The Question of “Why”
One of my favorite past times is listening to audiobooks and podcasts about tech, startup, and leadership - specifically in the product management space. Historically, my work has had a lot of overlap in this area, and I have a particular interest in how to become better at this piece which is often closely tied to startup project management.
With product on my mind, a few weeks ago I asked a former colleague and senior product manager for his top book recommendation, and he promptly responded with “Hooked - How to Build Habit-Forming Products” by Nir Eyal. I’ve been listening to the audio version for the past few days, and am intrigued by the author’s anecdotal examples intertwined with marketing psychology and product management best practices.
One item in particular caught my attention - “The Five Whys.” Eyal introduces The Five Whys as a technique adopted by Toyota, known for their lean manufacturing approach. To put it simply, the purpose of The Five Whys is to continue asking “why” until you get to the root cause of the problem or behavior. As Eyal went through an example, I found myself smiling and nodding because this is something I have been doing naturally my entire life. It’s moments like those that prove I’m in the right line of work!
The Five Whys is a best practice for startup project managers as we often have a lot of data being thrown at us at once and it can be challenging to figure out where the team should spend their time. We may have a product leader telling us we need to focus on a particular feature, or an engineer team lead who says we need to spend the next sprint paying down technical debt, or a client rep pushing for UI improvements. How do we know which to prioritize and what to work on next? It’s simple - - ask “why” and continue asking until you get down to the data that points to your solution.
Is this approach always welcome or understood? No. Is it necessary? Absolutely.
There is so much information under the surface that we tend to miss. Asking why, really asking why, helps us get to the core reason and make better decisions.
A project manager with this insight is one committed to ensuring the team is moving in the right direction, every time.