Root Cause LO8024

RLucadello@aol.com
Fri, 21 Jun 1996 20:33:49 -0400

Replying to LO7952 --

Ref LO7592: "I must side with Jack in not recommending fishbone diagrams for
most root cause thinking. They work well in clearly defined processes where
the causal chain is more obvious. However (and this is not a cultural issue)
in situations where the causal chain is less direct, with the kinds of
feedback loops , delays, and other 'non-linearities' the systems dynamics
diagrams are much more useful."

This is certainly true. In fact, it is possible to go further and level this
same criticism at pretty much all of the famous "7 basic tools" of quality
(fishbone diagram, pareto chart, flow chart, etc.). This limitation of the
basic tools resulted in the development of the "New 7" tools in Japan which
are sometimes known in the US as "The New Seven Management and Planning
Tools."

These tools are designed to deal with more ambiguous or project oriented
tasks than the basic tools (including the fishbone diagram). Thus, these
tools are designed to produce group effectiveness in white collar (for lack
of a better term) environments such as middle management, though I think they
will also work well in many engineering (hardware or software) applications.

The tools include both the Affinity Diagram (a.k.a. the "KJ Method"), which I
would argue is a very LO-ish tool, and the Inter-relationship Digraph, or ID
diagram, which looks very similar to a system dynamics diagram.

The best reference I have seen on these tools is "The Memory Jogger Plus"
published by GOAL/QPC. It goes into not only the tools, but also when they
are appropriate to use, in great detail.

Regards,
Just another quality geek
RLucadello@aol.com

-- 

RLucadello@aol.com

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