What Are Fishbone Diagrams?
The fishbone diagram, also called the Ishikawa diagram, was created in Japan. The story goes that fishbone diagrams were first used in engineering the Mazda sports car. These kinds of diagrams have since become popular in many parts of the modern business world, including in manufacturing, where they can be useful in assessing what has gone wrong with a complex process. Fishbone diagrams are composed of a main horizontal line where smaller lines branch off of the main line diagonally. This makes the chart look like a fish skeleton. The “fish bones” represent cause and effect in a situation where it’s necessary to troubleshoot a production problem or other dilemma. The fishbone diagram provides a much better “quick picture” perspective than a block of text, which is a main part of its appeal to busy executives.
