Fishbone diagram
A fishbone diagram (also called Ishikawa or cause-and-effect diagram) is a tool for root-cause analysis that organizes potential causes of a problem into categories radiating from a central spine.
In depth
Fishbone diagrams were developed by Kaoru Ishikawa in the 1960s for quality control. The 'head' of the fish is the problem statement; the 'spine' runs horizontally; and the 'bones' represent categories of cause (the 6 M's: Manpower, Methods, Machines, Materials, Measurement, Mother Nature).
The visual structure forces a team to consider every category before jumping to a single hypothesis. Variants include 5 Whys-anchored versions and Lean's 8-waste-anchored versions.
OpenCharts builds a fishbone as one composite node that lays out its own spine, angled bones, and cause categories. Add a category and it redistributes the attachment points and re-angles every bone for you. Describe the problem and Theo proposes the causes under each category.
Also known as
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Build a fishbone diagramRelated terms
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