1. The voice of the process
Listening to Voices
The voice of the process
simply and visually

2. What are the voices? Work Areas The Staff Media Attention
Staff Surveys
Media Attention
Customer/Citizen Surveys
Complaints
Waste
Efficiency
Outcome & Process Measures

3. Wasting valuable management time
How much time do you spend trying to achieve targets?
Trying to achieve everything
Writing reports
Holding meetings to sort perceived performance issues

4. Performance Reports? High level examples
Colourful, but are they useful.

5. How often do you report? Month on month
This quarter compared to last quarter
This quarter compared to this quarter last year
The average for the:
Month
Quarter
Year

6. Average sickness 6

7. Why collect data?
How can we compare, quantify or record changes if we cannot capture our data in some numerical form?
Without measurable data we are at the mercy of anecdote. If you make an assumption based on anecdote rather than data, it will nearly always be wrong because we remember the unusual, not the mundane.
“If you can’t express something in the form of numbers, you don’t really know much about it, and if you don’t know much about it, you can’t control it, if you can’t control it you’re at the mercy of chance”
It may well have prompted the project.
It will certainly be needed to understand the current situation.
To manage by fact, you’ll need to quantify and verify possible causes - you need evidence.
To baseline the current performance
In developing solutions you will need data to help determine the most effective approach.
And you’ll need measures in place to act as an early warning system and prompt for further improvement opportunities. 7

8. What are we measuring ? What data is currently being collected?
How do you interpret/use these?
Is this info fed back to those who collect the data?

9. Chasing Tails!!! Audience size Target 10 6 15 8 20 10 25 12 30 14
10 6
15 8
20 10
25 12
30 14
35 16
40 18
45 19
50 21
55 23
60 25
65 26
70 28
75 30
80 31
85 33
90 34
95 36
100 37

10. Chasing Tails– learning points
Any process contains variation
Reacting incorrectly to variation is futile

11. What is variation?
David Williams

12. What is variation? “I drive to work every day.
When asked, I say it takes 55 minutes. In fact, it takes about 55 minutes, but every day it is
slightly different”

13. Histogram
Static view of variation vs dynamic view

14. The importance of time
Time is often the most important variable, but it is often lost in the aggregation of data

15. Average sickness 15

16. Run charts How to draw a run chart Y axis The value (measure)
We need a reference point to ‘test’ the data.
Use the median
X axis
Time period (e.g. days, weeks)

17. Run Chart Exercise The raw data for the three departments are attached
Roughly plot each directorate separately on the graph paper provided

18. Three graphs
Looking at the same data from the previous slide in a different way can tell us a very different story…
From the previous graph we thought Duncan was the best performer and Peter the worst.
From the graphs above we can see that the story at the end of the year is exactly the opposite 18

19. Future gazing Can you predict how your process is likely to perform?
How can you measure the context of YOUR variation?

20. SPC Chart
Upper control limit
Range of the process
Lower control limit

21. What is variation? All processes contain variation
The key in managing variation is to distinguish between
- variation caused by the process (common cause)
- variation that is caused by special events (special cause)

22. Special cause leading to new process
One-off special cause
Common cause

23. Match action to type of variation
Common Cause
Special Cause 
Understand the process so that changes introduced will change the process
Changing the process to deal with one-off events is only likely to increase variation and make things worse 
Common Cause
TYPE OF ACTION 
Car example:
Common cause variation, Common cause action – Understand that the time taken for the journey to work each day will vary naturally, so don’t change anything if you are able to get to work on time. If circumstances change and you need to shorten your journey time then you will need to change the process to achieve this, either by driving faster (within speed limits obviously) or find another route that does not take so long.
Special cause variation, Common cause action – Every time something unusual happens on your journey, resulting in an extended journey time (e.g. traffic jam due to an accident, sheep on the road) DO NOT change your route to counter act it. As these events are rare (hopefully) your journey will probably be back to normal tomorrow so changing your route is an unnecessary step to take.
Common cause variation, Special cause action – It is impossible to guarantee the same volume of traffic, the traffic lights being the same colour etc. every day you travel to work. Therefore DO NOT investigate why your journey time is slightly longer when it is caused by these normal phenomena. Simply accept that this is unavoidable and ensure that you give yourself enough time to arrive at work, even when everything seems to go against you.
Special cause variation, Special cause action – When something unusual happens, resulting in an extended journey time, investigate the reason why to determine the best course of action. If your delay was due to an accident then do nothing as this is both rare and impossible for you to eradicate. However, if the delay was due to major road works forecast to take months to complete, then it may be necessary to change your route, avoiding this delay.
Investigating and correcting each incidence of common cause variation will be time consuming & won’t address the system factors causing variation
Investigate the occurrence and determine what factor external to the process has caused the variation 
Special Cause

24. Dealing with common cause variation
Reduce the variation e.g. by avoiding rush hour
Move the centre line e.g. by changing route

25. Trends What is a change? What is a trend?
“Last month our waiting list was 453. This month it is 441. We’re getting better!”

26. Point Outside Control Limits
Indicates there is something different about this point
UCL
Average
LCL

27. A change in the process
8+ points in a row above or below the centreline indicates a process change
Centreline
Process average

28. Trends
6+ points in a row increasing or decreasing indicates a trend in the process
Upward Trend
Downward Trend

29. Example

30. Example

32. PARETO CHART: EXAMPLE Action taken on the key causes2
100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 1 8 1 6 1 4 1 2
Count
Cumulative Percentage 1 8
Focus on the most important (Pareto Principle) 6 4
Reasons 2 C E B D A
Other