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Whenever I hear of the 5 Whys method, the first thing that I think of is... Why 5? (no pun intended considering this thread is about wifi... oh dear). But ser

• anthonyb 17y ago
  It's a rule of thumb: you typically need >= 5 whys to get down to a reasonably useful response. From the article, you could stop at pretty much any point in the whole 'why does our video suck' chain: "One problem in Austin was that we couldn't switch video fast enough. Why? Because we were using a cheap switch purchased at an office superstore." At that point you could've said "Ok, let's not buy crappy switches in future", but you would have missed the better solution (don't do things half-assed at the last minute)
  • BerislavLopac 17y ago
    Actually, the Five Whys isn't about finding a solution, it is about finding the core problem. I don't think that Joel's example is a good one, because after four true layers of problems it abruptly jumps to a solution, with absolutely no reasoning why this particular solution would be the best one, while leaving deeper issues just to keep the number of Whys at five. The correct Five Whys process would continue past five questions, and end in something like "because the team is not prepared" or even "the team doesn't have enough experience with organizing events"; something that could be solved by, among others, preparing a checklist.