A Tree Diagram is a chart that begins with one central item and then branches into more and keeps branching until the line of inquiry begun with the central item is exhausted. The tree diagram, with its branching steps, motivates you to move from the general to the specific in a systematic way.
Example: A company has been losing key employees to competitor firms. It decides to form a task force to investigate the issue of employee retention and the group prepares the following tree diagram.
Note that the tree diagram deploys the central issue from left to right and moves from a general statement of the issue to more and more specific lines of thought related to the central issue. A tree diagram is a good tool to use to organize a team’s thinking about an issue so that the main ideas and relationships are immediately apparent.
