Cause and Effect Map: Creating and Using a Fishbone Chart

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A Cause and Effect Map is a simple tool that can assist you to direct your action when solving problems.  Below we discuss:

  1. Why you would use a Cause and Effect Map.
  2. The Five Steps to creating a successful Cause and Effect Map.
  3. The three things to remember when using a Cause and Effect Map.

Why Use a Cause and Effect Map?

  • A Cause and Effect Map will help you to find and address root causes of a problem, not just the symptoms.
  • To identify cases where multiple causes for a problem may exist.
  • A Cause and Effect Map enables a team to focus on the content of the problem, not on the history of the problem, or the differing personal opinions of team members

5 Steps to a Successful Cause & Effect Map:

  1. Create a clear problem statement
  2. Brainstorm possible causes
  3. Draw Fishbone Diagram
  4. Ask Why
  5. Move to Action

Create a Clear Problem or Goal Statement for Your Cause and Effect Map

  • What is the problem (use specific terms)?
  • Where has the problem occurred?
  • When has the problem occurred?
  • How much?  How can you quantify the problem?
  • Use data wherever possible.
  • Ensure all participants have a common understanding of the problem statement.  Your Cause and Effect Map will be useless if people don’t clearly understand what problem they are attempting to solve.

Brainstorm Possible Causes to the Problem Statement on your Cause and Effect Map

  • Start with “Green Light” thinking.  Your Cause and Effect Map will be much more effective if you generate ideas without judgment at first.
  • Do in advance or as a group.  You may want participants to lend some thought in advance to potential causes, but if can still create an effective Cause and Effect Map by doing it as a group.
  • Use Post-its.  One alternative for your Cause and Effect Map is to have participants write down one potential cause on each of several Post-It notes.  This will allow you to more easily group and move ideas between categories.
  • Put brainstormed causes into potential categories.  You can do this either by labeling causes, and listing causes below the label, or conversely they can be grouped into categories, and then create a label based on the ideas contained in that grouping.
  • Apply more critical or “Red Light” thinking as you are sorting the potential causes into groups.

Draw a Fishbone Diagram and put in categories

Your Cause and Effect Map will begin to take shape when you draw your fishbone diagram, and label the individual “bones”.  Here are some standard categories found on a Cause and Effect Map, but don’t feel bound by these:

  • Materials
  • Machinery
  • Method
  • Policy
  • Measurement
  • People
  • Information (or lack there of)
  • Performance standards (quality, cost, etc)
  • Plant or facilities
  • Training and knowledge
  • Procedures
  • Environment

** Customize categories to meet your specific needs of your Cause and Effect Map

If you used Post-It notes, you can stick them on the appropriate “bones” of your Cause and Effect Map.

Ask Why

  • Start your Cause and Effect Map by looking at each “bone” and asking:
    • What else could be a cause?
    • Why does this happen?
  • You will now have a series of causes listed on each “bone”.  For each of those causes, you now need to ask “why”.
  • Continue to ask why for each cause until the appropriate level of detail is reached.

Move to Action on Your Cause and Effect Map

Your Cause and Effect Map is nothing more than a pretty picture, unless you choose to do something about it.  In some cases, several hundred causes may have been identified, in which case you will have to prioritize.

  • Look for causes that appear repeatedly across categories.
  • Look for causes that occur frequently.
  • Address causes you can do something about.
  • Make diagram available after the meeting for further input.

3 Things to Remember About Your Cause and Effect Map

  1. Make sure you clearly state a problem or goal.  If you have an ambiguous, or misunderstood problem statement, you will waste a considerable amount of time.
  2. Make sure you’re at the appropriate level of detail.  In some cases a Cause and Effect Map may take several hours to complete.  In other cases, it can be done in a few minutes.  You need to decide the most appropriate level of detail.
  3. Prioritize what action to take.  You should focus on one or two causes you wish to address, and leave the others for a later time.

Watch the ‘3-Minute Crash Course’ about creating and using a Cause and Effect Map (CLICK THE ARROW TO START THE VIDEO):

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