Commonly Used Methodologies by SREs

The Fishbone Diagram (Ishikawa Diagram) visualizes problems as a fish skeleton: the head pins the symptom, the bones branch into every possible cause by dimension. It forces teams to list all suspects before acting — a staple of Six Sigma and TQM.

Root Cause Analysis (RCA) is a systematic discipline for tracing problems past their surface symptoms, down the chain of causation to the root cause whose removal prevents recurrence — from Toyota's 5 Whys to the postmortem rituals of internet giants.