Facilitating the UCO

Action Project Process

– Part 4 Analyzing Data – Office of Planning & Analysis

University of Central Oklahoma

UCO Action Project Process

• Based on PDCA cycle– Walter Shewhart (Bell Labs); W. Edwards Deming

• Managed by the UCO CQIT– Continuous Quality Improvement Team– Cross-functional

• 5 to 10 projects per year

PDCA Cycle

PDCA Cycle

PDCA Cycle

Action Team

Begins

Action Team

Ends

• Present findings– Benchmarking results– Interview results– Focus group results– Flowchart results

•••

• ID common issues/problems

SynthesisAn

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• Root cause analysis (RCA)• Process problems

ResolveAn

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What is Root Cause Analysis?

You can easily see problems and (sometimes) symptoms

Can’t easily see the underlying “root” causes very easily

Lack of Training

Human Error

Act of God

Equipment failure

Unknown

Inattention to detail

Asleep

Too Simple Root Cause AnalysisWhat happened?

Find someone to blame the same way …

Ed

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Find someone to blame the same way …

Too Simple Root Cause Analysis

Real Root Cause Analysis• Seemingly disparate issues and problems may be arising

from common underlying root causes.• Root Cause Analysis (RCA)is a process:

– Reveals underlying root causes (often more than one).– Limits attempts to latch on to simple, quick fixes that don’t

address underlying root cause. (Problems will be like weeds – they keep coming back.)

• Common uses:– Incident investigation– Problem solving– Quality control

RCA: Basic stepsDefine

Analyze

Solutions

Understand the full scope of the problem

Why does this problem occur?

Develop corrective solutions to prevent problem from recurring.

Some RCA Techniques• 5-Whys– Start w/ problem or incident.– Keep asking “Why?” .

• Fishbone or Ishikawa Diagram– Start w/ problem or incident.– Ask “Why?” in categories.

• Factor Tree Analysis– Start w/ problem or incident.– Use tree structure to trace actions and conditions that

led to problem.• Many others + hybrids

5-Whys

• Facilitator writes group’s issue or problem on board.• Facilitator: “What causes this problem?” or “Why does this

problem exist?” or …• Team members give a reason.• Facilitator: “Then what causes that problem?” or “Then why

does that problem exist?”• Keep working down to underlying problem or until reason is

beyond control of group.

RCA

5-Whys Example

↑ ↓• Very simple. Easy to facilitate. • May only expose one root cause.

• Easy to get diverted to a symptom. Make sure you get down to root cause. (If reason is outside control or influence, good point to stop.)(Interesting ideas or symptom solutions can be stored in “parking lot” for possible later use.)

Five Whys – Useful questions• What could be causing that?• What underlying skills might he/she be missing?• What has kept the typical interventions from working?• What is interfering with… ?• What is a cause that we can influence or change in school?• Why are we continuing to use this strategy?• What else could be causing or influencing this problem?• Do you think “x,” “y,” or “z” could be the cause?• Why is “X” stopping him/her from learning?• Why do you think he/she is or continues doing that?• What could be the motivation for doing that?• What do you think is happening that keeps him/her from solving this problem?

http://www.ohioschoolleaders.org/moveAhead/UsingData/docs/Five%20Reasons%20Deep-%20Questions%20You%20May%20Find%20Helpful.pdf

Fishbone (Ishikawa) Diagram

Cause Categories:• Manufacturing (4 M’s): Machine, Method, Material, Manpower• Service(4 S’s): Surroundings, Suppliers, Systems, SkillsMany others. These can be anything that makes sense to the team.

Still using 5-Whys questioning

RCA

UCO Fishbones (from NSSE Action Teams)

Why a fishbone?

↑ ↓• Still fairly simple. • Provides pathways to more than one

potential root cause.

• Categories can sometimes be restrictive – or you may waste time arguing about which category.

• Perceived need to find something in every category sometimes limits ability to dive down to root cause level.

Modified “5 Whys” (factor tree analysis)

RCA

Modified “5 Whys” (factor tree analysis)RCA

Modified “5 Whys” (factor tree analysis)

↑ ↓• Still simple. Easy to get folks to do.• Provides pathways to more than one

potential root cause.• Categories no longer restrictive.• Tree structure is very easy to see and

work with.

• No categories, so facilitator may need to stretch people’s thoughts.

Activity

Modified 5-Whys

NSSE 9C:About how many hours do you spend in a typical 7-day week doing each of the following? 1=0 hrs/wk, 2=1-5 hrs/wk, 3=6-10 hrs/wk, 4=11-15 hrs/wk, 5=16-20 hrs/wk, 6=21-25 hrs/wk, 7=26-30 hrs/wk, 8=more than 30 hrs/wk

2009 2006 2003 20012009 UCO - 2009

URBAN2009 UCO - 2009

CARNEGIE2009 UCO - 2009

NSSE

FY 4.05 4.65 4.26 5.04 -1.02 -1.44 -1.70SR 5.22 5.20 5.08 4.93 -0.59 -0.99 -1.49

According to NSSE, both Freshmen and Senior UCO students spend more hours working off campus than: students at other schools, students at Carnegie peers, and students at urban peers

Activity – Modified 5-Whys

UCO’s overall retention rate is only 53% while our peer average is 74%.

• Immediate solutions• Long range solutions• Process improvements

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Action Team

Begins

Action Team

Ends

The End (last CIF is Apr 16)