I Ran a 5 Whys Workshop. Here’s How It Went Down.
I recently ran my first 5 Whys workshop for our engineering teams. 5 Whys is a technique where you successively ask the question “Why” to get to the root cause of a problem. It’s good for issues of low to medium complexity.
Read on to learn more about my approach, learnings, and pro-tips!
My Framework
I like to keep workshops simple and always start with the end in mind.
Below is a snapshot of a portion of the framework used in the session.
My Miro 5 Whys workshop template
In this case we had a few outcomes from the meeting:
Timeline: An account of the events that happened to ensure everyone’s understanding is the same.
Business impact: Quantify the problem for the business.
5 Whys: Explore the various threads to pull from the problem.
Action Items: Have concrete action items with owners so we are better prepared if a similar issue occurs in the future.
Problem Statement and Timeline
I began by asking the team to define the problem. Depending on the group you’re running the session for, problem discussions can end up being long.
Pro tip 1: Keep this clear and concise. Avoid paragraphs.
Next, capture the timeline of events. A visual view of this will help the team hone in on certain parts during the discussion phase. Let’s look at an example.
Business Impact
Capturing the business impact as part of the workshop is very critical. This will be the artefact for the team and other stakeholders, so it’s key to document the impact, both from a customer’s point of view and the company’s.
5 Whys Threads
Now that everyone has a common understanding of the problem, you may be tempted to dive straight into the 5 Whys section. That’s what I did and my advice would be: “Don’t!”
What frequently happens in 5 Whys is the team will have a lot of meandering conversations: different threads that tie together or may be completely separate. If you start with a single thread and keep asking “Why” you may not get to the heart of the actual problem. After all, not all threads lead home.
When I ran the workshop the team went down a few different paths, only to realize some of those paths don’t get to the root cause.
What I realized was that these discussions were a result of participants not having an opportunity to brainstorm first.
Discussions are core to a 5 Whys exercise but as a facilitator you can still guide the team through a structured discussion process.
Pro tip 2: Instead of asking an open question to the team: “Based on the problem statement and the timeline of events, where would you like to start? Where shall we do a deep dive?”, allocate a few minutes for each member to put down their thoughts on the whiteboard.
You can expect an output like this:
Spending a few minutes brainstorming can lead to a more focused 5 Whys.
In hindsight, I realized that this simple step of visualizing everyone’s ideas would go along way in anchoring the discussion. Participants can collectively decide which threads they want to dig deeper into, leading to a much more effective 5 Whys exercise.
Action Items
It is critical to have action items that address the heart of the issue.
The most important part of a 5 Whys exercise is to have the right action items that will better prepare a team in the event of a similar issue.
Pro tip 3: One question I like to ask the team once all the action items have been created is “If these actions items are completed and this issue were to happen again tomorrow would you be better prepared?”
I am a huge advocate for checking in as much as possible. Simple questions can go a long way in orienting the team towards success.
To summarize
In the end, we had a productive discussion with clear action items for everyone to implement. I’m confident that the lessons I learned will make my next workshop even better.
As a recap, here are my 3 pro-tips:
1: Keep your problem statement clear and concise. Avoid paragraphs.
2: Instead of asking the team “Based on the problem statement and the timeline of events, where would you like to start? Where shall we do a deep dive?”, allocate a few minutes for each member to put down their thoughts on the whiteboard. This will lead to a stronger start.
3: Once all the action items have been created ask the team, “If these actions items are completed and this issue were to happen again tomorrow would you be better prepared?” A final check in helps build confidence and address any open items.
If you find this handy in running your own workshop, I’d love to hear from you. Thanks for reading!