How to Create a Fishbone (Ishikawa) Diagram Quickly

When To Use a Fishbone Diagram

Fishbone diagrams work for most entrepreneurs and almost any industry or person having a problem. Professional diagramming software may help you create Fishbone (Cause and Effect or Ishikawa) diagrams. When people are unclear about what is causing an issue, ConceptDraw DIAGRAM will be your lifesaver. When to use a Fishbone diagram? Originally developed as a quality control tool, you may find a Fishbone diagram helpful when used in many cases, such as to analyze a complex problem when there are many causes, for identifying all possible root causes for an effect or a problem, when you need different point of view to look on a problem, to uncover bottlenecks and identify where and why a process doesn't work, for acceleration a process when traditional ways of problem solving consume many time.

Fishbone Diagram

The use of specific types of visual diagrams is effective way to problems solving and decisions making. Fishbone diagram is a graphical tool used for visual and systematical analyzing the relationships between the solved problem and causes affecting its occurrence. It has hierarchical structure and that's why is well-suited for capturing in a mind map for a process of reviewing what branch is a real root cause of a given issue. ConceptDraw Office products and PM solutions offered by ConceptDraw STORE give the powerful help in questions of planning and project management. ConceptDraw DIAGRAM and ConceptDraw MINDMAP applications perfectly suit for designing professional-looking Fishbone Diagrams and allow effectively identify the root causes of quality issues using the Fishbone diagrams. The PM Response solution from the Project Management area of ConceptDraw Solution Park is powerful for improvement the response time to project changes, helps with iteration planning, with solving project challenges and discussing project layout approaches.

Relations Diagram

The Relations Diagram is used to identify how the factors influence each other, to determine what factors are causes and what are effects. The factors mostly influencing are called “drivers”, the primarily affected factors are “indicators”. The problem solving is focused on the change of "drivers" factors by applying the corrective actions. The "indicators" factors help establish the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to monitor the changes and also define the effectiveness of the corrective actions in resolving a problem. ConceptDraw MINDMAP software ideally suits for designing Relations Diagrams. The easiest way to create the MINDMAP Relations Diagram, is to use the included Relations Diagram input template. Open it in ConceptDraw MINDMAP application from the Input tab and hold a new brainstorming session, identify the central issue and the contributing factors to this issue. Click the Finish Brainstorm button to generate a Mind Map and begin the further work with it, or select Relations Diagram item from the Output tab to automatically draw it in ConceptDraw DIAGRAM application.

Affinity Diagram

The Affinity Diagram, also known as a KJ diagram, is a business tool invented for organization the large quantity of ideas and data. It is a part of Seven Management and Planning Tools, it is usually used right after brainstorming to sort large numbers of ideas into the corresponding groups. The Affinity Diagram helps to represent in a better way the structure of large and complex factors which influence on a problem, divides these factors into the smaller and simpler structures, and helps team members to see the patterns and identify possible solutions to problems they have. The diagrams of this type don't show the causal relationships between the factors, but they are designed to prepare the data for holding further analysis of the cause-effect relationships. Another area of Affinity Diagram usage is contextual inquiry as a way to sort observations and notes from field interviews, support call logs, open-ended survey responses organizing, etc. ConceptDraw MINDMAP software offers you the tools for easy holding brainstorming, generation ideas and creation MINDMAP Affinity Diagram.

Draw Fishbone Diagram on MAC Software

The problem solving and decision-making processes are closely linked and crucial for the business and life. There are many tools and techniques for facilitating and improvement these processes, and also enhancement the quality of accepted decisions. One of them is Fisbone Diagram or Cause and Effect diagram. For its construction, you need first define the problem which you need to solve (existing or potential), write it into rectangular and draw to it a horizontal line - a “fish spine”. Then define general types of possible causes like Persons, Materials, Methods, Machinery, Measurements or Environment, and attach them to “spine”. Start brainstorming the possible reasons of failure and connect them to the branches. Professional diagramming ConceptDraw DIAGRAM MAC OSX software offers the Fishbone Diagrams solution which contains templates, samples, and ready Fishbone design objects. Use of them lets effectively identify the possible causes for an effect, realize successfully cause and effect analysis, and instantly draw Fishbone diagram on Mac software.

Think and act effectively

Many people who use mind mapping software for personal organizing find ConceptDraw MINDMAP sufficiently useful mind mapping tool in their business and daily life. Especially many positive responses receive ConceptDraw MINDMAP as cross platform tool to mind maps for Macintosh and Windows.

Improving Problem Solving and Focus with Fishbone Diagrams

When you need to focus on the problem, professional diagramming tool helps you create a Fishbone diagram also known as Ishikawa diagram. Understanding of the problem via Fishbone diagram will improve the processes between departments and teams. ConceptDraw DIAGRAM extended with Fishbone Diagrams solution gives a powerful tool for improving problem solving and focus with Fishbone diagrams.

8 Step Problem Solving

Time by time the problems appear in any field of our life and activities, and we can't to escape this. Any problem always has a certain content, the reasons and the circle of involved people. But the main task of any human, any organization, any company that was faced with a problem, is not to get lost and vice versa confidently look for the ways of solving this problem. The first you need to clarify the problem's essence, then to breakdown your problem and set a target. The most responsible step is to identify the cause-effect relationship, because each problem has its own root causes, and their detection will allow qualitatively solve this problem and avoid the similar problems in a future. Then you need to develop the countermeasures to counter the root cause of the problem and to make sure in their effectiveness, that they lead to the desired results. And finally standardize successful processes. This Mind Map designed with help of ConceptDraw MINDMAP software represents step-by-step the 8 steps approach of solving any kind of product or service problems.

Fishbone Diagram Design Element

ConceptDraw DIAGRAM diagramming and vector drawing software extended with Fishbone Diagrams solution is a perfect tool for software designers and software developers. If you need to create Cause and Effect diagram, Fishbone diagram, Ishikawa diagram from templates and examples, or using the predesigned elements, ConceptDraw DIAGRAM can do this easily. ConceptDraw DIAGRAM software gives ability to design Fishbone diagrams that identify many possible causes for an effect for problem. Each Fishbone diagram design element included to Fishbone Diagrams library is vector and ready-to-use.