1. Cause and Effect Diagrams
By: Michael Thomas

2. Overview What Are Cause & Effect Diagrams?
How Can They Be Used in Your Organization?
How Do They work?
Real World Example
Try It Yourself
Summary
Overview of the contents of the presentation

3. What Are Cause & Effect Diagrams?
Problem solving tool
Focuses on potential causes of the problem
Created by Kaoru Ishikawa
Also known as Ishikawa or Fishbone diagrams
The Cause & Effect Diagram is a tool created by Kaoru Ishikawa which is used to help employees solve problems. It accomplishes this by focusing on the potential causes of the problem instead of just the problem itself.

4. How Can They Be Used in Your Organization?
Incredibly versatile – can be used in any orgainization
Helpful in many situations
Product/process problems
Departmental conflicts
Team conflicts
Employee/Interpersonal conflicts
Cause & Effect diagrams can be used in numerous situations in all companies. These can range from product or process problems to departmental conflicts. They are also useful for identifying problems between members of a team working on a project.

5. How Do They Work? Slide 1 of 8
There are 5 steps to designing a Cause & Effect Diagram
Step 1:
Identify the main problem
Write problem in box at right-hand side of page
There are five steps to designing a Cause & Effect Diagram. The first is to identify what the main problem is and then to write it in a box at the right-hand side of the page you are working with.

6. How Do They Work? Slide 2 of 8
Example of Step 1

7. How Do They Work? Slide 3 of 8
Step 2:
Draw a long arrow across page pointing at box
Draw smaller arrows pointing at main arrow
Draw a box at the end of each arrow
Identify 4 major causes of problem
Write the major causes in the boxes
Draw a long arrow across the page pointing at the box containing the problem. Four arrows should then be drawn, pointing the the main arrow. A box should be drawn at the end of each of these arrows and four major causes of the problem should be identified and written inside each box.

8. How Do They Work? Slide 4 of 9
It may not be easy to develop 4 main causes
In this case 4 generic causes can be used
Machines
Materials
Methods
People
For some problems it may be difficult to come up with four major causes. If this is the case, it is common to use machines, materials, methods, and people as the major causes. Employees should then be able to attribute causes to these four categories.

9. How Do They Work? Slide 5 of 9
Example of Step 2

10. How Do They Work? Slide 6 of 9
Step 3:
Consider other causes, including possible causes of the 4 major causes stated in Step 2
Add these as branches off of the 4 arrows
Repeat until all causes are discovered
Employees should continue to think of more causes of the problem, this should include considering aspects as well as possible causes of the four major causes addressed in step 2. These findings should branch off of the appropriate arrows. This step is repeated until all possible causes are discovered.

11. How Do They Work? Slide 7 of 9
Example of Step 3

12. How Do They Work? Slide 8 of 9
Step 4:
Rank the top causes by priority
Employees have 10 points
They can assign the points to causes they feel are important
Total the points for each cause
Rank the causes by their priority
After the diagram is finished there will be many causes identified. These causes will need to be prioritized. The easiest way to accomplish this is to tell employees they can allot 10 points to the causes they feel are important. They may allot 1 point to 10 causes, 10 points to 1 cause, or spread the points out. Once this is finished, total the points and rank the causes by their priority.

13. How Do They Work? Slide 9 of 9
Step 5:
Choose the top ranked causes
Not more than 5
Analyze the causes
Develop a plan of action
After ranking the causes choose the top few (generally not more than 5) causes on which to begin focusing. Analyze the causes and determine what needs to be done. The final step is to develop a plan of action and solve the problem.

14. Real World Example Slide 1 of 5
Problem: company network is down
A company realizes its network is down, but is unsure why. The IT manager and MIS people get together and try to solve the problem using a Cause & Effect Diagram. They draw the problem box and write “Network is down” inside.

15. Real World Example Slide 2 of 5
4 major causes:
Hardware problem
Software problem
Employee problem
Outside problem
They come up with 4 major causes: hardware, software, employee, or outside problem (something out of their control).

16. Real World Example Slide 3 of 5
The four major causes are branched off of the main arrow.

17. Real World Example Slide 4 of 5
Sub-causes
Hardware
Server crash, broken hub
Software
Virus, missing driver
Employee
Inexperience with system
Outside
Power outage, hacker
After some brainstorming, the MIS people came up with some possible sub-causes:
Hardware: The server may have crashed, shutting down the entire network. One of the hubs connecting the other computers to the host may be broken or malfunctioning.
Software: A virus may have entered the system either through a disk or download. One of the drivers for the network system may have become corrupt
Employee: An employee’s inexperience with the system may have caused a network failure.
Outside: The server may have lost power due to an outage. A hacker may have broken into the system and violated the system’s integrity.

18. Real World Example Slide 5 of 5
After filling out the entire diagram, the IT manager and the MIS people can decide the best way to go about fixing the problem as quickly as possible.

19. Try It Yourself Slide 1 of 2
Problem: Department’s sales figures declining the past 3 months
Groups of 3-5 people
Identify 4 possible major causes
Fill in the Cause & Effect Diagram
Rank top causes
Suggest a possible plan of action
Imagine you are a manager at a retail store and you discover that your department’s sales figures have been declining the past three months.
Get in groups of three to five people and construct a Cause & Effect diagram, identify the four major causes, vote on and rank the top causes, and then finally suggest a possible plan of action for the manager.

20. Try It Yourself Slide 2 of 2
What were your 4 main causes?
What were your top ranked causes?
What was your suggested plan of action?
Answers may vary. Here is one possibility:
Major Cause 1: Employees
sub-causes: lack of motivation, unsatisfied with job/rewards
Major Cause 2: Customers
sub-causes: not buying, “just looking”, not coming to the store
Major Cause 3: Economy
sub-causes: people don’t have much money to spend
Major Cause 4: Time of year
sub-causes: is it right after Christmas?, are people on vacation?
Top ranked causes: Employees not motivated, Customers not coming into store
Plan of action: Manager should talk to his employees either individually or all together and determine why they are not motivated. Ask if they are happy with job/position, compensation, etc. Ask them why they think the sales figures have been down and try to see it from their perspective.
Talk to the customers that do come into the store and ask them what brought them in. Discover their view on the company’s advertising campaign and inform the store manager or others of the responses given. The lack of customers may be due to a lack of sales fliers, lack of knowledge that the store exists, etc.

21. Summary Cause & Effect Diagrams Incredibly useful tools
Wide variety of situations
Easy to use
As you can see, Cause and Effect diagrams are incredibly useful tools for any business. They can be implemented in a wide variety of situations and are very easy to use.

22. Bibliography
Donndelinger, Deborah. Use the cause-and-effect diagram to manage conflict. Quality Progress. v29 n6. Jun p.136
Foster, S. Thomas. Managing Quality: an integrative approach. Prentice Hall, NJ. p