Fishbone analysis

Objective is to detect the root causes of your problem.        
We are looking for the causes, not actions, neither topics. .  

Fishbone - The fishbone will help to visually display the many potential causes for a specific problem or effect. It is particularly useful in a group setting and for situations in which little quantitative data is available for analysis.

Instructions:  
1. Start with stating the problem in the form of a question, such as 'Why is the help desk's abandon rate so high?' Framing it as a 'why' question will help in brainstorming, as each root cause idea should answer the question, it's helpful to use expressions like: "lack of ..."; "excess of..", etc. The team should agree on the statement of the problem and then place this question in a box at the 'head' of the fishbone.

2. Labelled branches with different categories;
- Methods (process) are ways of doing things or the procedures followed to accomplish a task. A typical cause under the Method category is not following instructions or the instructions are wrong.

- Man (People) are responsible for the problem. The problem may have been caused by people who are inexperienced, who cannot answer prompted questions, and so on.

- Management (Procedures) refers to project management; poor management decisions.
- Measurement refers to metrics that are derived from a project. Problems may occur if measurements are wrong or the measurement technique used is not relevant.

- Material (Product/ service) basically refers to a physical thing.
- Machine (Place/ plant/ technology) performance issues.

3. Begin brainstorming possible causes and attach them to the appropriate category branches.

4. For each cause identified, continue to ask 'why does that happen?' and attach that information as another bone from the cause branch. This will help get you to the true drivers of a problem.

Cause Prioritization   
For each root cause, give grades (5, 3 or 1), according to the criteria shown in:      
        1. Impact on the target
        2. Authority over cause;       
        3. Difficulty to eliminate.    
               
ACTION PLAN            
For each prioritized root cause you must establish one or more actions in order to eliminate it.       
1. Make sure that the proposed actions will really impact the results by eliminating the root causes - elaborate at least one action to block and eliminate it.

2. Explain how you going to do this action. Write the steps to accomplish the action.  
3. Assign one accountable for each action. It must be only one person. 
4. Define the start date for each action, so you will be able to follow up the accomplishment of each action.  
5. Finally define the end date of each action. Remember that your target has a deadline. The action end date must be aligned with your target deadline.