How to Use the 5 Whys for eCommerce CRO Root Cause Analysis

Not sure if you’ve ever experienced this…

A child asks you a question.

You answer it.

Then they hit you with:

“Whyyyyyyyy?”

You explain

And then again.

“Why?”

And again.

“Why?”

AND

A

GAIN.

Next thing you know, you’re trying to explain taxes, gravity, and why the moon exists.

And all you were trying to do was make a quick cup of coffee.

As frustrating as it is, it’s actually a perfect lesson in how to solve problems in ecommerce.

Because that “why interrogation” that child just put you through is their innate root cause process.

It forces you past the high level and into the root cause or reason something is happening.

That’s the whole idea behind today’s tactic:

The 5 Whys from Lean Six Sigma*.

You take a problem and ask:

“Why is this happening?”

Then you take the answer and ask “Why?” again.

Repeat until you hit something you can fix or improve.

It’s called “5” because 5 rounds tend to get you to the root cause, but it might take 3, 6, 8 or more.

The goal is getting to something actionable and measurable, so don’t force it to be 5.

Guidelines/Rules when doing this:

• Write the problem in one clear sentence, make sure it’s one problem only, and include the facts.

• Ask “why” like you’re trying to understand the system, not win an argument

• Answer each “why” with one reason (not a list), otherwise you’ll end up chasing five problems at once

• Prove each answer with something you can point to (data, logs, screenshots, tickets, recordings, customer quotes)

• Each “why” must follow logically from the answer before it (no big leaps)

• If there are multiple possible answers, pick one branch and follow it through; don’t mix branches

• Stop when you hit a cause you can actually change (a process gap, missing rule, tooling issue, training gap, unclear ownership, design decision)

• Check the final cause: if you improved it or fixed it, would the original problem reduce or disappear? If not, you’re not done

• Turn the root cause into a task someone can do

• Decide how you’ll measure the success of the change before you make it

• Avoid blaming people, guessing, vague answers, and treating the last answer as “truth” without checking

Chat soon,

Peter

_*Lean Six Sigma is a data-driven business strategy that combines Lean's focus on eliminating waste and improving speed with Six Sigma's goal of reducing process variation and defects, aiming to boost efficiency, quality, and customer satisfaction by making processes faster, smoother, and more reliable._