
“Ask 'why' five times about every matter” - support_ribbons
http://www.toyota-global.com/company/toyota_traditions/quality/mar_apr_2006.html
======
iaskwhy
I don't force it 5x but asking why was the best lesson I learnt working with
users/clients as people tend to talk about solutions and not the problems.
That's also where my nickname comes from.

~~~
Joeri
Feature requests are really prone to this. Customers will only ask for
features they can imagine, not the ones that really solve their problem. A
significant chunk of the time the customer is better served by a different
feature that takes less work.

This is why i don't like tender-based software projects. The tender already
describes the features needed, and they must be built even if they are
suboptimal for the problem domain.

~~~
csours
One of our Business Partners suggested a pop up box with Yes No Cancel, and
then went on to describe the behaviors of each button. Absolutely no
imagination. It's like people have been broken by years of limited choices.

~~~
sopooneo
With some types of people, I've just stopped trying to get them to back up and
describe the underlying pain point they are trying to relieve. Because as far
as I can tell, some people just _can not do that_. Instead, I let them
describe their implementation and listen/ask/listen/ask/listen to understand
what they're actually trying to fix.

And then once we have the _problem_ figured out, we as a dev/design team go
back and work forward again to design a proposed solution. And then we present
that. Often enough, they're happy to accept it. The trick is that some
egomaniacs just get fixated on their own proposed solution, and won't let go.
And then you just give them their Homermobile: [http://www.wired.com/wp-
content/uploads/2014/06/the-homer-in...](http://www.wired.com/wp-
content/uploads/2014/06/the-homer-inline4.jpg)

------
Piskvorrr
Why is there no filter on the intake? It was proposed, but declined by
management as "too costly".

Why is it too costly? Because cutting visible costs is _perceived_ as saving
money and therefore Good, whereas prevention and maintenance are perceived as
unnecessary, because Bad Stuff Just Happens Regardless.

Why? Because people suck at statistics ("if we can't eliminate a risk
altogether, there's no point in trying, let's just forever keep fixing the
fallout") _and_ because Fixing Broken Stuff Is Someone Else's Budget, Let's
Pass The Buck.

(Or at least, that's the way things tend to turn out when you decide to go
beyond the immediate cause-and-effect)

~~~
jerf
Just as "Five" is really just a rule of thumb as pointed out by other people,
"Why" is really just a rule of thumb too. "What can we do to prevent the
underlying problem?" just isn't as catchy, but it's closer to what you should
be really asking.

"People suck at statistics" is not an answer to that question. "Train people"
is _an_ answer, but only _an_ answer. You've also got "something to make us
more robust to bad statistics" and, no sarcasm, "trust the statistics less in
the future", and several other such things. Another one I'd consider, for
instance, is that if some set of statistics is truly bringing negative value
to the process, stop collecting them.

Also, "we've got fundamental management issues" can be a valid answer. If
you're in an engineering environment but your management isn't able to work
that way, try to do something about it. In the end, it is not out of the
question for the process to produce "I need a different job", though I think
one has a professional obligation to at least _try_ to fix the underlying
problems first.

This is a process in which neither blind idealism nor blind cynicism is the
road to success. If you're just getting cynical answers, that's not a
reflection of the process, that's a reflection of your cynicism being too
strong. Tone it down. Don't get rid of it. I would never suggest getting rid
of it. But tone it down. And get more specific than "people generally suck" or
anything that is simply a variant on that.

~~~
Piskvorrr
Of course it's not an answer - just asking "why" gets you turtles all the way
down, and "stop after five steps" may halt you with a stack that's too
shallow; as you say, it's a rule of thumb.

And now we're finally getting somewhere :) Cynicism can be a tool, a
_catalyst_ \- "these are all the things that are unfixable, because
Eeeeverything Sucks" is a good set for asking "are they all, really? Are there
those that are only hard to fix, and which of them are worth fixing?" As you
say, it's rare that there's a single, clear-cut answer for an issue,
especially when it's not purely technical one.

I didn't intend my reply as a rant, and surely didn't intend it to mean
"everything is broken, get out of here" as a solution.

~~~
jerf
To some extent I write to remind myself... I too tend towards the excessive
cynicism rather than the insufficient. "All have sinned and fallen short of
the glory of Knuth" may be a true statement, but it does tend to lead to fewer
actionable ideas.

------
waxenfigurine
There seems to be some confusion/mis-interpretation about the 5 part.

This is called 五回のなぜ in Japanese ("Go-kai no naze," or Why Five Times) and
refers to root cause analysis. Of course the number of times the process need
be repeated until the root cause is identified is variable. Five in this case
is merely a jingly mnemonic, as Japanese people are so fond of.

~~~
mongeone
Could it be a play on the word 誤解 [1]. As in '誤解のなぜ’.

[1][http://eow.alc.co.jp/search?q=%E8%AA%A4%E8%A7%A3&ref=sa](http://eow.alc.co.jp/search?q=%E8%AA%A4%E8%A7%A3&ref=sa)

~~~
Agentlien
Could you explain this play on words for someone who doesn't know Japanese?

~~~
nihonde
I'm guessing but 誤解 => 'go kai', which means 'misunderstanding'. That sounds
like 五回 => 'go kai', which means five times.

In Japanese, you often encounter words/phrases that sound more or less the
same but are written differently.

------
awinter-py
I know a certain 3 year-old who uses a similar trick to collect knowledge
about the world. Not being sarcastic here; orgs can learn a lot from young
children about how to acquire new skills and make decisions in the face of
uncertainty.

Before they can even walk infants learn to judge whether they're about to
crawl off a cliff -- a skill the yahoo board (for example) could have really
used.

~~~
Bartweiss
It's an excellent technique for learning unfamiliar domains (which is almost
everything, for a 3 year old). If you don't have a strong framework to fit new
data into, ask "why?" a bunch of times and people will hand you relevant
pieces of that framework.

------
stevewillows
I survived several years in a Six Sigma organization. The Five Whys was one of
my favorite 'tools' despite the 'Black Belts' dragging the process out much
longer than required.

I've never seen a methodology burn through more easel pads.

~~~
erac1e
Why are the five whys one of your favorite tools?

~~~
Angostura
Why do you want to know?

~~~
erac1e
Why do you want to know why I want want to know?

------
hoodoof
"Why do vehicle manufacturers lie about emissions?"

"Why do vehicle manufacturers lie about emissions?"

"Why do vehicle manufacturers lie about emissions?"

"Why do vehicle manufacturers lie about emissions?"

"Why do vehicle manufacturers lie about emissions?"

~~~
ajuc
It's supposed to be

    
    
       why(why(why(why(why(theMatter))));
    

not

    
    
       why(theMatter);
       why(theMatter);
       why(theMatter);
       why(theMatter);
       why(theMatter);

~~~
spyrosg
Careful, enough why()'s and you invariably get nil. This is a pointer your
employer probably doesn't want you to follow.

~~~
ajuc
I usually get "Because BIG BANG".

But good point - you want the why function to write the intermediate answers
somewhere as a side effect.

~~~
mrspeaker
I'd be interested to know why(Because BIG BANG)

------
MrJagil
I preach this whenever i can in regards to social issues. Whenever one of your
friends, or any person, acts in a way that you don't agree with (being rude,
sleeping around etc), be patient and try to think about possible underlying
causes; it's much more fruitful to engage the underlying unhappiness
(carefully) than to react hastily to the immediate situation.

~~~
elthran
Why do you have the assumption that all behaviour that you don't disagree with
has a cause of underlying unhappiness?

Some people enjoy things that other people don't approve of.

~~~
krutulis
And also why do some people enjoy things that other people don't approve of?

~~~
Joeri
And why don't those people approve of those things?

~~~
Piskvorrr
Unlikely that there's a single cause. One possibility is that people's value
systems differ: do you like smoking? Do you like eating bacon? Do you like
sunbathing? For each, there are people that disapprove, or would like you not
to do this, or would even ban you from doing so (I could pick more
controversial examples, but these are sufficient). Conflict clearly exists -
but a way of resolution is not clear at all.

------
KhalilK
Reminds me of Feynman's answer[0] when asked about magnets.

0.[http://youtu.be/MO0r930Sn_8](http://youtu.be/MO0r930Sn_8)

~~~
satysin
I love Feynman. He was an incredible teacher but this video has always annoyed
me a little. The interviewer asked a pretty clear question (explain why
magnets repel or attract depending on how you align them) but Feynman goes on
a bit of a rant about how the guy won't understand if he explains things as he
(Feynman) understands it and that he (Feynman) doesn't know how to explain it
to him (interview) in ways he would understand.

For someone as excellent at sharing knowledge it seems like Feynman just
didn't want to do the interview any longer. He sounds and acts a little pissed
off with the question.

~~~
kamaal
Feynman tries to explain the absurdity of trying to ask questions which if
divided down to their most simplistic forms can't give binary 'yes' or 'no'
answers.

The issue with the 'why' questions is at the bottom most place in the the
'why' stack you need to have an axiom/postulation or at least a plain
assumption, without which you can't explain the subsequent 'why' or 'how'
questions.

Now this a classic trick in trying to prove science as useless and propel
pseudo science concepts among crackpots.

~~~
satysin
Yeah I understand Feynman's point it is just if you watch the whole series of
questions he has no problem answering other questions.

A perfectly acceptable answer from Feynman would have been to just explain
magnetic force in a basic (high school) level.

He could have made his argument about any of the questions the interviewer
asked as pretty much every scientific question will get down to fundamental
physics which will be beyond most people.

------
rileymat2
Sometimes I have multiple solutions to a problem in mind and want to throughly
investigate them, but run into a minor road block when investigating one of
them.

In forums, some of the most annoying threads are people that are trying to
help you "solve your real problem" instead of helping with the specific
question at hand.

~~~
xyzzyz
You know what's even more annoying? People who ask very misguided questions,
because they're obviously trying to solve a wrong problem, and yet insist on
doing things their own way even though it will lead them nowhere. They're much
more common than people who know what they're talking about, and it's usually
easy to tell them apart based on the communication style.

~~~
Bartweiss
More common perhaps, but not always more significant. Stack Overflow is a
messy blend of the two: lots of questions want to do some strange thing, and
it's not always clear why.

The result is that people who don't know better are taught how to do dangerous
things (like messing with the history of shared git repos), while people with
weird special circumstances get second guessed and lectured.

At least online, I absolutely disagree with the idea that it's easy to tell
the two groups apart. Doing so is one of the bigger challenges for lots of
"advice" forums.

~~~
xyzzyz
_while people with weird special circumstances get second guessed and
lectured._

I'd argue that if they cannot make it clear they are in special circumstances
rather than being clueless, then they deserve second guessing and lecturing.
That's what I meant by communication style.

------
ideaoverload
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_Whys](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_Whys)

------
gregpilling
I have read Ohno's book. [http://www.amazon.com/Toyota-Production-System-
Beyond-Large-...](http://www.amazon.com/Toyota-Production-System-Beyond-Large-
Scale/dp/0915299143/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1462802966&sr=8-1&keywords=taichi+ohno)

One thing that stuck out to me was how long everything took to figure out on
the Toyota Production System. Ohno spent decades streamlining processes. The
timeline is in the inside cover of my copy of the book.

Fascinating read, and easier to read than some other "Toyota Production" books
written by academics. Recommend.

~~~
edoceo
This. When folks come to my Startup events I host and ask about Lean I point
to this book. Informative and an easy read.

------
exodust
Keep pressing next on that page to see a few more bite size pieces of Toyota
wisdom. They won't change your life, but for 30 seconds or so you'll associate
Toyota with intelligence and innovation.

------
anotheryou
Why 5x? You should rather check when you reached the point that it will not
happen again.

Probably nobody is assigned to the task of installing filters in new machines
and the next one will fail again...

~~~
PeterisP
The subsequent "layers" of reasons are fundamentally different.

For example, applying this to IT when analyzing the underlying causes of a
particular downtime or security breach, usually, the first 2 layers of "why"
are technical reasons that need to be adressed by the relevant specialists,
the next 2 layers are failures of policy and procedures that need to be
adressed by the managment chain, and around 5th "why" you get to weaknesses in
the organization, company priorities and values which is slow to change but
valuable info anyway.

Beyond that you just get to acknowledgements about how life is not perfect
that is not actionable, but the first 4-5 layers of 'why' generally do lead to
something that can be fixed given proper authority and motivation.

------
ck2
1\. Why is Toyota accelerator-pedal drive-by-wire code a spaghetti mess of
impossible to debug code?

2\. Why still? 3. Why still years later? 4. Why a decade later? 5. Why not fix
it?

[http://www.edn.com/design/automotive/4423428/Toyota-s-
killer...](http://www.edn.com/design/automotive/4423428/Toyota-s-killer-
firmware--Bad-design-and-its-consequences)

This is why my car is the last model with mechanical accelerator and steering.

------
jsmeaton
The first time I heard about this was from Joel Spolsky of
Fogcreek/Stackoverflow. It really changed how I've approached postmortems and
encouraging those to really drive deeper into problem solving.
[http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/01/22.html](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/01/22.html)

------
jdking
AKA "Popping the why stack"

------
Overtonwindow
Ask why more than twice at my job and you'll get in trouble. Sometimes the
boss, and the customer, doesn't want to be asked. I think this idea is too
aggressive and indicative of high pressure sales tactics.

~~~
TuringTest
You can often avoid asking the "why" question explicitly. If you instead ask
about the unintended consequences of the current policy, people will elaborate
on the reasons why the situation is undesired, without you asking for it.

For example, in the third question of the article you could ask "Is this the
usual level of lubrication?" and you will reach the same conclusion of "No,
the oil pump on the robot is circulating less oil than normal."

------
jackgavigan
The Five Whys is essentially Toyota's version of Root Cause Analysis.

------
pklausler
"Why?" is a fine response to a statement of intent; but "How do you know
that?" as a response to a declarative statement used for motivation can often
be more enlightening.

(This kind of epistemological work-out is handy in lots of other situations.
When the JWs or Mormons show up at your door, asking "How do you know that?"
repeatedly is often all that you need to do until they give up and go away.)

------
bikamonki
Oh man! I think my two year old boy is set to be a genius manager! He's asking
more than five why's about pretty much everything!

------
bgribble
5 whys is my go-to debugging strategy for truly mysterious software and
systems bugs.

The rubber hits the road at the point where you have an answer like "one of A,
B, or C occurred" and you don't know which because none of them are ever
supposed to happen :) you know you're within a clue-bat-swing-radius of the
problem then.

~~~
dsjoerg
"when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however
improbable, must be the truth"

------
kross
I believe Goldratt suggested something like "ask why until the answer is a
feeling" which is much in the same vein as the five whys. For anyone wanting
to learn tactical approaches to root cause analysis, lookup Goldratt and
”reality tree", profound life/career/wealth changing stuff.

------
manigandham
"Why" is my favorite question. It's also the most important and leads to
solutions for 9/10 problems if you just keep asking it. Stop when you get to
the root cause that you can fix (not some arbitrary number like 5).

~~~
prmph
But sometimes the whys do not converge; for example, in the case of a vicious
cycle

~~~
Scarblac
But then you can recognize that situation, and ask why it occurs?

------
lugus35
The rule should be "Ask 'why' _at least_ five times" !

------
aaronpk
The first speaker at Beyond Tellerrand said this in his talk about 15 minutes
ago. Coincidence? Or was this submitted by someone at the conference?

~~~
pluma
p(hnSubmitters ∩ btAttendees ≠ ∅) > 0

------
egjerlow
[https://youtu.be/4u2ZsoYWwJA?t=6m19s](https://youtu.be/4u2ZsoYWwJA?t=6m19s)

------
CullingTheHerd
Wow, Toyota being given some love?! I thought there was a blanket ban on all
things Toyota so the community isn't forced to admit that all things agile are
actually from the manufacturing industry, decades ago. Where might this lead?
Might we be forced to consider that much has been borrowed from architecture?
Or math? But then, it will be so much more difficult to feel good about
dwindling list of contributions software programmers have born to the world.

------
davnn
That's a really valuable lesson learned from The Lean Startup :-)

~~~
oblio
This method was invented by
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakichi_Toyoda](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakichi_Toyoda).
He died in 1930.

I'm pretty sure that it predates even the word "startup" as it is currently
used :)

~~~
davnn
I know that Eric Ries did not invent it, but he spread this idea with his
highly popular book.

~~~
talideon
"The Toyota Way"
([https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0071392319/](https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0071392319/))
probably had more of a hand in popularising it overall.

------
known
Why Moon orbits Earth? Why not Sun? I'm struck with 2 whys :)

~~~
kamaal
Actually by some definition Moon orbits both Sun and Earth.

------
macspoofing
Why should I ask 'why' five times about every matter?

------
drb311
A very good approach.

Frequently talked about, rarely applied.

~~~
dalke
I find it hard to figure out if I'm only finding the answer I'm looking for.

Apply 5 whys to "Why did Snowden leak classified information?"

I can think of multiple directions it can go: "he's a traitor who managed to
get around security policies", "the US spies too much", and "contractors
aren't covered under internal whistleblower protections so leaking was the
most likely way to get things to change."

~~~
dsr_
That's fine. Coming up with multiple answers is useful, and then you can
either explore all of them or you can filter.

For example, I think that you are jumping down too far with your first
responses. Snowden leaked because:

1) he had access to it - exploring the why's here will improve your security

2) he was appalled at what he saw - exploring why's here will lead to
discussion of whether he was right

------
ACow_Adonis
Or you could, you know, just figure out the root bloody cause of things.

Can you package that message up and sell it as a consultancy?

~~~
talideon
Five whys is a form of simple, expedient root cause analysis. It's meant to be
simple enough that you don't need a consultant to teach you how to do it.

That doesn't stop people from trying to take 'shortcuts' though, and those
shortcuts are what consultants prey on.

------
franze
Why?

------
supermatt
Pity they don't believe in this in real life.

Why does the hybrid braking system and mechanical braking system disengage
with ABS, but then only re-engage the mechanical brake, resulting in a
considerable change in deceleration, causing you to have to depress the brake
further to avoid colliding with things in front of you.

Still waiting on a good reason for that one...

~~~
bitchypat
Is this different than the "unintended acceleration"?

I wonder what the answers were to "Why did we conceal our deadly (not for
Toyota, but for their customers) mistakes?" and "Why did we actively deceive
our customers regarding the safety of our vehicles?"

------
lisivka

        for((I=0; I<5; I++)) ; do read -p 'Why? '; done

------
jdimov10
5 is getting close to the point where all possible answers converge to:
"because I / they / someone want(s) to feel good."

------
greenspot
I have just have one 'why':

 _Why is Japan 's GDP growth looking like this:_
[http://www.tradingeconomics.com/japan/gdp](http://www.tradingeconomics.com/japan/gdp)

Not that I don't like posts about management techniques but from Toyota (their
best years are also some time ago) from Japan... I don't know.

~~~
adaml_623
That seems like a disingenuous question and the generally accepted answer is
on the same website you linked:
[http://www.tradingeconomics.com/japan/population](http://www.tradingeconomics.com/japan/population)

Fewer people = less growth

