The process is then repeated for each main cause by asking “What are the causes for this main cause?” Figure 2 shows a RCA diagram with causes inserted. The process of building the RCA diagram starts with the question “What are the main causes for the problem?” These causes are them inserted on the main lines in the diagram. Thus, as a rule, we start the process just by drawing a horizontal line and the problem statement. Our experience that using a partly ready-made diagram inhibit the creativity of the analysis process. Typical standard causes are for instance personnel, equipment, methods and material. The diagram below shows a RCA diagram with a set of standard causes included. There are two standard approaches to an RCA - just starting with the problem and starting with a set of predefined main causes. For obvious reasons it is also called the fish bone diagram. The RCA was invented by the Japanese engineer Ishikawa and is thus also called the Ishikawa diagram. Five of the thirteen student teams performed a KJ analysis - most of them have been done according to the rules. Since most of the student teams generated just a few groups, this step was left out in this case. The last step in the process is to assign a priority or importance to each group. The participants then give names to the groups and draw connections between them showing relationships and influences (see Figure 1b). The goal of this step is to create groups of post-its that have a common theme. In most cases this process converges fairly quickly. This is free-for-all process - there is no such thing as ”my post-its”.
When all post-its have been placed on the whiteboard, all the participants go to the whiteboard and start organizing the notes. Each participant put his post-its on a whiteboard and gives a short explanation of why this particular idea is brought up (see Figure 1a). In our experience it is practical to set an upper limit on the number of post-it notes each participant can produce. As will be seen from the example shown below, this rule is difficult to enforce. Ideally, each idea should be stated in a sentence that, as a minimum, has both a verb and a subject. Each participant write down ideas, comments etc. This is mainly done in order to kick-start the next step in the process which is where the real generation of ideas take place. The participants pair up to discuss the topic and may be write down some important points that surface during this discussions.
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