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Planning is a key part of staying productive, but it has to be done right. To succeed, you need to understand why previous attempts at planning didn’t pan out. Conducting a personal after-action review is one way to assess your work and determine how to be more efficient, but to truly understand what went wrong and prepare for the future, you need to dig deep. Try the “Five Whys” technique to get to the bottom of things. 

What is the “Five Whys” technique?

You should know, first of all, that this is yet another productivity protocol that springs from Japan’s famed factory system, like the 5S and 3M techniques. With this one, once you identify a problem, you’re going to ask, “Why?” five times, which will ultimately reveal the true root cause of the issue—and what you need to focus on fixing. 

How to use “Five Whys” for problem solving

Some variations of the technique call on you to assemble a team for brainstorming before doing this, but if you’re assessing a personal issue, that part isn’t necessary. Your “team” can be the people posting on forums about the problem, for instance, or a group chat with your friends. If the issue is a household one, chat with your family. This doesn’t have to be super formal, but if the problem is one related to work and you do have coworkers involved, bring them into the discussion. In some cases, there may be no team at all—but that doesn’t mean you can’t use the Five Whys.

Whether you’re consulting a team or not, the real work begins when you define the problem. State it clearly and concisely. Ideally, write it down. Let’s say the problem is you didn’t get the dining room clean in time for dinner, so everyone had to eat at the counter. Simplify that to, “I didn’t clean the dining room on time.”

Next, ask, “Why?” Write down the answer—maybe it’s “I had to take a phone call from work.” 

Ask, “Why?” Write down the answer and ask again. Then again, again, and again, until you’ve asked five times. So, your paper might look like this: I didn’t get the dining room clean > I had to take a phone call from work > I didn’t finish the reports my boss wanted > I didn’t have the data I needed from the sales department > The sales department was not aware of my deadline.