Many continuous improvement tools and techniques have other words or phrases that mean exactly or nearly the same. It is useful to know how different authors refer to the same tools and techniques to avoid any possible confusion. For example, ‘continuous improvement’ and ‘continual improvement’ are said to be synonymous.
A ‘fishbone diagram’, an ‘Ishikawa diagram’ and a ’cause and effect diagram’ is another example of synonymous words. This map is primarily intended to help in learning the different synonyms of continuous improvement tools and techniques.