Ishikawa Diagram now on Untools and a simple communication framework
Hi there,
it's Adam from Untools. There's now over 4800 of you subscribed and I couldn't be more grateful for this amazing audience of people who want to improve their thinking. Thank you 🙏
Today, I'm bringing you two things:
- Problem solving tool for identifying root causes
- Simple communication framework
Let's dive right in!
Ishikawa diagram
Ishikawa diagram is a great tool to help you solve problems by identifying their root causes. Sometimes called also cause-and-effect or fishbone diagram, it was created by Japanese professor Kaoru Ishikawa. It's especially effective for tackling complex problems.
It's a simple thinking tool but provides great structure for analysing root causes.
Read on how to create the Ishikawa diagram
What / so what / now what
This is a neat communication framework that you can use for structuring e.g. giving feedback, making requests or reflecting with your team:
- What: Say what this is about
- So what: Explain why it's important
- Now what: Provide actionable next steps
An example of this might be:
- What: "We need to validate this solution..."
- So what: "...to make sure it fits into our user's workflow. We don't want usability problems to hurt adoption."
- Now what: "Can I ask you to recruit 5 user for usability testing?"
Simple and effective.
On the topic of communication: I have several more communication thinking tools and models collected. I'm considering creating a new category on Untools for these.
Is that something you find useful? Do you have any communication frameworks that you regularly use? I'd love to hear from you!
I also wanted to share that in the meantime, we're continuing to work on the Untools app to help you put the thinking tools to use. I'm excited to bring more updates on this soon.
As always, if you have any feedback around Untools, feel free to reach out!
Thanks for reading a have a great rest of the week,
Adam