Structured Problem Solving (SPS)

August 14, 2012

Copyright 2012 Tata Consultancy Services Limited

Is there a better approach to work?

"Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there really is another way,
if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think of it

- From Winnie the Pooh

- By A A Milne

Why SPS?
Eliminate Defects/Errors and Common Problems We need to eliminate the errors and problems at the source - do we really need to? Let us do a little exercise in two teams to find out Improve Critical Metrics We need to improve on critical metrics on a continuous basis Provide Helping Tools

We need to use techniques to address above two

The Inspection Exercise

Count the number of times alphabet f appears in the following text: The necessity of training farm hands for the first class farms in the fatherly handling of

farm live stock is foremost in the eyes of the farm owners. Since the forefathers of the
farm owners trained the farm hands for first class farms in the fatherly handling of farm live stock, the farm owners felt they should carry on with the family tradition of training farm hands of the first class farmers in the fatherly handling of farm live stock because they believe it is the basis of good fundamental farm management.

Reality of Escaping Defects : No matter how good your inspection and test processes are, the more defects you create, the more defects escape to the customer.

Examples of Some Critical Metrics

Can you think of any metrics relevant to your process? Productivity SLA Compliance

Resource Utilization
Turn around time Response time Resolution time

First time right

On time delivery

Application of SPS can improve performance quickly for any of these metrics

SPS Roadmap
Phase Define Steps Capture Voice of Customer (VOC) Tools VOC to Critical to Quality (CTQ) Flow

Simple project charter preparation

Explore Understand current performance level

Problem statement
Goal statement Basic statistics Understand current performance

Analyze improvement metric

Identify stratification factors

Bar charts, Pie chart, Trend chart Pareto Analysis, Histogram, Scatter Diagram

Improve

Analyze process/sub-process
Identify root causes Identify solutions

Flow diagram
Fishbone (brainstorming) Brain storming (brainstorming) Standard Operating Process (SOP), Control Plan Control Charts (optional)

Sustain

Ensuring Sustenance

DEFINE

Voice of Customer (VOC)

Definition Voice of Customer" is the term used to describe the stated and unstated needs or requirements of the customer for our

product/service or process
Example1 I called a renowned Insurance Company yesterday. I got their phone number after several attempts. They put me on

hold for a long time and then I had to go through several

menus. I could not get the item which I wanted in any of the options. After listening to the music for a long time the operator told me I need to meet them in person. Example2 Code deliveries contain too many defects
What does my customer need?

Critical To Quality (CTQ)

Critical to Quality (CTQ) is the key measurable characteristic of a product or process whose performance standards must be met in order to satisfy the customer.

While determining the CTQ, it is absolutely critical to

Understand VOC Interpret the VOC correctly while transforming it to a CTQ Translate the VOC to CTQ from the customers perspective Example On-hold time at call center Service cycle time

What is critical to the quality of the process? according to your customer!

Identify Customer Needs

From High-Level VOC to Specific Needs
Customer Satisfaction I am always kept on hold for a long time Service/Quality Issue Functionality Want to talk to the right person quickly Specific Needs Statement Customer gets to the correct person in a short time Project Y Output Characteristic On hold time

I get my bill at different times of the month

Accuracy Consistent month bill

Customer bill received same day of the month

On time receipt of bills

The Specific Need Statement leads directly to defining the CTQ

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Team Charter
A Charter is a document that provides purpose and goals for an improvement team A Charter

Clarifies what are the team expectations

Maintains focus of the team Ensures the team is aligned with organizational goals and priorities Transfers the project from the champion to the improvement team Example On-hold time at call center Service cycle time

Assure that the reasons for undertaking the project are clearly stated and justified and that the plan for improvement is well defined

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Five Major Elements of a Charter

Business Case How is this project linked to the business goals What financial benefits are expected and where will they come from

Problem and Goal Statements

Problem Statement indicates the pain area of the process or product. It also quantifies the problem The Goal Statement defines the goals or improvement objective for the project. It

quantifies the target of the project

Project Scope Process dimensions, what is and is not included Milestones

A detailed plan of key steps and timelines to complete the project

Team Roles and Responsibilities Roles of team members and their responsibilities during project execution

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Business Case - Example

Example The Futura Mobile company provides mobile services to subscribers across the country.

The services offered by Futura include a range of attractive features offered under two
schemes; pre-paid and billing. Billing depends on subscription towards a particular feature being offered. Since the last 2 quarters there has been an increase in the billing service subscribers by

20%. This has increased billing errors from 5% to 30% resulting in huge rework effort and
customer dissatisfaction. Reducing errors in billing would help reduce rework, saving $50,000 per quarter

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Problem Statement - Example

Poor Example The billing errors are too high in mobile bills.

Improved Example
For the last six months (When), it has been observed that billing errors in mobile bills for Futura (a mobile provider company) (Where) has been increasing with growing number of users.

The billing errors (What) has increased from about 5 % to 30% (extent). This negatively
impacts the productivity of the employees and customer satisfaction. (impact or consequence).

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The Goal Statement

Definition of improvement the team is seeking to accomplish Starts with a verb (Reduce, Eliminate, Control, Increase) Tends to start broadly - Eventually should include measurable target and completion date Should follow the SMART rule Example1 - Reduce the billing error from 30% to 5% in the next 4 months Example2 - Reduce ProWeb response time to 5 seconds in the next 3 months

SMART Goal Statement Specific Measurable Attainable Relevant Time bound

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Activity

Activity - Critique Project Objectives

Critique the project objectives below by checking to see if each one has the five recommended parts

Improve customer satisfaction index to an average of 90%. Decrease the number of accidents in the Stillwater facility by 1st October. Reduce the cycle time taken to procure Grade A materials from 21 days to 10

days by 1st January.

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Project Scope and Milestones

The Project Scope must address What process will the team focus on? What are the boundaries of the process we are to improve? Start point? Stop point? What (if anything) is out-of-bounds for the team? Milestones provide realistic target completion dates of different phases of your project. Milestones should be Aggressive - Do not miss the Window of Opportunity Realistic - Do not force yourself into Band-Aid solutions
START Boundary

Boundary

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Project Charter - An Example

Business Case (Including High Level Benefit Analysis)
The Internal IT Infrastructure Services (IS) team focuses on services to all associates in TCS. IS includes Hardware, Software, Collaboration and Messaging tools. Global Helpdesk (GHD) is available to help users for resolution of issues related to IS. Tickets are submitted by users in the category Internal IT Services in GHD, available off the Ultimatix portal. Tickets are resolved by Level 1 (L1) generic solution providers or Level 2 (L2) specialized solution providers. After the resolution of an issue, the IS support team 'resolves' the ticket. In case the user feels that the resolution is incomplete or he/she needs more clarity on the solution, the user reopens the ticket. All Reopened Tickets are considered as defects which involve rework for the solution providers in Internal IT IS. The % of reopened tickets is 3.89% (Nov 09) at L1 (Internal IT) and 13.41% (Jun 10) at L2 Messaging. This project aims at reducing % of reopened ticket to < 2% at L1 (Internal IT) and < 10% at L2 Messaging. This improvement will result in reduced % of Reopened Tickets thereby improving the overall customer experience and reducing efforts of the L1 generic solution providers and L2 messaging teams.

In Scope
Reopened Ticket count for L1 (Internal IT Services) and L2 Messaging

Out of Scope
Reopened Ticket count for other Support Groups and levels like Resident Engineer (RE), IAM, Level 3 (L3) Messaging.

Specific Goal Statement

To reduce the % of reopened tickets resolved by * L1 (Internal IT Services) team from 3.89% (Nov 09) to < 2% * L2 Messaging team from 13.41% (Jun 10) to < 10% by end of March 2011

Specific Problem Statement

The % of Reopened Tickets for L1 (Internal IT Services) is 3.89% (Nov 09) and for L2 Messaging is 13.41% (Jun 10). Reopened Tickets indicate customer dissatisfaction and results in rework for the solution providers in Internal IT IS. If this improvement initiative is not implemented, the % of Reopened Tickets may continue to be high.

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Project Charter - An Example

Roles & Responsibilities

Project Lead (GB/BB): Nirupama Nagaraj Project Coach Shashank Kulkarni (BB/MBB): Project Sponsor: Team Members: Neha Agrawal Amit Jain Big Y:

General Information
Industry/Function: Internal IT Services Define Measure Customer satisfaction Analyze Reduce rework Improve Tollgate

Tollgate Review Dates

Date (xx/xx/xx) Sep 2009 Oct 2009 Nov 2009 Dec 2009 Mar 2011 Signoff

Shashank Kulkarni
Shashank Kulkarni Shashank Kulkarni Shashank Kulkarni Amit Jain

Parimal Bhatia
Contact Information for Project Lead: nirupama.nagaraj@tcs.com

Control

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Case Study - Project Charter

Exercise - Prepare a Project Charter (20 minutes) (This must include Business Case, Problem and Goal Statements, Project Scope, Team Roles and Responsibilities and Milestones for the Specified Project)

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EXPLORE

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Performance Measurement

How to measure Baseline (current) Performance level? Concept of

Central Tendency

Mean Median Mode

Standard Deviation Range

Variation

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Measures of Central Tendency

Mean The average data point value within a data set. It is normally denoted by X (for sample) or (for population).

Summation Of All Values Mean = Number Of Values

n xi Mathematically

i =1 n

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Measures of Central Tendency

Median The middle value when the measurements are arranged in order of magnitude (ascending or descending)

nd th Median = ( n / 2 ) Value + (n / 2 + 1 ) Value 2

; When n is even ; When n is odd

Median = [(n+1) / 2 ) ]nd Value

Mode The value or data point which has maximum frequency of occurrence

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Performance Measurement
Measures of Spread Range It is the difference between the highest value and the lowest value.

R= Max. value - Min. Value

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Measures of Spread
Standard Deviation It is the square root of the average of the squared differences between data points and the mean. It is denoted with the Greek letter (sigma). If X1, X2, ........ ...... Xn are individual values and X is the Mean

(X1-X)2 + (X2 -X)2 + ......... (Xn - X)2 n

n =

(Xi - X)2 n

i=1
Verify with the formula - STDEVP (Data Range)
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Types of Data
Data Type

Discrete
Expressed by the whole number

Continuous Measured on a continuum or scale ,expressed by whole number or fraction Example: Cycle Time (in hours) to generate a report

Binary Classified into one of two categories

Ordered Categories Ranking of ratings Example Employee satisfaction rating

Count Counted discretely

Example True or False Defect or No defect

Example No. of defects in a product

How does the customer measure your process?

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Which data type do we choose?

As far as possible, we must choose a continuous measure for the Project Y metric. Although, collecting data for continuous measures can be tedious, time consuming and expensive, continuous data measures are preferred over discrete data measures because they provide more information about the process.

Project Y Time to Procure Delivery Time Customer Satisfaction (Insurance) Policies lost due to Price

Discrete Y Measure Units procured within specs Number Late Yes/No Questions Number Lost

Continuous Y Measure Actual procurement time for each unit Actual time deviated from target Rating 1-100 Difference from Competition

The more continuous we can make the data, the more it will tell us about our process

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Develop Data Collection Forms

Data Collection Forms help to standardize both the data that is collected as well as the data collection process

Elements of Data Collection Form

Description of what data is being collected Places to put the data Room for comments Room to keep track of segmentation factors Always keep in mind the following Make the form simple to use and understand

Include only information you intend to use

Pilot the data collection form

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Data Collection Form - Example

CR Schedule Slippage
Request Date
Completion Date Expected Actual Schedule Slippage (days) User Group

Sr. No

CR #

CR Type

Severity

Skill level of Team

Frequency of Measurement - Every CR this month Purpose - For Schedule Slippage Analysis

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Data Display - Graphs and Charts

Graphs and charts are pictorial representation of the data, making it easy to spot trends and comparisons among different groups of data

The common types of graphs and charts are

Line graphs - To depict change or variation over time.

Bar charts - To compare quantities between persons, regions, time intervals etc
Pie charts - To show percentages or proportions of different components of a specific item

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Graphs Examples
Weekly % Errors
7.5 7 6.5 6 5.5 5 4.5 4 3.5 3
90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

Work Stream based Average Production

80 70 60 75 76

7.1 Avg. Production 6.2 5.6 4.9 4.3 5.2 4.6 4.9 4.8 6.3

68

% Errors

WS 1

WS 2

WS 3

WS 4

WS 5

WS 6

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Work Stream

Week Number

Weekly Reject comparison for WS 1 & 2

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Comparison of WS 1 & 2 production

900 800 700 600 500 400 300 200 100 0

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20 % Rejection 15 10

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20 13 13
NANs Coded

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11 5 11 10 6 2
1 2 3 4 5

15 10

15

257 336 244 221 435 275

422 281

11

317

358 299

8 3
6

5 0

3
9 10

263

285

375 133

201

321

307

294

348

10

Week Number

Week Number

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Example Pie Chart

Watch maker analyzing Problem

A - Glass Broken B - Movement Stoppage C - Mvt. Trouble D - Defective Dial E - Regulation F - Stem Loose

E 4%

F 3%

G 5%

A 42%

D 6%

C 13%

G - Others

B 27%

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Scatter Diagram
A tool for finding relationship between Cause & Effect of a problem. Generally used in either Define or Explore Phase.

If two types of data, x and y, are related in that x increases or decreases with y, a correlation exists between them.

A scatter diagram is a chart that expresses the relationship between two such data types.

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Scatter Diagram - Example

Car Speed Vs Mileage Which Car is likely to give more mileage?

All factors remaining same (use the same car) - does mileage depend on speed ?
If y increases with x, then x and y are positively correlated If y decreases as x increases, then the two types of data are negatively correlated If no significant relationship is apparent between x and y, then the two data types are not correlated
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Mileage (km/Lit) 35 30 25 20 15 25 35 45 Speed (km/h) 55 65 75

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Histogram
What is a Histogram? A Histogram is a variation of a bar chart in which data values are grouped together and put into different classes. This grouping allows you see how frequently data in each class occur in the data set. Higher bars represent more data values in a class. Lower bars represent fewer data values in a class.

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Histogram - A Sample

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Applying Histogram
A Histogram can be used To display large amounts of data values in a relatively simple chart form To tell relative frequency of occurrence. To easily see the distribution of the data. To see if there is variation in the data. To make future predictions based on the data.

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Summary of Charts
Ready - Reckoner to select the Graph/Chart

Data Type Continuous

Chart Type Line Chart/Run Chart Scatter plot

Histogram
Discrete Bar Chart Pie Chart Pareto

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Process Flow Diagram

What is Process Flow Diagram? A Process Flow Diagram is a schematic representation of a process. It is in the form of a diagram that uses graphic symbols to depict the nature and flow of the steps in a process.

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Why Use Process Flow Diagram

AS-IS Process To document the logical flow of the process for better understanding of the process. To document the process for standardisation and unambiguous communication. To depict intricate relationships between cross functional responsibilities and decision making
Start Search for ingredients and pots Bring ingredients and pots near to oven Add Ingredients Boil N Boil Time > 5 Min? Y Filter End Ingredients SOP
Activity can be removed by fixing location for tea making pots and required ingredients

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IMPROVE

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Truth of Life
Lets Face It Every morning in Africa, a gazelle awakens. He has only one thought on his mind - To be able to run faster than the fastest lion. If he cannot, then he will be eaten. Every morning in Africa a lion awakens. He has only one thought on his mind: To be able to run faster than the slowest gazelle. If he cannot, he will die of hunger. Whether you choose to be a gazelle or a lion is of no consequence. It is enough to know that with the rising of the sun, you must run. And you must run faster than you did yesterday or you will die. This is the race of life. - African Proverb

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How to find better ways?

The following tools can be used in the improvement phase: Brainstorming Cause and Effect Diagram (Covered earlier in PDCA) 5-Why Technique Benchmarking

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Brainstorming
Brainstorming is a creative process for generating several solution ideas in a short period of time. Benefits

Significantly involves team members and key stakeholders

Provides for more creative solutions Allows for synergy; building on the ideas of others

Prevents team from initially settling on only one solution

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Brainstorming
Brainstorming is a technique where a group of people get to generate ideas. The basic guidelines for Brainstorming are Understand the exact issue, topic, or business area that is being focused on Allow silent time to think Allow individuals to complete their thoughts Collect as many ideas as possible

Do not discuss or evaluate ideas

Document ideas Build on existing ideas Be precise when stating an idea Organize, categorize, and evaluate ideas only after the session is completed Do not dominate the session

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Brainstorming
Modified Brainstorming Channeling - An approach to generate a broad range of ideas (several channels) as well as in large quantities (as many ideas per channel) Analogy - An approach where the team brainstorms related or analogous issue which helps unblock peoples thinking to ensure complete information. Ideas on the analogy are then translated to the real situation.

Anti-Solution - An approach where the team is asked to think of scenarios in which a

particular option/solution is not available or is assumed that it couldnot be implemented. The team comes up with ideas as alternatives or the effects of not having the solution. Brainwriting - An approach where team members list their ideas on a piece of paper. This removes bias of an experienced or a senior individual in the group.

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Five Whys Technique

Five Whys Technique helps to drill deeper to identify potential root causes by asking Why repeatedly at the drilled down levels. Example

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Act Now..
For want of a nail a shoe was lost, For want of a shoe a horse was lost, For want of a horse a rider was lost, For want of a rider an army was lost, For want of an army a battle was lost, For want of a battle the war was lost

For want of the war the kingdom was lost,

and all for the want of a little horseshoe nail.

Find out the root cause and fix up the problem. You do not know what you may lose in future if you dont fix it now

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Benchmarking
Definition
Benchmarking is the process of continually searching for the best methods, practices and processes, and either adopting or adapting their good features and implementing them to become the best of the best

Why do we Benchmark?
To identify, establish and achieve standards of excellence based on the realities of the market. To measure our products, services and practices against our toughest competitors.

World Class

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SUSTAIN

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SOP
What is SOP? Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) is a set of written instructions that document a routine or repetitive activity followed by an organization. SOP provides the information to perform the job properly and facilitates consistency in the quality and integrity of a product or end-result.

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SOP
What is SOP? Details the regularly recurring work processes. Documents the way the activities are to be performed Is specific to the organization whose activities are described. Minimizes the opportunities for miscommunication and can address safety concerns. Assists the organization in maintaining their quality control and quality assurance

processes
Is made available to the work areas of the individuals performing the task

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Control Plan
A Control plan is A summary of all of the control activities for the process A method of identifying gaps in the control system An end output of the Failure Mode Effect Analysis (FMEA) A long term control strategy that ensures that the improvements will remain effective and in-control

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Control Plan
Control Plan Template
Process Step What's Controlled Spec Limits/ Requirements How measured Sample Size Freq. Who measures Record Reaction plan SOP

A comprehensive, documented control plan is very important to maintain improved process controls

Can you think of a Control Plan for the Game? Please see the next page for help.
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Support different situations by Different Tools

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Sample Case Studies

1. Reduction in salary related tickets raised in GHD

2. Reduction in transport cost for Wellspring centre

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Thank You