The cause and effect template or, more commonly, the Fishbone template is the perfect tool for analyzing the causes and effects of implementing certain business decisions within your company. This free template is the perfect tool to show you the effects of your decisions in a way that’s risk-free and easy to use. You will start with a simple outline and use this diagram to work through all the possible outcomes. By doing this, you will be able to decide if your next choice will be beneficial or impact your business negatively. Now you can make informed decisions by downloading and using this free Fishbone Template today.
How to Use the Fishbone Template
The Fishbone Template can be downloaded simply by clicking the link at the bottom of this page. The next step will be to start in the “Outline” tab at the bottom of your screen.
This section is where you can list out the problems and effects of your solutions in a straightforward list format. You won’t include too much detail in this section; rather you will use this space to write down general ideas instead.
The “Diagram” section is where you can start to organize the rough ideas from the previous tab and hammer out your path to success. At the top of this page, you will list the cause of your action/plan under one of the three categories listed.
Next, you will list the primary and secondary causes of this action. For example, if you want to replace the shelves full of candy at the front of the store, this would go under “Equipment” and the cause could be that the shelf is old and falling apart.
If a problem might arise, such as candy sales going down because you’ll be without a shelf for a certain length of time, you would list that in the brown box that’s labeled “Problem.”
You will simply continue down the list with more effects of your action and start to come up with solutions to each plausible problem. You can see how easy it is to avoid problematic effects by using this simple and free Fishbone Template.
Download: Fishbone Template
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