Do You Know About Fishbone Diagrams?

Monday 3rd October 2011 | 2 comments

Fishbone DiagramFishbone diagrams (also called cause and effect diagrams or Ishikawa diagrams) help you to think through the causes of a problem thoroughly. They encourage you to consider all possible causes of the problem, rather than just the most obvious ones.

It can be essential to know the real causes of a situation in order to come up with the most creative and effective solution. We all have a tendency to investigate a problem just deep enough to come up with a plausible solution, or to assemble enough facts to jump to the next stage. Sometimes this is fine (with superficial issues, or where any action is good enough to keep things moving).

But often we deny ourselves the really brilliant answer by short-circuiting the process. Fishbone diagrams might be the tool you need to dig down that bit deeper. You can use them on your own or in a group, and they work like this:

  1. Identify the problem: Write down the exact problem in as much detail as you can. Identify who is involved, what the problem is, and when and where it occurs. Write this information about the problem in a box on one side of a large piece of paper. Draw a line across the paper horizontally from the box. This ends up looking like the head and spine of a fish, giving you the space to develop your ideas.
  2. Work out the major factors involved: Next, identify the factors contributing to the problem. Draw a line off the spine for each factor, and label it (people involved with the problem, equipment, materials, systems, external aspects and so on). Try to draw out as many factors as possible. These become the 'bones' of the fish.
  3. Identify possible causes: For each factors in 2 above, brainstorm possible causes of the problem that may be related to this factor. Show these as smaller lines coming off the fish 'bones'. If necessary, break the causes into sub-causes, marked as smaller bones coming off the causes bones.
  4. Analyse your diagram: Reflect on the diagram, see if you need to add more bones, or not. Then use it as the basis for an analysis of the problem and the 'next steps' you need to take - more research, brainstorming solutions, taking action or whatever is needed.

Could you use a fishbone diagram to understand something in your life better?

Tags: thinking, tips

Comments

  1. Most of my work (training, coaching) is underpinned by the solution-focused brief approach - so I often use the fishbone to develop solutions - write down what things will look like when they are going better / probem is resolved. Then write down all the resources that can assist in developing the improvement - these become the big bones. They work along each bone detailing when, where, how that aspect / resource can enable the improvement,
    Take a step back, look at the whole 'fish" and decide which bit to tackle because it is the easiest to do and most likely to provide an encouraging small success experience in your quest to improve things.
    Best wishes, Svea

    Posted by Svea | Wednesday 5th October 2011 @ 3:49pm

  2. Svea, thank you. I love your application of this technique. Thanks for sharing it...

    Posted by Joanna Maxwell | Wednesday 5th October 2011 @ 4:39pm

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