Why? Why? Why? But Why? Why? Why not? Why?
Posted on January 12, 2009
Like most kids, I asked “why?” rather a lot. Somehow, as an adult, I’ve grown out of that, and I’m not entirely sure that’s a good thing.
At my day-job, I was introduced to 5 Whys as a method of getting to the bottom of a situation, or determining the root cause of an event. It’s fairly simple – you keep asking “why?” until you can’t realistically do so any more. 5 is normally enough, but that’s not a hard and fast limit.
The idea is that you drill down into the problem space deeply enough to find what’s really the matter, then you fix that thing. The fix will flow upwards, and have a more broad positive impact than if you simply fixed the symptom you first noticed.
There’s an example in the Wikipedia link above:
My car will not start. (the problem)
1. Why? – The battery is dead. (first why)
2. Why? – The alternator is not functioning. (second why)
3. Why? – The alternator belt has broken. (third why)
4. Why? – The alternator belt was well beyond its useful service life and has never been replaced. (fourth why)
5. Why? – I have not been maintaining my car according to the recommended service schedule. (fifth why, root cause)
Personally, I’d add a 6th Why in this case: 6. Why? – Because I didn’t have a reliable system in place for reminding myself of the recommended times for car servicing. This is something I can actually fix – put a system in place to remind me, then I can forget about it.
Now, this all falls out of the work I’ve been doing lately with the Quality Department at work, but there are a lot of applications of this mindset in your personal life.
To me, it’s a great way of having a conversation with yourself about things that you haven’t done, or have done wrong. It helps you to evaluate where you fell down, and get down to the nitty gritty and find a way to make sure, not only that that particular occurrence doesn’t happen again, but that other occurrences that share the same root cause can also be avoided.
Now, I’ve been planning multiple income streams for ages. Years even. Yet, here I sit, today, with a dayjob as my sole source of income.
Why? (1): Well, because I just haven’t really moved on this whole Multiple Income Stream Strategy thing.
Why? (2): Because it’s a lot of work, and I’ve had other things on my mind, on my plate, and in my life.
That’s a copout, try again: Why? (2a): Because I haven’t assigned it the appropriate priority in my activities.
Aha, that’s better – Why (not)? (3): Because it’s hard. There’s a lot of different things I could do, and it’s hard to pick which one to start on. Also, there’s the whole fear of failure thing, my previous efforts along these lines have been somewhat less than stellar, etc etc.
Oh, that was easy – I’ve already written about that and have things I can do to to make sure I start.
So, I’ve started.
I’ve started with a list (a database actually) of ideas. Out of those ideas, I have a list of actions that need to be taken to progress these ideas. I’ve started with putting ads on a couple of sites I’ve been letting slide for too long. I’ve started writing again, and have a pile of started posts, both here and elsewhere.
Would I have got there, without asking Why a few times? Probably, in time. But asking myself the right questions gets me there faster.
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