Process Improvement with Solitaire Using the PC Solitaire game to learn basic (and advanced) techniques of Process Improvement (So easy, even a can do it) Presented by: Mark Berron, CQE, CSQE, 6ơ BB Contact:

Benefits of using Solitaire It gives the user a hands-on experience of creating and using data. The processes are simple The processes can be improved The process improvement can be measured. Even Six Sigma techniques can be learned It’s easy!!!

What we’ll do today… What are the Solitaire Requirements?? Process mapping Play Solitaire Brainstorming on Improvements Play more Solitaire Measure the improvements Translating this to your work processes What this can mean to your bottom line… For further information…

Requirements Objective is to get highest score (No time limits). Technically this is putting all cards into the Upper Deck by their respective suits. Basic process is: New cards go to Upper Deck. If can’t be played there, they are played on Lower Deck in alternative colors in descending order. If they can’t be played on the Lower Deck, then a new Card is chosen. The lowest Card in a Column in the lower Deck must be moved to the Upper Deck if possible and before choosing a New Card. When a column in the Lower Deck becomes empty, only a King can be moved there. Every card from the Lower Deck must be played until all options exhausted. Then a New Card is chosen. When there are no more cards in the Playing Deck, or if all cards are in the Upper Deck, the game is over. Lower Deck (LD) Upper Deck (UD) Playing Deck (PD) Definitions: Rules (Defined) New Card Columns

Process Map Choose New Card Put in LD Put in UD Move it to Upper Deck? Play Rest of LD to UD Y N Move it to Lower Deck? Y N Any cards left? Y N End Game Record score What is a process map? ISO? Here’s the process map for Solitaire: Open game

Now, let’s play Use standard type of play Las Vegas Scoring No timing One card at a time Don’t think, just do. And observe. Maybe take notes.

Value Stream Mapping Based on what you have seen, what does each step contribute to the process? Let’s make a Value Stream Map (VSM) from the previous Process Map… Choose New Card Put in LD Put in UD Move it to Upper Deck? Play Rest of LD to UD Y N Move it to Lower Deck? Y N 10 5 Any cards left? Y N End Game Record score Open game

Brainstorming Based on what you have seen, what are possible improvements?? Here are some ideas I have: Do another pass? Instead of moving new cards directly to Upper Deck, first move them to Lower Deck. Let cards move from column to column Let cards go from upper to lower deck Don’t play out all cards before New Card

Which ideas do we try? What is potential of each improvement? How is it measured? How much does it cost?

Improvement potential First, what’s the baseline?: The one pass. I chose four improvements: 1.Second pass 2.Let new cards go down to columns before going to upper deck 3.Allow cards to be moved to any column on bottom deck 4.Allow cards to be returned to columns from top finished deck.

VSM 1 st improvement Add the second pass to the process… Choose New Card Put in LD Put in UD Move it to Upper Deck? Play Rest of LD to UD Y N Move it to Lower Deck? Y N 10 5 Any cards left? Y N End Game Record score Open game -100 Click on PD? Y N

Measuring the improvements Basically, two ways to measure: 1.Play out each improvement over a number of rounds. 2.Play out all improvements over a known design (DOE). The 2 nd choice saves time and money, but is it accurate? Will it tell you which improvement is really best?

The long way… Here are the results of going through each improvement 100 times, with each adding on to the next. Thus number 2, has both 1 and 2 improvements included. For every improvement, scores were recorded for both one pass and two passes.

Some data…..

Some typical data gathering…

Some basic charts Trend lines –Mean –Standard deviation –Number of wins –Average winning score

Tracking the mean… Trend Chart

Standard Deviation and Means

2 nd pass higher Scores and Means Number of high scores actually goes down, but average is higher. Why?

2 nd pass winning scores vs. mean

What does it mean??? The summary data is: The 1 st improvement appears to be the most significant The 2 nd improvement appears to be the 2nd most significant The 4th improvement appears to be the significant on the first pass The second pass increases improvements except in 4 th case Mean 1 Factors show some effects of interaction.

What about DOE??

Results across the variables

Pareto Chart of DOE

Comparing DOE to actuals Both show A as the best option. Actuals show B as 2 nd best while 3 rd in DOE. Actuals show C as a small or negative influence, while it ranks only 6 th in DOE. Actuals show D with a medium influence, while DOE shows it as fourth. DOE shows a big BC interaction, but the actuals show none or negative.

More basic analysis

What else can be learned? Cost/Benefit: Compute cost of the improvement by assessing the added time. How does the cost compare to added score over time? Risk: Assess the risk of taking on an improvement. The 2 nd pass creates a lot more volatility. Is it worth it?? What is the probability of success on the 2 nd pass? How would you figure that out?

Compare to the real world… What process do you have at work that would benefit from process improvement. What process needs a VSM? Why not use ISO process as the baseline for process improvement? Or CMMI? Brainstorm for improvements. Find out which has the most weight… the low hanging fruit. How much will it cost? Then do it!!!!

What other techniques can be learned from Solitaire? ANOVA X-Bar and R charts Probability Ishikawa (Cause and effect diagrams) Taguchi, Latin Square, partial factorial designs 5S (Clean up the process) And more….

Xbar-R Chart

X-bar R Chart

Further information I am in the process of creating a training manual along with an Excel-based data collection/analysis program. It should be complete by end of August If you might be interested in a follow up session or the materials themselves, please let me know and I will forward a version to you. My address is: