“Successful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers.” — Anthony Robbins

LAST week we completed looking at the use of Swim Lane Flowcharts to assist with the process review. Other useful tools to use in conjunction with the flowcharting are Cause and Effect Diagrams, Pareto Analysis, Statistical Process Control, Control Charts and a few others. However, in this the final in the series on Process improvement, I would like to close with a review of the tool which I think is the simplest but which can be super effective — the “5 Whys.”

Let me give you a story which can be found on the website (some of which I have quoted verbatim):

wallbuilder.wordpress.com/2013/05/29/the-lincoln-memorial-and-the-5-whys/. The story is compelling, but may be a bit long — so fasten your seat belts.

Some years ago executives from the National Parks Services became concerned that the stone face of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC, with the six-metre tall Lincoln statue was rapidly deteriorating. This was a problem — so should they replace the stones, or have them painted frequently? Both solutions were expensive, but instead of rushing ahead with a solution they paused, called the maintenance crew and asked, WHY? Why was the stone deteriorating? The crew responded that it must be caused by the high-powered sprayers being used to wash the stone every two weeks.

For many of us, we would have thought that we had gotten to the crux of the matter, and proceeded to resolution by cancelling the washing — or least allow the washing to continue but not using the high-powered sprayers. However, the executives asked, “Why do we need to be power-washing every two weeks?” “Because of the bird droppings,” the maintenance crew indicated.

So there it was: If they got rid of the birds, the issue at hand would be no more. But wait! (according to the famous infomercials). The executives thought they should delve further, so they asked, “Why are there so many birds?” “The birds come to feed on the many spiders that are at the memorial.”

Readers, by now you realise what is happening. “Why are there so many spiders?” The maintenance crew gave the executives some interesting information: “Have you ever been to the memorial at nights? There are millions of insects – the spiders come for the buffet!”

Armed with this information, the executives ordered regular treatment with insecticides. However, this was ineffective and actually created more complaints from the tourists visiting the site. They then called back the maintenance crew — here is the rest of the story verbatim from the website:

Executives: “Why are there so many insects?”

Maintenance crew: “The insects are attracted by the high-powered spotlights we shine on the memorial.”

Executives: “Why didn’t you just tell us that before we ordered the insecticides?”

Maintenance crew: “Sorry, boss. You didn’t ask.”

The executives could answer their last few questions on their own.

“Why do we shine the lights?”

“So the tourists will come to see the memorial.”

“Why do we want the tourists to come?”

“Because they bring their money and spend it in our city.”

This was a problem they weren’t willing to solve. They decided that they needed to call in their subject-matter experts one last time.

Executives: “Is there anything we can do about the lights so that there won’t be so many bugs?”

Maintenance crew: “Sure, turn the lights on later in the evenings and off earlier in the mornings.”

This, as it turned out, was a brilliant idea! The lights were typically turned on two hours before sunset and turned off two hours after sunrise.

By waiting until 30 minutes after sunset to turn them on and turning them off 30 minutes before sunrise, they were able to both save significant money on electricity and also reduce the number of bugs by 90 per cent.

Fewer bugs meant fewer spiders.

Fewer spiders meant fewer birds.

Fewer birds meant fewer droppings.

Fewer droppings meant less washings.

Fewer washings meant fewer deterioration of the stone on the outside of the memorial. The executives were happy. The maintenance crew was happy, and most importantly, the tourists were happy.

Whew! Long story, but I hope you got the point. The simple tool is called the 5 Whys, and is used for root cause analysis. Many times at work we actually target and try to solve the wrong problems, which only helps to generate more problems, while the root problem, which started out as small as a mustard seed, is left to develop into a mighty oak.

Lest we miss this point, as shown in the story — managers, please realise that many times your frontline people have the answers, if you would only ask the right questions!

Ask “why” a few times when you see someone doing a meaningless task or there is a problem. Some examples of what you will hear are — i) this is how it has always been done, ii) this is how my co-worker taught me when I started the job four years ago, iii) this is how we do it here, and iv) I don’t know!

Many times the reason why a particular activity is being done has ceased years ago, but the process still does what is now redundant and obsolete. So when I see the customer service officer helping the customer to fill out the form that was created in duplicate, then walking several metres to the photocopy machine, waiting in line, then making a third copy, I ask “why?” “Because that is how we do it; after filling out the form, you copy it.”

After asking a few “whys”, I realise that in the past, the second copy of the duplicate form was illegible most of the time, so a photocopy had to be done of the front sheet. However, the duplicating feature now works, the second copy is quite legible, and so the photocopying is a massive waste of time! Further along in the process, another clerk tears up the photocopied sheet and dumps it in the rubbish bin!

Dr Kenroy Wedderburn is a part-time lecturer on the MBA programme at the University of Technology, Jamaica. Send your e-mails to drkwedderburn@gmail.com.