Most problems that people try to solve are not the real problem. They are symptoms. A school with poor exam results has a 'performance problem' — but the real problem might be teacher absenteeism, lack of textbooks, students who arrive hungry, or a timetable that puts the hardest subjects at the worst hours. Solving for exam results directly without understanding the root cause produces interventions that do not work. Designers learn to ask 'why' five times — not because five is a magic number, but because the first answer almost always describes the symptom, and it takes several layers of questioning to reach the cause. The cause is where the real solution lives.