of Directors can't attract investors with reasonable sales targets" > "Why?" > "Because investors are only interested in a company scaling at a certain rate" > "Why?" > "Because investors are greedy" You're just not asking the correct question. Yes "the sales targets for the enterprise are unrealistic", but why does that result in the issue that happened? You would want to come out of it with, even when the sales target are unrealistic, our processes are resiliant to the issue that just occurred. So now ask the Why's that take you to this answer.