Page 59 - 100 Great Business Ideas: From Leading Companies Around the World (100 Great Ideas)

managers tryiny, to improve their pprllcl( R sales with an 101.
experience kit consisting of a sample of competitors' prod- CREATIVE
ucts; a diary for recording when the participants' own house- PROBLEM
holds d.i.d laundry in a week and how big the loads were the SOLVING
requirement to visit a local laundry company (address pro- TECHNIQUES
vided) for at least one hour; and a dirty shirt that had to be
washed at home using the company's product and then worn 45
to the creativity session. Several of the spots on the shirts
wouldn't come out. All of the experiences provided the brand
managers with new insights into the problem."

18/5. FISHBONE DIAGRAM

Two very useful approaches to identifying problems are the
fishbone diagram and the related why-why diagram. (The
latter will be discussed near the end of this chapter.) The
fishbone diagram, sometimes referred to as the
Ishikawa diagram, was developed by Professor
Kaoru Ishikawa of the University of Tokyo. 15

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identify and list all the possible causes of
the problem at hand. This is primarily
a group problem identification tech-
nique, but it can be used by individu-
als as well.

This process is called the fishbone dia-
gram because of the unique
way in which the information
gathered is arranged visually.
When the problem and its causes
are recorded, they form a diagram that re-
sembles the skeleton of a fish. The problem is
written down and enclosed in a circle on the
right side of a sheet of paper. A straight line is
drawn to the left and appears much like the
backbone of a fish. (See Figure 3.1 for an abbre-
viated example of a fishbone diagram.) The
next step involves drawing stems at a 45
degree angle to the backbone line. At the
end of each of these stems are listed all of the causes of the
problem that can be brainstormed. Additional stems may