I am kind of surprised that this thread went without comment. Perhaps it was because of the stunned surprise some of us experienced from reading the report findings.
To back up Ike's point of the usefulness of the fishbone method, I wanted to share some of my experience using it for FRC. Starting in 2010, Finney Robotics started using this process as outlined in
Chris Fultz's Continuous Improvement white paper. In following years we have run workshops at the MEZ for other teams to spread this powerful technique. Since then we have addressed cronic issues such as
chain retention due to frame bending, student attendance and transportation, managing changes to the robot, robot structural failures, pit management, drivetrain decisions, and more.
It is always very interesting to see what the team sees as issues during the brainstorming. Some years it has been very robot centric and questions need to be asked about non-robot items and other years it is the complete opposite.
The key thing to realize about this process is that
completing the action plan (next steps) that results from the fishbone activity is the key to success. Just creating a fishbone & action plan isn't enough. Several of the above issues were not successfully address because of lack of follow through from the individuals tasked in the action plan.
Chris Fultz, thanks for pulling this paper together for teams so many years ago. It has been incredibly helpful.