Fishbone Diagram - How to Better Understand the Issue

Fishbone Diagram - How to Better Understand the Issue - Template

In business, it’s all about efficiency. If you’re not efficient, you will have a hard time doing anything in the business environment.

So, to make things simpler and more visually appealing, great minds decided that the data works best with fish.

The fishbone diagram is the topic of our conversation here, and it’s a great visual aid to show what we’re trying to achieve without unnecessary complications. It’s wildly known in the business world as one of the seven essential quality tools that improve the company's overall effectiveness.

Fishbone diagrams are widely used around the world for a reason. Also known as the Ishikawa diagram, it has many qualities that can improve your understanding and communication in business.

What Software to Use?

Before getting into the weeds of things, we must first understand that to create such a diagram, we must find the best possible software. You can use a fishbone diagram example or create one for yourself. We will show you some interesting examples of templates you can use, but let’s first examine what we should use to achieve maximum efficiency. It’s also one of the seven basic quality tools.

In this case, we would highly recommend Microsoft Office. It’s stable in the market, and you can see that it will not go away soon. It has a lot of quality management processes within many apps, and it can potentially contribute some fantastic qualities to your company as well.

The best thing about Microsoft Office is the fact that everyone knows it. It’s one of the most popular programs, and for a reason. Also - it’s not that expensive anymore. You can find Microsoft Office at really affordable prices at Royal CD Keys.

And with that in mind, let’s get on with the templates.

Fishbone Diagram Template #1

This template is attractive as it combines the futuristic design with beneficial image usage. It can significantly portray the underlying problems and simultaneously show some great visualizations. The outcome will depend on how you use it, but it’s great for design companies or media.

You can download it for free at TemplateLAB.

Fishbone Diagram Template #2

This is the most “serious” template on our list. It does not have the classic horizontal arrow. It’s more interested in showing the underlying problems than being an “effect diagram.” As you can see in the title, it’s great for any manufacturing job or some other appropriate category. If you want to be seen as an adult who takes things seriously, this one’s for you.

You can download it for free at www.WordTemplatesOnline.net

Fishbone Diagram Template #3

And here we have the wackiest of them all. A fishbone diagram that is, indeed, a fish. It’s a really fun concept and we can highly recommend it to anyone looking for getting underneath the exact problem while also finding other possible causes in the successive layers of the fishbone.

It’s not the most serious of propositions, but you can clearly use that in some more laidback environments that can appreciate working with literal fish bones.

You can download it from TemplateLAB for free.

What is a Fishbone Diagram?

So, now that we know what software to use and what kind of templates to choose, let’s go into some deep theoretical knowledge.

For starters, in the most basic interpretations, a fishbone diagram is just a problem-solving diagram you can use to present the issues you’re dealing with visually. It helps everyone to see some root causes of a problem; that way, during a brainstorming session, you can find out what to do with said problem.

Of course, there may be other factors that created the issues, but where the fishbone diagram shines is that it can find all the possible causes without bringing, sometimes problematic, the history of the case to the table.

What to Include in Fishbone Diagram?

It’s essential to create a fishbone diagram intelligently. Of course, you can list all the issues, but it would be wrong. Mind mapping like this should be organized and well-structured.

Here is something to consider.


Define the Problem


The most important thing is to understand what we are doing. Talk with your team, and see potential problems, the possible cause, and how they can change. Consider many factors and see if you can find out the root issue from the symptoms.

The problem will be the “head” of your fish, and you must find potential causes and solutions. It’s the first step of getting rid of the issue, so you must analyze all the possible factors. When you have leading causes, you can go to other actions.


Create Categories


After creating a problem statement, you need to create categories or branches of the problem. Let’s say you have an issue with the effectiveness of your app. You’re a software developer; you have a team of people working with you.

To create an exemplary fishbone diagram, you need to see if it’s a personal, technical, or relationship between people kind of problem. Maybe it’s an issue only on some devices, perhaps because of the unusual graphic design.

To find out the root of the case, you need to identify the problem categories that may appear. 


Identify Causes


If you find out the potential cause, let’s find out what factors create problems in the structure. It’s like with every sports car, take out the door, and it will drive; take out the steering wheel, you can still go forward, but if you’d take out the engine - well, let’s just say it would affect the relationship between the car braking down and your actions.

Your equipment is full of materials; some of them cannot work together, and you need to find the fault in all of this. That would be on the ribs of your fish.

Contributing factors are a great way of better understanding what is relevant and what is not. Teams should also create their analysis to help the team leader find the root cause of the problem.


Deeper Causes


It’s unlikely that any given situation has a disproportionate number of reasons behind it, but - if it happens, this method will show it.

Hide the deeper problems inside your ribs behind the more obvious ones.

You may think this is not that good of an idea, but there are so many issues with so many things on the ground level that you wouldn’t believe it.

For example, you may have a root problem in your app that didn’t appear for five years, but suddenly, after an update - everything crashed. Was the update the contributing factor? That is for sure. But what caused the problem? The issue is at the root of everything.

Finding solutions in major categories can sometimes determine various causes in different places.

Fishbone Diagram - Conclusion

As you can see, a fishbone diagram can be helpful in many different ways; you just need to trust the process. Whether it’s called a Kaoru Ishikawa invention or your basic fishbone diagram, you can see that it has a lot of utility in problem-solving.

Whether we like it or not, determining the cause of our problems can sometimes be tricky.

Finding out what made everything the way it sometimes feels so overwhelming. In all cases tough, it’s great that we have tools to deal with it.

We hope we can help you with your problems with our problem-solver!

Thanks For Reading!

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