What are the 5 Whys and how do I add these to my incident investigation?

Creation date: 10/12/2024 2:55 pm Updated: 10/12/2024 2:56 pm

The 5 Whys can be defined as "the practice of asking why repeatedly whenever a problem is encountered in order to get beyond the obvious symptoms to discover the root cause. The specific number five is not the point. Rather it is to keep asking until the root cause is reached and eliminated." (Lean Enterprise Institute, n.d.).

To access the 5 Whys in Engage, you first need to ensure that you are a Branch or Company H&S Representative. To learn more about assigning H&S reps in Engage, please click here.

The 5 Whys section can be found via your incident investigation page. To access this, click on Incidents, then click on the 'Complete Incident Report' button next to the applicable incident.

If you scroll down on the investigation page, you will come across a specific section that details your 5 Whys investigation. If you click on the blue bar, this will expand to show you the five sections that you can then fill in. By clicking on the Next button, it takes you to the next stage of the 5 Whys.

Please note, this field is non-mandatory and is not required to be filled in to complete your investigation.

If you wanted to refer back to your 5 Whys at a later stage, you can Edit these on the same incident investigation screen if your investigation is still in progress.

To View / refer back to your 5 Whys, you can click View on the applicable incident:

Then pop to the Root Cause tab. Note that you are unable to Edit from this page and will need to do so via the Complete Incident Report button.

You can also download this information onto your downloadable incident PDF by clicking on the Incident Report tab, scrolling to the bottom of this page, and clicking on 'Download Incident Report':

Then ensuring that 'Incident Investigation' and '5 Why's' are checked before downloading.

You can also include the 'Root Cause of Incident' in your Report Builder if required. To learn more about Report Builder, please click here.

Reference:

Lean Enterprise Institute. (n.d.). 5 Whys. Lean Enterprise Institute. Retrieved December 10, 2024, from https://www.lean.org/lexicon-terms/5-whys/

If you have any other queries regarding the 5 Whys or any other areas of Engage, please contact support@engagesolutions.co.nz and we will get back to you as soon as we can.

What are the 5 Whys and how do I add these to my incident investigation?

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