Pulse Payroll missed pay run
Five whys slide that ends at a fixable cause
A five whys slide is worth showing when the last answer names something the organisation can change this week, not a general condition it has to live with. This one walks back a missed pay run at Pulse Payroll, a fictional bureau.
What is on the slide
- Why 1
- Why were 212 staff not paid on 11 February? Because the pay run was still in draft when the bank file cut off at 4pm.
- Why 2 and Why 3
- Why was the pay run still in draft? Because the timesheet import for the two night crews failed and nobody released it. Why did nobody release it? Because the failure email goes to a shared inbox that three people read and none own.
- Why 4
- Why does that inbox have no owner? Because the payroll officer who owned it left in December and the handover listed no inboxes.
- Why 5
- Why did the handover miss it? Because the leaver checklist has no step asking which approvals and inboxes the role holds.
- Layout
- Five stacked rows, each with a Why N badge, the question on the first line and the answer beginning with because on the second.
When this is the right slide
Five stacked rows suit an incident review where one chain of causation has to be walked in public and the audience has to see that each answer follows from the one above it.
What to swap it for
Grouping: Fishbone Cause & Effect. Swap to the fishbone when the group has not yet agreed which chain to follow and needs to lay out several cause families before drilling into one of them.
What this slide shows
A title reads 5 Whys, Missed Pay Run, with a framing line saying one missed pay run for 212 staff at Pulse Payroll, walked back until the cause is something fixable. Five full width rows stack down the slide, each with a coloured badge carrying an icon and the level indicator. Why 1: why were 212 staff not paid on 11 February, because the pay run was still in draft when the bank file cut off at 4pm. Why 2: why was the pay run still in draft, because the timesheet import for the two night crews failed and nobody released it. Why 3: why did nobody release it, because the failure email goes to a shared inbox that three people read and none own. Why 4: why does that inbox have no owner, because the payroll officer who owned it left in December and the handover listed no inboxes. Why 5: why did the handover miss it, because the leaver checklist has no step asking which approvals and inboxes the role holds. Each row puts the question on the first line and the answer, beginning with because, on the second.
When this is the right slide
Use it in an incident review, a post mortem or a problem solving session where one failure has to be explained to people who were not involved. The vertical chain suits this because it can be read in order without a presenter, which matters when the slide is circulated after the meeting. It is the right shape when the chain really is a chain: each answer causes the one above it and there is no branch. It is the wrong slide when several unrelated conditions combined, since forcing a branching problem into a single line hides the other causes and usually produces a fix that only closes one path. In that case the wider diagram comes first and the five whys follows on the branch the group chooses.
How to adapt it
First, write the last answer before the middle ones, because knowing where the chain has to land keeps the analysis from drifting into general conditions. A cause somebody can change this week is the target: a missing checklist step, an unowned inbox, an alert with no recipient. Second, keep each answer to one sentence beginning with because. The layout gives a single line of about 130 characters, and the discipline forces one cause per level rather than three stacked into a paragraph. Third, name the artefact at each level rather than the department. A shared inbox that three people read, a handover that listed no inboxes and a leaver checklist with no step are all objects that can be inspected after the meeting. Where the group has not yet settled on one chain, a fishbone covering six cause families is the slide that comes first.
What makes this slide work
The chain stops at something that can be changed
The leaver checklist has no step asking which approvals and inboxes the role holds. That is a document somebody can edit this week, and the change would prevent the same failure for every future departure. A five whys that ends at insufficient resourcing or poor communication has gone one level too far and produced a cause nobody can act on.
Each answer is the question above it
Still in draft leads to the import failed, which leads to nobody released it, which leads to the inbox has no owner, which leads to the handover. A reader can test the chain by covering the answers and predicting the next question. Chains that jump a level are where an audience loses confidence, and the vertical layout makes a jump obvious.
The first line carries the size of the incident
Why were 212 staff not paid on 11 February. The number and the date sit in the first question rather than in a separate summary, so the chain is anchored to a specific event. A review that opens with a payroll issue occurred gives the room no sense of scale, and the analysis reads as process improvement rather than as an incident.
Questions people ask
Why five whys rather than three or seven?
Five is a convention, not a rule, and the real test is whether the last answer names something that can be changed. Stopping at three often leaves a symptom; pushing to seven usually lands on a general condition such as culture or resourcing, which nobody can act on. Stop when the answer points at an artefact.
What makes a good final answer?
Something a named person could fix within a fortnight. A checklist missing a step, an alert with no recipient, a form with no required field. The final answer in this chain is a leaver checklist that never asks which approvals and inboxes the role holds, which is a document that can be edited and then tested against the next departure.
Should a five whys name individuals?
No. It names roles and artefacts. The payroll officer who left is identified by role because the handover process is the subject, not the person. A chain that arrives at a name has usually skipped the system question above it, and the review turns into a performance discussion that stops other people contributing.
When is five whys the wrong tool?
When several unrelated conditions combined to cause the failure. A single chain then hides the branches, and the fix closes one path while leaving the others open. In that situation a cause and effect diagram across several families comes first, and the five whys is applied afterwards to the one branch the group decides matters most.
How much text should each row carry?
A question of about a dozen words and an answer of about twenty, beginning with because. The layout gives one line for each. That constraint is useful, because a level carrying three causes in a paragraph has really skipped a why, and splitting it into two rows almost always makes the chain clearer.
How should a five whys slide be presented out loud?
Read the first question and the last answer, then walk the middle three quickly. The audience follows the chain faster by reading than by listening. Finish on what changes as a result, and on how the organisation will know it worked, which for this incident is the next leaver checklist actually asking the question.
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