Fishbone diagram, or Ishikawa diagram, is a brainstorming diagram useful for identifying problem or effect in a product or process. Also, this diagram is known as Cause and Effect Diagram in general parlance. The main purpose of a cause and effect analysis is to identify the causes, factors, or sources of variation that lead to a specific event, result, or defect in a product or process. This Fishbone diagram template can be helpful in brainstorming the causes and effect of certain process or problem for your business, client or school and college project. Since, the diagram looks like a shape of a fishbone, it is referred as Fishbone Diagram.
About Fishbone Diagram Template in Excel or Spreadsheet
Now, Let us understand a little more about this fishbone diagram template, or cause and effect analysis diagram. Firstly, this is not exactly like a fishbone, but however the design in the template is simple to edit. Straight lines used in the template helps in moving and aligning text boxes easily. In this Fishbone Diagram Template, you can ;
- Use cell formatting feature to add or remove branches in the diagram,
- Insert rows to increase space for primary causes,
- Use Text Indenting within a cell for secondary or tertiary causes,
- Copy and Paste columns to insert more categories in the diagram.
Steps for effective cause and effect analysis
In this section, let us understand the much more acceptable and useful way to make right use of cause and effect analysis –
- Be specific and define the effect
- Choose the right categories. This fishbone diagram template comes with pre-defined list of categories, however, you have to choose the right category (add more if required)
- Brainstorm the Possible causes to showcase broaden and focused thought process in the diagram.
- Always Ask WHY ? If you are diving into the quest of finding root causes, have a skeptical mindset and ask WHY ?
- Investigate the possible causes. Gather the relevant data to support your arguments and quantify the causes identified.
Common categories in this Fishbone diagram template
So basically, this fishbone diagram template in excel and spreadsheet comes with common categories from manufacturing and service industry. You can edit and add more categories – as per your requirement. Categories that comes with this template are –
Manufacturing Industry : Machine (Equipment), Method (Process), Man Power (People / physical labor), Material, Mother Nature (Environment), Management (Policies), Measurement (Inspection), Maintenance, Marketing (Promotion)
Service Industry : Plant/Place, Process, People, Policies, Procedures, Price, Promotion, Product, Surroundings, Supplies, Systems and Skills.
Categorization and Causality in Fishbone Diagram
When a fishbone diagram is used for simply categorizing possible causes, then instead of listing Dropping in the place of a primary cause, it might be listed under the sub-category Improper Handling, with Dropping and Throwing as different causes that fit under that sub-category. The following example shows the sub-categories highlighted.
Example, Effect: Light Bulb Burning Out Prematurely
| Causality Approach | Categorization Approach | Combination |
|---|---|---|
| People > Dropping > > Slippery Hands > > Rolling off a Table > Throwing |
People > Improper Handling > > Dropping > > Throwing |
People > Improper Handling > > Dropping > > > Slippery Hands > > > Rolling off a Table > > Throwing |
A tree diagram, probability tree, or root cause analysis is geared more towards thinking in terms of causality, while using a fishbone diagram tends to make people think in terms of categorization. Using the fish bone diagram loosely may result in a combination of the two approaches as the group oscillates between categorizing different causes and asking “Why?” or “Why else?”. To understand more visit a similar post by vertex42. Also, you can present the result of this cause and effect analysis in PowerPoint and Slides using free presentation templates.
Download and use fishbone diagram excel template
To use this free fishbone diagram template in excel template, you should have Microsoft Office/ Microsoft Excel installed in your system. After installing Excel or Spreadsheet, download the zip file of this template, extract the template using WinRAR or 7Zip decompressing software. Once extracted, you can open the file using Excel and start entering data or customizing the template.
