I was a bit puzzled reading the article, because in the places I have worked, 'root cause analysis' isn't looking for the simplistic thing the article describes. If it is simple, great, but more often than not the root cause is poor interaction between things, which can require multiple changes or even under-the-bonnet refactoring. The article's description of root cause analysis sounds like something a first-year undergraduate would think.
I'm getting the impression that that HBR video has had a much wider penetration than the 5 Why's concept as a whole. This seems to have lead a lot of people to draw the wrong conclusions about even what 5 Why's is really about, let alone how it works.
