5W1H

5W1H is a well-known quality management technique that is based on six trigger questions: What? Why? Where? When? Who? and How?.

These are useful in collecting information to ensure the fulfillment of a certain action plan, diagnose a problem and design solutions. It can be generically view in two ways, with the change of the end question:

- To find the root problem cause:

o What is the problem?

o Why does it occur?

o Where is it located?

o When does it occur?

o Who is involved?

o How did it appear?

- To find a solution to a problem:

o What will be done?

o Why is it being done?

o Where will it be done?

o When will it be done?

o Who will be responsible for it?

o How will it be implemented?

Lately it has been included the how much question, transforming the 5W1H in 5W2H, as in “How much does it cost to have this problem?” or “How much does it cost to implement this solution?”

*** 5W1H was originated from a poem wrote by Rudyard Kipling, thus being also known as the Kipling Method, which started:

 

I Keep six honest serving-men:

(They taught me all I knew)

Their names are What and Where and When

And How and Why and Who.