From the course: Leading Projects

How to use the fishbone diagram

From the course: Leading Projects

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How to use the fishbone diagram

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- Unfortunately, our company, H-Plus Sport, is having some problems. Overtime costs are up, they're losing track of inventory in the distribution center, and they're getting complaints from customers about late shipments. Let's see how a fishbone diagram can help us analyze what exactly is happening, and then begin to understand why. We've defined the problem as being that we're not meeting the customers expectations. So now we can ask people, "Why do you think that's happening?" Some folks think the big problem is late shipments. Others pointed out the number of damaged shipments. And as we talked with more people, we also heard there were problems with not having enough variety, having a long order processing time, sending incomplete shipments, and with our costs being too high. All of these are potential drivers of the problem we're trying to address, that we're not meeting customer expectations. You might notice that some of these drivers are actually competing issues. For example, our costs are too high, and this is driven in part by having too much inventory. But on the other hand, we have incomplete shipments and not enough variety, which are driven by not having enough inventory. The fishbone diagram is a great tool for helping people share their observations and for showing issues that you can address in order to solve the problem. You can make the fishbone by hand, with something like PowerPoint, or with a graphics program. Or, you can just make copies of the one I put in the exercise files for you. Okay, now think about a problem that you're tackling in your own projects. Try using the fishbone diagram technique to capture the root causes of the problem, and see how it helps you clarify your own thinking, and makes it easier to explain the problem to other people too.

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