Application of Ishikawa Diagram to Uncover Communication Challenges in Remote Work Environment

The purpose of an Ishikawa diagram is to help teams identify all possible causes of a problem so that they can focus their efforts on the most promising areas for improvement. There are different common categories of causes that can be used in this diagram but in this article, I’ll be using 4 categories — management, environment, method, and manpower.

• Management: This category includes factors that are related to leadership, policies, procedures, communication, decision-making, and planning of the company.
• Manpower: This category includes factors that are related to human resources, such as skills, training, experience, motivation, workload, staffing levels, and other aspects of the workforce of the company.
• Environment: This category includes factors related to the environment, such as work setup, equipment, and other external factors that may impact the process or problem being addressed.
• Method: This category includes factors related to the processes or methods being used, such as procedures, tools, technology, and workflows of the company.

Identifying Causes of The Problem

Let’s try to dig deeper into the main problem of “Instructional Delivery Ineffectiveness”

MANAGEMENT — Ineffective communication of course expectations.

• Cultural or Language barriers. These differences affect the clarity or accuracy of communication.
• Limited Collaboration opportunities. This causes the employee to struggle with delivering the output in a clear and concise manner.

ENVIRONMENT — Distractions

• Pets. Pets can create noise and require attention such as feeding, playing, or letting outside
• Family Members. Similar to pets, family members can create noise, require attention, and difficult to maintain boundaries during working hours.

MANPOWER — Varied feedback perspectives

• Cultural or Language barriers. This affects the clarity or accuracy of the feedback provided.
• Varying levels of expertise. This causes feedback to be inconsistent or potentially incorrect.
• Personal Biases. This leads to feedback that may not be entirely objective or relevant.
• Priorities. Limited or inadequate time for colleagues to provide feedback, resulting in incomplete or insufficient feedback.

METHOD — Intricate Project Platform

• Too many notifications. This causes the relevant ones to become lost in the volume of information.
• Poor prioritization of notification. This causes the relevant ones to become lost in the volume of information.
• Failure to manage notifications effectively. This leads to a backlog that becomes difficult to navigate or sort through or difficulty in locating the relevant ones.
• Lack of Clarity. Insufficient clarity about the expected outcome or desired result leads to over-explanation of the steps needed to achieve it.
• Fear of leaving out important information. This causes the author to include excessive information to ensure that nothing is missed.
• Difficulty in communicating with the intended audience. This leads to an assumption that providing more information will ensure that everyone understands.

Classifying Causes of the Problem

The goal of this process is to determine the type of issues associated with each category and propose an intervention that will potentially resolve the majority of the problems, rather than focusing solely on a single cause of the issue.

I extracted all the tertiary causes from each category and classify them into the following groups:

• Communication. Factors related to the transfer of ideas or instructions.
• Organizational. Factors related to the management decision making
• Environmental. Factors related to the physical environment and to the general environment.
• Technological. Factors related to the existence, availability, and development of technology.
• Personal. Factors related to personal issues

and here is the summary of the probable causes:

This process acknowledges the multifaceted nature of the problem and cannot be solved with a single action only (No free lunch theorem). The result shows that the majority of the factors that caused the problem are related to communication.

By performing these steps, the company can align different strategies and awareness of the different probable causes contributing to the problem’s occurrence and origin. This will enable management to design appropriate interventions for organizational development and effectively tackle the issue.