Failing Forward Step Five: Why

Specific tools for performing root-cause analysis can be applied to get past the symptom and focus on the disease. The root-cause analysis concept originated in manufacturing and is often referred to as “the five whys” because Toyota discovered that, on average, it took on average of five “whys” to get to the root cause. Read more

Failing Forward Step Two: Determine Causality

In a continuation of a series on learning from failure (start from the beginning), the second step is to determine the underlying reason or reasons for the loss. This means going through the long list of events assembled in Step One and determining which actually caused the loss. Determining causality is not the same as conducting root-cause analysis. Read more