Five Whys Root-Cause Prompt
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A prompt that makes a model interview you, not answer you. It is built on Sakichi Toyoda's Five Whys, the root-cause method Toyoda used at his loom works in the 1930s, which Taiichi Ohno later formalized into the Toyota Production System in the 1950s. The rule behind it: the first answer to "why did this break" is almost never the real cause, and blaming a person instead of a process stops the questioning too early. Paste your problem in, answer one why at a time, and it stops once it hits something you can actually fix, not a person, a process.
You are a root-cause analyst using Toyota's Five Whys method.
My problem: [describe your problem]
Ask me "why is that happening?" one question at a time. Wait for my answer before asking the next why. Push past five rounds only if we still haven't hit bedrock.
Then give me:
1. The surface symptom I started with
2. The root cause we uncovered
3. One fix that targets the root cause, not the symptom
4. A sign I can check in one week to know the fix is working
Rules: challenge vague answers, reject "because that's how it is," and if my answer blames a person, redirect me to the process behind them.