1. www.icecreates.com | +44(0)151 647 4700 © ICE LTD 2009 All rights reserved. August 2009 version 1.3 Systems Thinking Facilitators

2. www.icecreates.com | +44(0)151 647 4700 © ICE LTD 2009 All rights reserved. Is this working for you? Any issues or concerns? Anything you want to change?

3. www.icecreates.com | +44(0)151 647 4700 © ICE LTD 2009 All rights reserved.

4. www.icecreates.com | +44(0)151 647 4700 © ICE LTD 2009 All rights reserved. Customer Purpose DemandFlow Measures System conditions & social factors

5. www.icecreates.com | +44(0)151 647 4700 © ICE LTD 2009 All rights reserved. Introduce yourself – explain you are there to learn about the work, the customer and not the workers Start with what they do, listen to calls or ask them to show you. Listen, and clarify what you have heard Summarise your picture of what is happening and ask for validation Try not to make judgments, comments or express opinions Two types of demand Value demand what we are here for, demands we want Failure demand demands caused by us not doing something or, by us not doing something right in the eyes of the customer Note: We need to be absolutely clear about what the purpose of the organisation is in order to be able to decide whether the demands are value of failure. Example In an IT helpdesk the purpose might be based around fixing problems people have with their IT. A demand “I can’t print out from my PC” would therefore be Value. However if the purpose was based around giving employees the tools they need to do their job this would be Failure. The first looks at the IT helpdesk as a system, the second looks at IT as a system supporting other systems. Tactics when collecting demand Customer Purpose DemandFlow Measures System conditions & social factors Understanding Demand

6. www.icecreates.com | +44(0)151 647 4700 © ICE LTD 2009 All rights reserved. Types of waste Excess capacity Backlogs and work in progress Handoffs Waiting, batching, queuing Over-processing e.g. duplication, Checking and re-working Unnecessary complexity Bureaucracy Causes of waste Organisation and functional structure Design of procedures and processes Fragmentation or specialisation of work Measures Authority levels and inspection Pay and performance management IT systems Contractual arrangements Method(s) for managing change§ Value and Waste When much of the Flow has been mapped we need to start to understand the concepts of Value and Waste Value Steps – Those that specifically deliver against the purpose of the system Waste Steps – All other steps in the flow In order to determine what is really waste it can help to ask the question “which steps would you, as the customer, be willing to pay for? ” A step is not Value just because we have to do it, even if it is a legislative requirement! What is waste and what causes it? Customer Purpose DemandFlow Measures System condition s & social factors Understanding Flow

7. www.icecreates.com | +44(0)151 647 4700 © ICE LTD 2009 All rights reserved. Can I order a Cappuccino How much is this salad? I think you have over charged me What is the difference between a Cappuccino and a Latte? I ordered a Cappuccino, you have given me an Americano Can you give me directions to the post office When will my coffee be ready I ordered ages ago? You have given me the wrong change Can you clear the coffee cups off these tables please? Can I have a loyalty card please

8. www.icecreates.com | +44(0)151 647 4700 © ICE LTD 2009 All rights reserved. Explore Measures

9. www.icecreates.com | +44(0)151 647 4700 © ICE LTD 2009 All rights reserved. The purpose of measures within Systems Thinking is to gain an understanding of how capable the system is at responding to the demands placed on the system by its customers. We need to identify measures of what matters to the customer and dig up data from the system to baseline current performance against those measures. This is also an opportunity to identify and contrast performance against internal and/or government set targets. These measures might include quality, end to end time and first fix rate, depending on the service. But remember, bad measures drive bad behaviour “Tell me how you measure me, and I will tell you how I will behave” Eliyahu Goldratt Therefore three important questions to ask are: Who is the customer? What matters to the customer? How can we measure this? What should we measure and why? Effective measurement is the key to success – it is not just numbers, data, calculations, analysis and statistics. It is more about understanding and customer insight. It is important to identify measures of what matters to customers, these can then be used to drive performance improvement. Understanding Measures Customer Purpose DemandFlow Measures System conditions & social factors

10. www.icecreates.com | +44(0)151 647 4700 © ICE LTD 2009 All rights reserved. What causes variation in Data? Most variation in performance isn’t due to the people who work within those systems. It is primarily down to the system which people work within. Studies show that it is normal for between 80% and 95% of the variation to be down to the system rather than the people. However, in organisations, we spend a large amount of time managing the people rather than understanding the variation in the system. By understanding the causes of variation and working to reduce the impact they have on the system, organisations can achieve surprising and dramatic results. Data in Context (why time series?) Time series graphs tend to have days, months or years, across the bottom with values on the vertical axis. Plotting measures as time series allows for easier comparison, and better understanding of the data. Examples of data might be end to end times, first fix rates, pass/fail rate or volume of demand into the service. Traditional performance reports tend to show how a service has performed compared to either other services, last months number, or the same period last year. As single data points these doesn’t tell us much except what happened this month. Plotting more data points as time series data allows us to understand the trends in the data; was last month’s data usual or unusual? Is the trend increasing or decreasing over time? What might explain any changes? We would probably find that the performance varies over time. Understanding Measures Customer Purpose DemandFlow Measures System conditions & social factors

11. www.icecreates.com | +44(0)151 647 4700 © ICE LTD 2009 All rights reserved. What makes a good measure? Relates to purpose Tells you to act on your system while there is still time to do something positive Can be continually used to drive improvement Facilitates understanding & learning – leads to knowledge about the system Is not arduous to collect or calculate Used by the people who do the work to improve the work 1.Collect your data points 2.Work out the average of all the points 3.Plot the data points in a chart (in time series) 4.Draw in the average line 5.Calculate the difference between the points 6.Work out the average of the differences 7.Multiply this differences average by 2.667 8.Add and subtract this number from the average of the data points 9.These are your upper (UCL) and lower (LCL) control limits 10.Draw in these UCL and LCL lines How to create SPC charts – in 10 easy steps Understanding Measures Customer Purpose DemandFlow Measures System conditions & social factors

12. www.icecreates.com | +44(0)151 647 4700 © ICE LTD 2009 All rights reserved. Two mistakes that should be avoided: Two kinds of mistake : To attribute to a special cause any outcome, fault, complaint, mistake, breakdown, shortage, etc when it belongs to the system (common cause) To attribute to a common cause any outcome, fault etc when it actually comes from a special cause A control chart for a system that looks to be “in control” and one that appears to be “out of control”: Understanding Measures Customer Purpose DemandFlow Measures System conditions & social factors Suggested Reading: Understanding Variation - The Key to Managing Chaos, Donald J Wheeler, SPC Press, ISBN 0-945320-53-1

13. www.icecreates.com | +44(0)151 647 4700 © ICE LTD 2009 All rights reserved. Logistics Working groups Plan Timings Roles Communicating this to your teams