“Fish-Funnel” or the evolution of the Ishikawa diagram

When it comes to getting to work and applying the technique of the Ishikawa diagram, the steps to follow are:

1. Draw on a canvas a thorn and head of a fish, with enough space to make notes between them
2. Specify the problem to analyze and write it down on the fish’s head (it will be your goal).
3. Do a brainstorming to detect the main causes that can cause the problem we want to analyze and write them on the top of each spine (the number of spines will depend on the number of causes or motives that are detected). It can help you when it comes to detecting main causes to ask you the questions who? than? where? when? how? how much?
4. For each of these causes ask the question of why? between two and five times until you find several answers.
5. Write down the answers within each spine.
6. Make a global review to test the validity of the cause-effect sequence starting from the root to verify that it makes logical sense.
7. If at the end, you have a spine with few causes compared to the rest, you have to analyze that spine in depth so that it has its own fish diagram.

An important note is that before starting to work the diagram you must analyze the real data of the problem that are available such as surveys, customer or user feedback, metrics, etc.

What is the Fish-Funnel?

The Fish-Funnel has no other objective than to work together with our clients or our users, such as the funnel for converting a product or service regardless of whether it is online or offline.

Its objective shares the purpose of the Ishikawa diagram or fish diagram, to obtain a photo of the current situation, but in this case it will not be the causes of a problem but of the steps, touch points and moments of truth that are found by each of our users (previously defined archetypes) until they achieve their goal (conversion).

Now you may ask, but Maria, isn’t that a customer journey? Yes and no, yes because we will go through each of the stages through which our users go through detecting frictions, opportunities, etc. and no, because we will go one step further, we will also work the microconversions that our client (business) will be able to measure in each of these stages, so our value proposition will be enriched since we will take into account the needs of our users and combine it with the generation of conversions for the business.

How is this dynamic carried out?

The process is very similar to the process of the original technique, the difference lies in the objectives that we are setting ourselves as researchers and strategists, so that the ability of a good dynamizer will be essential to guarantee the success of the technique.

Steps to follow:

1. Draw the fish-funnel (we will draw one for each archetype).
2. Our goal will be the conversion in this case, whether it is to make an online purchase, physical purchase, subscription to a newsletter, download an app or increase the average basket through specific products (keep in mind that depending on the archetype the goal may vary).
3. With your users define the steps that each archetype follows until you reach your goal.
4. Once the goals are defined, let the users talk, what happens at each stage, what problems are encountered, what needs, what they would like to have to make each step easier.
5. Have users participate, let them be the ones who agree and write down all this information within each spine.
6. Make a global review to test the validity of the cause-effect sequence starting from the root to verify that it makes logical sense.
7. Now it is necessary to prioritize the importance of the secondary, generate a debate among the attendees so that through a voting system (red, yellow and green stickers) they define what is most relevant, what would it be better to solve or have ,and what they consider expendable.
8. Finally, make a global review of the steps and the priorities established lively and begin the work of analysis and strategy by the team.

The results obtained when using this dynamic are very interesting and easy to understand since the visual exercise helps non-expert users to understand the relevance of each stage that a user goes through when interacting with their business.

Each teacher has his booklet and each of you can evolve this proposal, one of the tricks that I use when detecting conversions (microconversions) in stages is to create a chromatic range with markers and post-its of different colors that help me perform the analysis and explanation of my findings more easily.

(Conversions in fuchsia, friction points in red, moments of truth in green, functionalities detected as needs in orange … for tastes, colors).

I hope it helps you and I will be delighted to discuss this dynamic with you and resolve any questions you may have.

Investigate, investigate, investigate damn!!!