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An interrelationship diagram can depict relationship in a complex situation; the one which are not easily traceable. It can be best used when 1. Trying to understand links between ideas or cause and effect relationships; especially when trying to identify greatest impact of improvement 2. When complex issue is analyzed for causes 3. When complex solution is being implemented 4. In RCA, to understand how different aspects of problems are connected Seeing that relationship between problem and possible cause can be further analyzed 5. After generating fish bone and tree diagram, to more completely explore relations of ideas Practical examples:- 1. A computer support group planning to replace mainframe computers; the interrelationship diagram can be drawn to sort out a confusing set of elements involved in project. The ideas that were brainstormed were a mixture of action steps, problem, desired results and less desirable effects handled. All these ideas went onto diagram together. 2.Decline in productivity at a workplace, as resources hired is a cost to the company.

Benchmark Six Sigma Expert View by Venugopal R Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers (JUSE) came out with ‘New Seven QC tools’ in the late 1970s; and Interrelationship Diagram was included as one of them. These tools were also called as ‘Management & Planning’ tools. While dealing with multiple factors that are believed to be impacting a problem, the Interrelationship diagram serves as a useful tool to pictorially represent the 'Cause & Effect' relationships among all the factors and also help to visualize the relative extent of impact of the factors towards the ultimate ‘effect’, to a great extent. A simple example will help to understand this tool quickly. An organization wanted to study why they were not getting the desired level of improvement in sales after subjecting their staff to ‘Learning and Development’ program for imparting the skills to improve sales. The relevant stakeholders did a brainstorming and came up with the following possible causes: Insufficient training duration Trainer caliber Inadequate practical training Poor training plan Qualifying exam too easy Candidate background Insufficient training content Low skill imparted For the above example, a interrelationship diagram was constructed as below for the identified factors The arrows connecting the factors represent the ‘Cause and Effect’ relationship. For instance, “Poor Training Plan” has 5 outgoing arrows. The factor where an arrow begins is the cause whose effect is the factor where the arrow ends. Thus “Insufficient content” is the effect for the cause “Poor training plan”. For each factor, the number of incoming and outgoing arrows are mentioned beside the respective boxes. It may be noticed that there are factors for which there is no incoming arrow, but only outgoing arrows. Such factors represent only a 'cause' and are not the 'effect' of any other factor (E.g.: Poor Training Plan). We may also have factors with only incoming arrows and no outgoing arrows. Such factors are the 'effect 'of many other factors and are not 'cause' for any of the other factors. (E.g.: Low skill imparted). It could be seen that the interrelationship diagram provides a visual picture of not only the C&E relationships among the factors but also an extent of prioritization of the causes that have higher influence upon the final effect. Where would we find this tool relevant and useful? During a Lean Six Sigma Project, after brainstorming, once the primary causes are identified and we need to shortlist the prioritized causes, this tool will be handy. Similarly, during the solution identification for a problem, once we list out the possible solutions, an interrelationship diagram can provide clarity on the solutions that result in the best effect. Even for identifying a set of projects to work on, this tool will help us to narrow down from a list of projects, to remove most of the redundancy, based on the interrelationships. Whenever we use affinity diagrams, fish bone diagrams or tree diagrams, we can use the Interrelationship diagram to explore their relationships. When we have to work with a set of factors (causes) that are overlapping and related, the Interrelationship diagram helps to clear up the clutter and help us to proceed with more clarity and focus. The tool is simple to apply whenever we need to quickly summarize and helps us to bring a team to consensus due to its visual impact, along with the ‘In-Out’ quantification. Even if we have debates, they will be focused on specific factor relationships. In situations where we have a list of factors, but do not have objective data to substantiate the contribution of each one towards a desired effect, Interrelationship diagram helps to make initial progress. The tool is also useful when we need to quickly classify the ‘factor to factor’ cause-effect relationships as Nil, Weak or Strong. Although we may do prioritizing at a broad level based on the ‘In-Out’ arrows count, it has to be remembered that certain factors may prove critical despite have low ‘In-Out’ arrow count. The team will have to use their discretion / gather data for narrowing down such factors.