Root cause analysis for founders: the five whys, with an example
Low sales, late deliveries and unhappy customers are usually symptoms. How to use the five whys to find the real cause before you spend money on the wrong fix.
“Sales are down.” That’s not the problem. It’s a symptom.
If you fix the symptom, for example by running more ads, you often pay twice: once for the fix that doesn’t work, and again when the real problem shows up somewhere else.
The five whys
Ask “why” about the problem, then ask “why” about the answer, and keep going until you reach something you can actually fix. It’s often around five times, sometimes fewer.
An example: late deliveries
- Why are deliveries late? The warehouse packs orders slowly.
- Why? Orders arrive with missing details, so staff stop and chase them.
- Why? Sales can close an order without filling in the delivery form.
- Why? The form isn’t required in the system.
The fix isn’t in the warehouse. It’s one required field in the sales form. Cheap, fast, and it solves the problem for good.
Rules for doing it well
- Ask about the process, not the person. “Why did the process allow this?” gets better answers than “Why did you do this?”
- Use facts. Check the orders, the timestamps, the messages.
- Stop when you reach something you control. “The market is tough” isn’t a root cause you can fix.
- Test the fix. Measure the original problem for two weeks afterwards.
Symptom or cause?
A quick check: if you fixed it, would the problem disappear for good, or come back next month? If it would come back, keep asking why.
Want a second pair of eyes on a stubborn problem? A Clarity Call is 60 minutes on exactly one problem, ending with the real cause and three next steps.
So, how might we find the real problem before we fix the wrong one?