Identifies root causes of process or decision failures through iterative why questioning and branching analysis.
npx skills add https://github.com/cjennings/rulesets --skill five-whys-cjennings
Please help me install this Agent Skill. Skill: five-whys Source: https://github.com/cjennings/rulesets/tree/main/five-whys Command: npx skills add https://github.com/cjennings/rulesets --skill five-whys-cjennings
Five Whys provides a repeatable method to move from a surface symptom to the actual root cause by asking 'Why?' repeatedly, preventing premature fixes and blame.
Describe the observed problem in one sentence, then iteratively ask why to reveal the root cause and propose a structural fix.
High-intent search queries and answers about installing and using this skill.
Root cause analysis identifies the underlying cause of process failures. The five whys method works by iteratively asking 'Why?' to move from a surface symptom to the actual root cause, preventing premature fixes and blame during incident reviews.
To conduct a postmortem analysis, document the observed problem in one sentence, iteratively ask why to reveal the root cause, branch when multiple causes exist, validate the chain backward, and propose structural fixes rather than temporary patches.
Yes, root cause analysis can handle multiple contributing causes during a postmortem. The process supports branching analysis, allowing you to trace and validate separate causal chains simultaneously when complex organizational incidents have overlapping root causes.
The best way to validate a root cause chain is by walking backward from the identified root cause to the original symptom. This ensures the structural fix directly addresses the validated sequence of events causing the process failure.
You should use branching analysis for problem-solving in organizational incidents when a single symptom stems from multiple contributing causes. It allows you to trace each independent causal chain rather than forcing a single linear explanation.
tjboudreauxGuide evidence-backed five-why chains to actionable root causes.
ArogyaReddyDraft blameless incident reports with root causes, timelines, and follow-ups.
whmathews15Document incident post-mortems with timeline, impact, root cause, and action items.
jsagirGuide Root Cause Analysis using 5-Whys, Fishbone, and Fault Tree methods.
