What is Fishbone Diagrams?

Fishbone diagrams, also known as Ishikawa diagrams or cause-and-effect diagrams, are visualization tools used to identify and analyze the potential causes of a specific problem or effect. They are commonly used in root cause analysis to brainstorm and organize possible contributing factors, typically categorized into major groups like people, methods, machines, materials, measurement, and environment. The 'fishbone' structure helps teams systematically explore all possible causes to find the root cause of an issue.