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Building multiple cause diagrams

 

Multiple cause analysis is a technique that you can use on your own or with groups of people. It is also sometimes known as the fish bone method.

Essentially the idea is to start with a definition of the performance problem, and to ask why this is happening. For each answer, ask "Why?" again. Do this repeatedly to build up a picture of the different factors that are influencing the performance.

For an example, imagine that you have been asked to analyse poor performance in report writing.

 

Take a sheet of A3 paper and write what the problem is in the middle. Then write the words Knowledge, Skill, Motivation and Environment as shown. These will help to stimulate your initial thoughts so that you can get going easily.
 

Click on the Step 2 button. Think about the knowledge aspects of report writing, and ask, “Why is report writing poor?” Write an idea down. Then ask “Why is that so?”. Write that down. Keep repeating this, “Why...? Why ...? Why ...?” questioning so that you build up a chain.
  Click on the Step 3 button. Repeat this for the other anchors. By now the thoughts will be flowing and you will probably be moving from one anchor to another. You might end up with something like this:

 

 

 

 

 

There are some points to look out for.

Vicious circles

When you ask why to one reason, you may decide that one answer is also a consequence of that reason. For example, under motivation above one reason for poor motivation is that there is no reward for doing it. This is because it is not seen as important which is in turn because there is no reward for doing it. Such loops are vicious circles and are particularly important issues to address.

Repeated causes

Some points may keep coming up - these are key problems you need to consider. In this example, poor English appears twice.

Finding appropriate solutions

 

 

(C) Bryan Hopkins, 2005