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The iceberg model (levels of understanding)

Horvath (2021) suggests that Approaching problems with 5 whys comes with a few problems, mostly:

  • too broad and might be misused (also Japanese has several types of why, so might be a limitation from the translation)
  • "why" has a bunch of cultural implications, many of them negative

He suggests instead that we follow the iceberg model:

  1. Gather events (above the waterline; the rest is below)
  2. Observe if the events fit into a trend/pattern
  3. Try to identify what makes those trends emerge (systemic structures)
  4. Check which mental models brought us to those trends (assumptions, beliefs, values, etc)