Have you ever realised (after the fact) that you’ve used a Continuous Improvement tool in your everyday life without thinking about it? I had a very bizarre issue back in March and with hindsight, I used Problem Solving to get to the bottom of it. One Friday, I was working from home, and my husband had the day off.    I was upstairs working while he watched TV down in the living room. In the early afternoon he shouted me down to tell me that the TV had stopped working.  It was flickering off and on, not even staying on long enough for the screen to load.

Without thinking about it, I used the’ 5 whys’

Occam’s Razor is the principle that tells us that the simplest explanation is usually correct and the 5 whys can help you to find that explanation.

The first ‘why’

My first ‘why’ was of course, ‘why is that happening?’ and I decided it was likely an electrical fault so I unplugged it for a minute or two to see if that sorted it.  No.  I suspected it could be an issue with my Sky dish, so checked the upstairs TV, however it was receiving a signal with no issues. Then we did what anyone would do and turned to Google.  Google came up with a fix (I can’t remember what) which I tried, and it worked. 

The second ‘why’

I popped back upstairs and about 20 minutes later it started doing it again.  My husband tried the Google fix again to no avail.  Our second ‘why?’ was ‘why did that not work?’ We decided the TV must be broken.

Under normal circumstances we would have perhaps waited till Saturday and gone shopping, however, we were leaving early Saturday morning for a short break, and our eldest was coming to stay at the house to look after our cats. We felt we couldn’t leave him without a TV so on my lunch break we hopped in the car and nipped to Argos to buy a new one. 

The third ‘why’

Taking the TV off the wall is a two-person job so it had to wait till I finished work at 5.  We took the old TV down, mounted the new one on the wall, plugged it in, turned it on and it did the exact same thing!  My third ‘why?’ was ‘why on earth is this happening to a brand-new TV?’

It was at this point I realised my mistake.  It must be an electrical problem after all, but with the plug point, and I should have tried a different one. So, I did.  Same issue. Tried another, same issue.  At that point my husband considered that it could be fault in that specific wall, so he took the old TV into the kitchen, plugged it in, turned it on and it was fine! 

The fourth ‘why’

We bought a new TV for nothing!  We decide to run an extension lead from the kitchen to the living room so that the TV could be used over the weekend and we’d deal with the fault when we came home.  However, as soon as the TV was back in the living room, the issue started again.  It could be switched on and working in the kitchen, and as soon as it crossed the threshold into the living room, it would start flickering off and on again. We tried from the hall, same issue, worked fine until it crossed the threshold.  The fourth ‘why?’ was of course, ‘why won’t it work in the living room?’ We were utterly bamboozled.  We took the new TV off the wall and tried all of the above with it, with the same results. Grasping at straws, we asked next door who were mid renovations if anything they were doing could be the cause, however they didn’t even have their electricity switched on.

The fifth 'why'

By 10pm we had tried everything we could think of, including speaking to a friend who is an electrician who was also totally confused, and we gave up and went to bed.  Unfortunately, I had difficulty sleeping.  My mind was on overdrive with worse case scenarios of having to rewire the house or even move out! I know, a bit dramatic!  My fifth ‘why’ was ‘why am I still awake?’ (admittedly not the most helpful of the ‘whys’) At around 4.30am I gave up trying to sleep and headed downstairs. I made a coffee and then decided to try plugging the new TV in again in the living room, and it worked!  I couldn’t believe it!  I lifted it up on to a unit it in the room and it kept working!  I sat there and happily watched a few hours of early morning programming until my husband got up and helped me to mount it on the wall.  We decided to keep the new TV as it was a bit bigger, and we gave the old TV to the eldest who needed a newer one anyway. 

So, what had caused it? We found out the following day that apparently there had been a solar storm over the west of Scotland that afternoon/evening which can temporarily mess with electronics.  For whatever reason, it was localised in our living room! (If you’re a Simpsons fan I’m sure you’ll be thinking about Principal Skinner and the Aurora Borealis!)

On this occasion, the 5 whys didn’t help us to fix the issue, as it turned out to be out of our control.  They did, however, take us through a logical progression of potential causes.  Occam’s Razor was incorrect this time, I certainly don’t think a solar storm was the simplest explanation, however the 5 whys did help us to exhaust all other possibilities (and to exhaust ourselves in the process) and perhaps this tale is the exception that proves the rule.