What are the 5 whys?

Analysis technique that aims to find the underlying reason for a particular problem. The objective is to find the root cause of a fault or problem, by repeatedly asking "why?". The name of the technique includes the number 5 because it has been observed that this is the number of repetitions that are normally required to resolve a problem, but there may be more or less questions.

Other denominations:
5-whys

 
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