# Fishbone diagram

An Ishikawa diagram puts the problem at the head of a spine and groups possible causes along it. The categories are the trick: they stop a root cause session from becoming a list of whatever people thought of first.

Use the traditional six categories or agree your own before you start.

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## When to reach for one

* Root cause analysis after an incident or a quality problem.
* Structured problem solving where the causes span several areas.
* Workshops where the discussion needs categories to stay balanced.

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## How to draw it in Capable

| **Route** | **Use when**                                                            |
| --------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| draw.io   | The classic fishbone shape, laid out precisely.                         |
| Mermaid   | A structured tree version when the shape matters less than the content. |

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## A worked example

Causes grouped by category, feeding one effect:

![Fishbone diagram](https://help.gocapable.com/images/att1417511031.svg)

The source, which you can paste into a new diagram and edit:

```
flowchart LR
  P[People] --> E([Checkout failures])
  M[Process] --> E
  T[Technology] --> E
  D[Data] --> E
  P --> P1[No on-call runbook]
  P --> P2[Alert went to a rotation nobody watched]
  M --> M1[No load test before release]
  M --> M2[Change approved without rollback plan]
  T --> T1[Payment provider timeout not handled]
  T --> T2[Retry storm from client]
  D --> D1[Stale feature flag config]
```

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## A few things that catch people out

* Agree the categories first, or every cause lands in whichever branch was drawn first.
* Keep asking why within a branch; the first cause listed is rarely the root.
* Causes are not actions. Turn the diagram into actions afterwards, separately.

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## Related

[Venn diagramOverlaps, and what lives in them.](https://help.gocapable.com/diagrams/venn-diagram.html)

[Mind mapOne idea in the middle, branches outward.](https://help.gocapable.com/diagrams/mind-map.html)

[ExamplesWorking diagrams you can copy.](https://help.gocapable.com/diagrams/examples.html)

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_Generate first. Organise second._