Here is something new I learned today. While reading the blog post on “Why You Need a Postmortem Process” over sysadvent (yes, it’s an advent calendar for system administrators, and it just started this year’s run), I stumbled upon the 5 Whys Wikipedia page:
5 Whys is an iterative interrogative technique used to explore the cause-and-effect relationships underlying a particular problem. The primary goal of the technique is to determine the root cause of a defect or problem by repeating the question “Why?” Each answer forms the basis of the next question. The “5” in the name derives from an anecdotal observation on the number of iterations needed to resolve the problem.
What do I think of immediately? Louis CK bit on parenting and kids’ ability to ask an infinite number of “Why?” questions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJlV49RDlLE
Well, I guess, kids, much like me until today, don’t know that you only need 5. Or 6.
