Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

“Ask 'why' five times about every matter”

toyota-global.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 172 posts

Re: “Ask 'why' five times about every matter”

#81

Post by dTal »

hammock wrote: post #61
iaskwhy wrote: post #9

I don't force it 5x but asking why was the best lesson I learnt working with users/clients as people tend to talk about solutions and not the problems. That's also where my nickname comes from.

I've tried forcing it 5x and found that the fifth Why is exactly the point where they get annoyed and stop talking to you. So there may be a magic insight at the fifth Why but you'll never hear it :)

What if you told them ahead of time what you were doing, so they would happily cooperate knowing there would only be 5? Otherwise, by the fifth most people will think "man, this never ends..."

Re: “Ask 'why' five times about every matter”

#82

Post by dilemma »

Overtonwindow wrote: post #33

Ask why more than twice at my job and you'll get in trouble. Sometimes the boss, and the customer, doesn't want to be asked. I think this idea is too aggressive and indicative of high pressure sales tactics.

The point is to be the boss, then ask five times.

Re: “Ask 'why' five times about every matter”

#83

Post by ck2 »

1. Why is Toyota accelerator-pedal drive-by-wire code a spaghetti mess of impossible to debug code?

2. Why still? 3. Why still years later? 4. Why a decade later? 5. Why not fix it?

http://www.edn.com/design/automotive/4423428/Toyota-s-killer...

This is why my car is the last model with mechanical accelerator and steering.

Re: “Ask 'why' five times about every matter”

#84

Post by code4life »

dTal wrote: post #81
hammock wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've tried forcing it 5x and found that the fifth Why is exactly the point where they get annoyed and stop talking to you. So there may be a magic insight at the fifth Why but you'll never hear it :)

What if you told them ahead of time what you were doing, so they would happily cooperate knowing there would only be 5? Otherwise, by the fifth most people will think "man, this never ends..."

I'd probably ask "Why 5 times?" and then it would be game on.

Re: “Ask 'why' five times about every matter”

#85

Post by Angostura »

erac1e wrote: post #57
stevewillows wrote: post #47

I survived several years in a Six Sigma organization. The Five Whys was one of my favorite 'tools' despite the 'Black Belts' dragging the process out much longer than required. I've never seen a methodology burn through more easel pads.

Why are the five whys one of your favorite tools?

Why do you want to know?

Re: “Ask 'why' five times about every matter”

#86

Post by satysin »

KhalilK wrote: post #7

Reminds me of Feynman's answer[0] when asked about magnets. 0. http://youtu.be/MO0r930Sn_8

I love Feynman. He was an incredible teacher but this video has always annoyed me a little. The interviewer asked a pretty clear question (explain why magnets repel or attract depending on how you align them) but Feynman goes on a bit of a rant about how the guy won't understand if he explains things as he (Feynman) understands it and that he (Feynman) doesn't know how to explain it to him (interview) in ways he would understand.

For someone as excellent at sharing knowledge it seems like Feynman just didn't want to do the interview any longer. He sounds and acts a little pissed off with the question.

Re: “Ask 'why' five times about every matter”

#87

Post by dsjoerg »

bgribble wrote: post #80

5 whys is my go-to debugging strategy for truly mysterious software and systems bugs. The rubber hits the road at the point where you have an answer like "one of A, B, or C occurred" and you don't know which because none of them are ever supposed to happen :) you know you're within a clue-bat-swing-radius of the problem then.

"when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth"

Re: “Ask 'why' five times about every matter”

#88

Post by rileymat2 »

Sometimes I have multiple solutions to a problem in mind and want to throughly investigate them, but run into a minor road block when investigating one of them.

In forums, some of the most annoying threads are people that are trying to help you "solve your real problem" instead of helping with the specific question at hand.

Re: “Ask 'why' five times about every matter”

#89

Post by mrspeaker »

ajuc wrote: post #24
spyrosg wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Careful, enough why()'s and you invariably get nil. This is a pointer your employer probably doesn't want you to follow.

I usually get "Because BIG BANG". But good point - you want the why function to write the intermediate answers somewhere as a side effect.

I'd be interested to know why(Because BIG BANG)

Re: “Ask 'why' five times about every matter”

#90

Post by humanrebar »

kidmenot wrote: post #32
iaskwhy wrote: post #9

I don't force it 5x but asking why was the best lesson I learnt working with users/clients as people tend to talk about solutions and not the problems. That's also where my nickname comes from.

> people tend to talk about solutions and not the problems Hard to make this any clearer. To expand a bit on this, most of the times the solutions they talk about are of course expressed in terms of what they already know, which makes communication that much harder. It's a key aspect to keep in mind, and one that ideally both parties, but at least the one that's taking the job, needs to be aware of. Otherwise it's li…

On the other hand, it's frustrating to call up the ISP help line to get a bad router replaced and get treated like a troglodyte.

Likewise, I'm probably qualified to diagnose when my laceration needs stitches. A conversation about problems and not solutions are frustrating at that point.

Post reply on HN