JS Tip 618: Root Cause Analysis Part Two

From the Leadership Workshops: Root Cause Analysis Part Two: Fishbone Diagrams 

We’ve been talking about root cause analysis and the tools for finding the root causes of problems. 

Last week, we talked about “The Five Whys.” 

This week, we’ll talk about fishbone diagrams. Fishbone diagrams? Fishbone diagrams.  

A fishbone diagram will help you brainstorm the causes of a problem. 

We’ve included a sample diagram below.

The Process

Capture the problem as a fish head, on the right and facing to the right.

Brainstorm the causes on the left—on the fish’s body—with major causes as ribs and root causes attached to the ribs (because we read from left to right and causes lead to problems).  

Brainstorm. Brainstorm. Brainstorm. Major causes. Minor causes. Anything you can think of that might relate to the problem.  

When you’ve exhausted your brainstorming, examine your diagram. Which causes appear most often? Bingo. Most probably a root cause. 

The Advantages and Disadvantages

The advantages— 

• It captures your brainstorming in a visual and causal relationship. 

• It allows you to see all the causes at once. 

• It identifies root causes as they repeatedly appear. 

And the disadvantages—

• It can be cluttered. (Complex problems may have complex causes.) 

• It doesn’t show interrelationships (across causes and across ribs). 

We love this stuff. 

These ideas and this discussion did not originate with us. We’re not that smart. We’ve borrowed them from everywhere. We’re most grateful to Hollie Doyle, who developed our Root Cause Analysis workshop. Thank you, Hollie.