Better Than 5 Whys

I liked the way Craig Cochran discounted or lessened the credibility of the 5 Whys (“Don’t Fail Your Customers With the 5 Whys,” February 2009). He provided excellent rationale for its limitations. His alternatives were good; however, I do not believe they can replace Ishikawa’s use of the fishbone technique. While with IBM, I had a class in defect prevention using the fishbone technique followed by action teams to remedy candidate causes with a resolution to each of the viable candidate causes.

-- Ed Gardner

Well There’s Your Problem… Again

I would like to comment on Nick Van Weerdenburg’s statement that “eighty percent of all quality issues are repeat issues” (“Can We Improve Continuous Improvement?” February 2009). Although I do agree with this statement, it has been my experience that the real reason for this phenomena is not that lessons learned weren’t recalled or not communicated, but that the issue wasn’t really “fixed” in the first place. If the true root cause of a problem is determined, then one of two primary activities should occur if we are to eliminate the problem. First, there should be a mistake-proof device added to the process to prevent a recurrence, and second, there must be a design change to prevent it from ever happening again.

-- Bob Sproull

 …