The Problem with ‘5 Whys’ (2016)

Re:The Problem with ‘5 Whys’ (2016) by localhostdotdev on Wednesday April 10, 2019 @12:32PM (#19626319)

after experimenting for a while, I now prefer "for what purpose?" instead of "why?".

"why?" easily leads to cycles and going back down the abstraction hierarchy, where "for what purpose?" always goes up the abstraction ladder.

- why are you eating? because it's 7pm

- for what purpose are you eating? to satisfy my hunger

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Re:The Problem with ‘5 Whys’ (2016) by dtech on Wednesday April 10, 2019 @02:58PM (#19627709)

That sounds weird. The starting point of a post-mortem is usually something like "Why was x down?". "For what purpose was x down?" is not the correct question there, it's not like you were purposely bringing it down for maintenance.

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Re:The Problem with ‘5 Whys’ (2016) by icebraining on Wednesday April 10, 2019 @01:28PM (#19626905)

For what purpose only works if there is a purpose. "For what purpose are you hungry" doesn't really work.

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Re:The Problem with ‘5 Whys’ (2016) by fwip on Wednesday April 10, 2019 @02:34PM (#19627514)

You can probably make up reasons. "To induce me to ingest nutrients" "To provide me with energy" "To fulfill some biological imperative" is one possible route.

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