Monday, August 30, 2010

Easy analysis with fishbone diagram template (Ishikawa)

I spent some time recently and created a fishbone diagram template .  To view/use the diagram follow the link here


Here is a short article on fishbone diagrams and how/when to use them.
The output of will look like this


Here are the steps to produce the chart
1 Go to the data tab

2 Enter Effect in Cell I11
3 Modify Major Categories (if desired)
4 Select the Category from the drop down
5 Enter a cause (repeat until complete)
6 View diagram (button in upper right)
7 There are places to add additional columns of data that will not appear on the diagram

I am always working on ways to improve this fishbone diagram template so if you have any improvements please feel free to comment here or contact me by filling out my contact form.

8 comments:

  1. a good template but I wish it gave the option of drilling down into a cause and showed that on the map. Understand the limitations of excel so good effort nonetheless.

    Thanks,
    Nitin Malhotra

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  2. Thanks Nitin. I have tested out a way that might make this possible. I'll be working on it in my spare time. I'll post something once it's complete.

    Thanks for the input.

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  3. I was finally able to get back to attempting to create the drilling down functionality. I haven't been able to get it to work as of yet. Maybe a few weeks off and back at it. Fresh eyes sometimes makes a difference.

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  4. Helped with my management assignment, as well as my (root) cause and effect analysis on a very real problem.
    www.businesssupportfinder.co.uk

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  5. Hi. Just came across your template researching the topic on the internet (I'm taking a six sigma course). Thanks for sharing!
    Can you explain the intended use of the columns 1-7? are they meant to record answers to the 5whys drills into the cause listed on the same line? (might be the same question Nitin has asked - and this is your approach to resolving it?)

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  6. One more comment, now that I tried to populate it. I'm on Excel 2010. I had a number of causes listed in another excel, listed in a column. I've selected the entire column and pased in the Cause column in your spreadsheet. I started assigning to each of the causes, a category, from the pull down range. Along the way, I noticed that the range list started missing some of the items declared (instead of 6 elements to chose from, I've only had 5, and as I continued, I only got 4 names to choose from, and I stopped. Any thoughts what is driving that anomaly? Resizing cells may have something to do with it, but the issue happened also when I didn't resize them.

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  7. hi I found some more useful fishbone diagram examples in creately diagram community

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