5 Whys Root Cause Worksheet

What it is and when to use it

Asking “why” once gets you a symptom. Asking it five times, each answer checked against what actually happened on the floor rather than assumed from a desk, gets you to something a policy, a design, or a maintenance decision actually caused — and that's the level where a fix sticks. The worksheet forces each step to cite evidence, not opinion, and it's a red flag if every chain ends the same convenient way, at the person doing the work.

What goes on the sheet

1. Problem statement: specific, with date, location, and measured impact
2. Why #1 through why #5 (or however many it takes), each one a cause, not a restatement of the problem
3. Evidence source for each “why”: what was checked on the floor, who confirmed it, when
4. Point where the chain stops being about an event and starts being about a system (design, policy, standard)
5. Root cause selected for action, and who validated it wasn't just the first plausible answer
6. Corrective action tied explicitly to the root cause found, with owner and date

In a business like yours

• Flower shop: a missed delivery traced back to a pickup cutoff nobody ever wrote down.
• Auto repair: a comeback traced to a missing torque step, not to a careless mechanic.
• Clinic front desk: double bookings traced to two calendars that do not talk to each other.

Illustrative examples, not client cases.