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Problem
Why? (1)
Why? (2)
Why? (3)
Why? (4-5)
Actions
About this template
The 5 Whys retrospective is a root-cause analysis technique originally developed by Toyota. It works by repeatedly asking "Why?" to peel back layers of symptoms until you reach the underlying cause of a problem. It is the go-to format after incidents, outages, or recurring issues that keep resurfacing despite previous fixes.
Best for
- Post-incident reviews and postmortems
- Recurring bugs or process failures
- When surface-level fixes aren't working
- Deep-dive sessions on a single problem
Teams
How to run it
Start by clearly defining the Problem. Then ask "Why did this happen?" — write the answer in Why (1). Ask "Why?" again for that answer in Why (2). Continue through Why (3) and Why (4-5) until you reach a root cause. Finally, define Actions to address the root cause, not just the symptoms.
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