> 5-whys

I appreciate your desire for deeper analysis, but I hate the "5 whys" as they imply every event has a single root cause.

> "I hate the "5 whys" as they imply every event has a single root cause."

That's an implication you're imposing yourself: there's no reason why asking the answer to any single question looking for cause will only have a single cause. Even Wikipedia's cursory overview includes this:

> "Not all problems have a single root cause. If one wishes to uncover multiple root causes, the method must be repeated asking a different sequence of questions each time."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_whys

Particularly if you're aware of a tendency to limit to a single root cause, you can actively work to ensure you don't fall into that trap.

The issue is with the concept of root cause. Many systems are better understood as having influencing factors, yet none of them could be called a root cause.

If you can never say, "That's why it happened," then the 5-whys method fails.

Substitute "underlying causes" for "root cause" and be on your way. Yes, precision in language can be important, but letting it get in the way of being useful is throwing baby out with the bathwater. You can see the same thing happen when people get hung up on precise definitions of agile implementations or pedantically quibbling over terms like "serverless". I personally get annoyed when people misuse the phrase "steep learning curve" when referring to something that's difficult to learn. But you know what? I still know what they mean, and that's the point. I set my annoyance aside, move past it, and decide to focus on getting something done.

I can see your point, but letting those slide can cause trouble down the road. Today I had trouble with a codebase where the `Configurator` class was not doing any configuration. When the purpose changed, no one bothered to change the name. Careful naming prevents leaky abstractions, or at least they leak less. Call me a lawyer, but I appreciate precise use of language.

A single why can have multiple reasons each with their own root, more like a tree structure.

The general rule we follow is the 5 W's and 1 H.

Which goes, Who, What, When, Where, Why and How.

If an article answers those five then it's done. Any other details is seen as fluff and a waste of editorial space. Which is funny considering the internet actually means there should be a a lot more space for editorial.

Seems like they often forget about the 1H

I'm with you, but first I'd love if they started using the inverted pyramid again.

If you clicked on the article, that's all the author needed. And to get you to click, all they needed was a catchy headline. It's the unfortunate reality of modern journalism. See the book "Trust Me, I'm Lying" by Ryan Holiday.