COEPD – Center of Excellence for Professional Development Happy Learning
Fishbone diagram is also known as Ishikawa Diagram or Root – Cause Diagram. It is used by the Companies to understand the Cause of a problem and how the Project is being affected by the Problem. A fishbone diagram resembles the skeleton of a Fish. Each bone in the skeleton represents the cause of the Problem and the Head of the skeleton represents the Problem itself. These Causes of the Problem are Used to organize brainstorming sessions in order to resolve each cause and to achieve the solution to the Final Problem.
The Five Key factors of a Fishbone Diagram are:
1. People.
2. Processes.
3. Machines.
4. Materials.
5. Environment.
The Fishbone diagram gives an elaborated Visual idea of the Causes of the Problem to the members of the Company that are trying to solve the Problem rather than giving the rough synopsis of the Problem. The fishbone diagram is widely used in order to Identify the causes for a Problem, To help develop a product that solves issues in the current market, To reveal areas of weakness in the existing business processes. The Construction of a Fishbone diagram happens in various steps. Initially, a clear Problem Statement should be drafted which all the Team members agree upon. The brainstorming session must be organized in order to figure out the major categories of the Causes of the Problem. These Categories are represented by the bones of the skeleton. After listing out the categories of Causes, the Occurrence of Cause must be questioned. The Causes must be dug deeper for clear Understanding of the cause.
The Knowledge, Experience, Training and ability to think out of the box of a team involved play a major role in the successful Construction of the Fishbone diagram. Due to its effectiveness the fishbone diagram is used in different industries like Technology, Finance Industry and Manufacturing.
