Ishikawa Diagram

Ishikawa diagrams (also called fishbone diagrams, herringbone diagrams, cause-and-effect diagrams, or Fishikawa) are causal diagrams created by Kaoru Ishikawa that show the potential causes of a specific event.

Common uses of the Ishikawa diagram are product design and quality defect prevention to identify potential factors causing an overall effect. Each cause or reason for imperfection is a source of variation. Causes are usually grouped into major categories to identify and classify these sources of variation.

Advantages

• Highly visual brainstorming tool which can spark further examples of root causes
• Quickly identify if the root cause is found multiple times in the same or different causal tree
• Allows one to see all causes simultaneously
• Good visualization for presenting issues to stakeholders

Disadvantages

• Complex defects might yield a lot of causes which might become visually cluttering
• Interrelationships between causes are not easily identifiable

For more information refer to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishikawa_diagram