5 Whys root cause analysis
Ask why five times. Find the cause you can fix.
The 5 Whys walks from a symptom to its root cause, one question at a time. The canvas draws it as a numbered chain — each link a card — so you can see exactly where the story turns from “what happened” into “how we work”.
- Price
- Free
- Online
- Runs in your browser — two runs with no account, then a free account
- Desktop
- Also works on your own files and writes the result up
Runs on the MindMax thinking canvas →All online tools
When to use the 5 Whys
After something went wrong once and you want it not to happen again: a lost customer, a missed launch, an outage.
- Each answer must be a fact about what happened, not a guess about someone’s motives.
- Five is a guide, not a rule — stop when you reach something you can change in how the team works.
- If a step has two honest answers, the problem has two roots: follow both.
How the canvas builds it
Type the problem
One sentence is enough — the question you would bring to a whiteboard.
Pick “5 Whys”
The framework decides how the problem is cut: which cards appear and what each one must answer.
Read the map
One card per branch, plus a hub card that says what the branches add up to.
Go deeper where it matters
Expand any item: break it down again, ask a follow-up, or apply another framework to that branch.
Where it gets hard
- Two runs with no account, then a free account
Type your problem and the canvas builds it right in your browser. Two runs need no account; after that, sign in with a free account and runs use the AI allowance in your plan. Canvases stay in this browser — export them, or share a read-only link, to keep them elsewhere.
- One chain is a simplification
Real failures often have several causes. The chain finds one path to a fixable cause; if something feels missing, branch off at that step.
- In the desktop app today
The built-in Causal chain skill traces causes back to the root on the desktop canvas, and can read incident notes or reports you point it at.
Common questions
Why five?
It is a rule of thumb: about five questions usually gets past symptoms to a process cause. Stop earlier or go further depending on where the fixable cause is.
5 Whys or fishbone diagram?
A fishbone diagram lists many possible causes by category; 5 Whys follows one chain deep. Use the fishbone to see the options, then the 5 Whys on the most likely one.
Is it free?
Yes. Two runs online need no account; after that a free account is enough, and runs use the Free plan’s weekly AI allowance. Exploring the examples is always free, and the AI canvas in the desktop app works on the Free plan too.
Get from the symptom to the cause you can fix
Two runs need no account, then a free account. To work on your own files, use the free desktop app.