What an RCA Document Needs, and How to Run the 5 Whys
A Root Cause Analysis document starts with problem definition: what happened (symptom), when, where (system or process), and with what impact (work, customers, cost) — each with concrete numbers. Not "the settlement is off" but "July settlement revenue differed from deposits by $2,400, closing delayed 3 days". A specific definition is what makes the rest of the analysis sharp.
The heart of the document is the 5 Whys chain. Originating in the Toyota Production System, the technique repeatedly asks "why did that happen?" — and each answer becomes the subject of the next question, forming a chain: "the data did not match" leads to "why did it not match?". You rarely need exactly five: three to five levels usually reach the root cause. The crucial discipline is not stopping at human error. If the chain ends at "someone missed it", the prevention plan degrades into "be more careful"; pushing on to "there was no checklist to catch the miss" produces an actionable fix.
The verification question — "if this cause is removed, will the problem stop recurring?" — tells you whether you have actually reached the root. Only a confident "yes" ends the analysis. Corrective actions then split into immediate (stop the bleeding today), short-term (weeks), and long-term (process and structural change), each with an owner and a due date. Finally, a follow-up plan — when and with which metrics you will verify no recurrence — is what turns the RCA from a document into an actual improvement.
This generator guides the 5 Whys as a step-by-step UI: each level shows the previous answer and asks "why did that happen?", so the chain builds naturally, and the output renders only the levels you filled, connected by arrows. Everything stays in your browser, and the finished RCA is ready to share via Markdown copy (wiki/Notion), plain-text copy (email), .md download, or print/PDF.