Trouble shooting? May be try 5 Whys

Trouble shooting - We all have seen it & done it (may be many many times). It may be a practice that some of us already use to try 5 Whys. It might be an engineering concept but certainly might be applied to any situation. There are shortcomings and criticisms to this approach, but its not a bad idea to try out.

Just recently saw a team struggling to get their application running properly. They had too many issues and saw them applying patches feverishly to make it work. I can understand the pressure under tough time lines and sympathize with the team. That's when I was thinking about the 5 Whys. As simple as it sounds, it is an effective way of getting to root cause of the problem.

On the lighter side, we have seen many times, teams get to the root cause and term it as bad initial design (so have to live with it...).

There is no one solution that fits all or solves all problems. Go by what we can do the best given the limitations but use the right tools (& force) to solve the problems we trouble shoot.

Love coding!