> Second, it assumes that the best location to intervene in this chain of causality is at its source: the root cause.
It doesn't though, that's just a built-in assumption for the lazy. The point of Root Cause Analysis and the "5 Whys" isn't necessarily to get to the root and fix the root...it's to provide a framework for traversing a problem set. The point of this methodology is so that you traverse the problem, understanding each step along the way...not that you simply jump to the root and try to fix it blindly.
It doesn't though, that's just a built-in assumption for the lazy. The point of Root Cause Analysis and the "5 Whys" isn't necessarily to get to the root and fix the root...it's to provide a framework for traversing a problem set. The point of this methodology is so that you traverse the problem, understanding each step along the way...not that you simply jump to the root and try to fix it blindly.