Root Cause Analysis

Education & Learningchain-of-thought-promptingissue_descriptioncontext

The 5 Whys framework forces the model to dig past symptoms to underlying causes. Without this structure, AI tends to stop at the first plausible explanation.

Prompt
Perform a root cause analysis on the following issue. Do not stop at the surface-level cause.

Issue: {{issue_description}}
Context: {{context}}

Apply the 5 Whys method:
1. Why did this happen? (First-level cause)
2. Why did that cause occur? (Second-level cause)
3. Why did that happen? (Third-level cause)
4. Why? (Fourth-level cause)
5. Why? (Root cause)

Then:
- Summarize the root cause in one sentence
- Propose 2-3 corrective actions that address the root cause, not just the symptoms
- Identify what monitoring or process change would prevent recurrence

Analysis:

Variables to customize

{{issue_description}}{{context}}

Why this prompt works

The 5 Whys framework forces the model to dig past symptoms to underlying causes. Without this structure, AI tends to stop at the first plausible explanation.

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