Very brief summary: five whys techniques pretend complex systems are governed by simple chains of events, where each event undisputably causes the next and there's an objective "root cause" that sets the entire chain off.
In reality, complex systems are driven by networks of causal effects, where some form reinforcing and balancing feedback loops. There's no start or end to a causal pathway, there's just where we choose to look and what we choose to ignore. There is no root cause, there is a myriad of interlocking factors that together dynamically drive the system in certain directions.
Five whys type analyses tend to end up blaming whatever is convenient or culturally acceptable to blame, and leaves many branches of the causal network underexplored.
Five whys is easy to explain and humans love the narrative point of view promoted by a chain of events, but it's a very inefficient way to explore the causal structure of a system.
I like to simplify things and re-purpose an old Twister mat for a game I like to call, "Jump to Conclusions."
"Five Whys," is a variant of this game where you simply roll the dice five times.
If you want to put on a show and dance to let your management and colleagues know you care about quality and are doing something about it, then it's great. If you like false assurances and feeling like you've contributed to a system you cannot fathom or understand it will definitely give you warm tickles. And it makes you sound smart when you put on such an impressive display of initiative and critical thinking.
Example presented in the article uses 5 whys for introspective - there is no complex system to analyze, only author’s own reactions. Author already knew deep enough that reading emails is busywork, otherwise answering one of the Whys in that chain would have required research.
What 5 whys helps to do is to structure your existing knowledge. In my experience it is great when you want to analyze your own decisions, or structure team knowledge about particular issue down to a necessary level of detail.
For actual root cause analysis there are better tools, e.g. Ishikawa[1]
It does look more like a random walk through the Why's. Most worthwhile problems have multiple Why's, some of which you can do something about, some which you can't. The examples where Five Why's actually works are ones where the person doing it secretly knows what the problem is, and just picks a path that will terminate on their desired problem, I guess.
But could there still be some value to this sort of exercise? At least it terminates at something. If it is possible to get rid of that convenient or culturally acceptable blame attractor, at least one problem has be exorcised from the organization, right?
The other thing with five whys is many times the root cause is beyond your teams control. Unless the entire management chain from the top participates you'll not see the organizational change needed. And even then, upper management might just consider the reasons for the failure as a cost of doing business and won't want to change it.
That being said, the process at least forces the team to look at root causes beyond what is visible on the surface. It's a good start but it isn't perfect either.
In reality, complex systems are driven by networks of causal effects, where some form reinforcing and balancing feedback loops. There's no start or end to a causal pathway, there's just where we choose to look and what we choose to ignore. There is no root cause, there is a myriad of interlocking factors that together dynamically drive the system in certain directions.
Five whys type analyses tend to end up blaming whatever is convenient or culturally acceptable to blame, and leaves many branches of the causal network underexplored.
Five whys is easy to explain and humans love the narrative point of view promoted by a chain of events, but it's a very inefficient way to explore the causal structure of a system.