Five Whys is a simple tool which addresses single-problem events rather than broad organisational issues. It attempts to analyse a problem or issue by asking a series of 'Why (did this happen)?' questions.

If a problem occurs, the first 'Why?' question is asked: 'Why did this happen?' A number of answers may be found and for each of these the next 'Why?' is asked: 'Why is that?' The whole process is repeated until five consecutive 'Why?'s have been asked and answered. In most instances it has been found that five repeated whys are necessary to get to the real root cause of the problem.

A simple example - students are spending two hours queuing to enrol. The analysis might be:

Why are students spending so long queuing?

Because administrative staff take a long time to process enrolment forms

Why do staff take so long to process each form?

Because the forms are complex and the information needs to be checked

Why are the forms complex?

Because we need lots of information so the forms are not easy to use

Why aren't the forms easy to use?

Because some of the questions aren't clear and are left blank or incorrectly completed and these always have to be checked

Why are some of the questions difficult to answer?

Because the wording is not clear and the students don't understand what's being asked for

Possible answer: redesign some of the questions on the form.

At each stage there can be multiple reasons - all of which need to be probed further.