ASQ Austin Section Integrated Rolling Wave

1. ASQ Austin SectionIntegrated Rolling Wave Jobby Johnson rjohnson@kforcegov.com February 13,2013 Disclaimer of Endorsement:  Reference herein to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) does not constitute or imply VA’s endorsement, recommendation, or favoring of KGS or its products and services. The views and opinions of KGS do not state or reflect those of the United States Government, and shall not be used for advertising or product endorsement purposes.

2. Why is this important to me? Not Urgent Urgent Important Work Life & Load Balance!! Not Important

3. VA Background • The Veterans Affairs (VA) is the second largest department in the Federal government. • Office of Information Technology (OIT) – Enterprise Operations (EO) is responsible for maintaining five separate major data centers with over 2,400 servers which run a majority of the VA’s applications. • The KGS Lean Six Sigma team working as a subcontractor under the SMS prime contract deployed their unique process improvement methodology to support EO.

4. Recommended Approach • After observing the EO’s daily operations tempo, we realized the standard Lean Six Sigma (LSS) project approach of four to six months would not work. • Instead, we recommended KGS’s Integrated Rolling Wave (IRW) approach, which combines: • Project Management Institute’s (PMI’s) Rolling Wave • Agile’s sprint philosophy – a set period of time during which specific work has to be completed and made ready for review • LSS Rapid Improvement Events (RIEs)

5. Stakeholder Identification and Analysis • Based on experience, we believe that stakeholder identification and engagement is crucial to change adoption and the scheduling of quick-hit wins. Any stakeholder can be grouped into one of the following categories.

6. Stakeholder Identification and Analysis • Innovators – These stakeholders require no prodding or encouragement; they generally initiate or embrace change. • Early Adopters – An Early Adopter is considered to be the target audience for each event; others will typically follow where they lead. • Late Majority – These stakeholders generally wait until others have participated in the effort first. • Non-Adopters – Our team communicates with Non-Adopters and engages them with the appropriate level of respect. However, they are not the focus of our energy.

7. The Value of the IRW Approach • The IRW approach allowed the LSS team to quickly execute Continuous Improvement Programs. The success of these programs increased: • Visibility to stakeholders • Confidence in the program • Adoption of the improvements

8. Benefits • Challenge: The VA demanded results and our team had to show value quickly. • Identifying & working with engaged stakeholders and executing rapid projects intended to show value; VA stakeholder appreciation and collaboration increased. Our team enabled the VA to establish a new resource capacity planning (RCP) organization within 90 days • Replication Key to Maximization • This fast track approach was then elevated to OIT System Design and Engineering (SDE), which enabled RCP at the SDE enterprise level.

9. Governance Board • The LSS team recommended the creation of a Governance Board to: • Establish stakeholder roles and responsibilities • Authorize Continuous Performance Improvement (CPI) initiatives • Oversee project adoption • The Board was charged with approving sprint projects and developing a timeline for implementation. They also decided which projects should be replicated and adopted in other geographical locations.

10. Project Selection Approach • The LSS team considered three methods to evaluate projects: • Top Down (Leadership Driven) • Bottom Up (Ideation) • Selective Value Stream Mapping (VSM) • The LSS Master Black Belt recommended a VSM approach to identify efficiency opportunities and used Nominal Group Technique (a combination of brainstorming, affinitization, and prioritization) with VSM as a way to brainstorm ideas for improvement.

11. VA Demand VSM

12. VA Provisioning VSM Turnkey

13. Opportunity Identification and Prioritization • During the evaluation, the LSS team identified 87 efficiency opportunities and placed them into one of the following four affinity groupings: • Knowledge Management • Process Management • Human Capital Management • Information Management • The LSS team developed weighted criteria to prioritize opportunities.

14. VA Demand VSA and VSM • They then stack ranked and scored each opportunity based upon the previously established criteria.

15. Classifying Opportunities • In addition, the team created improvement, scope, and problem statements for each opportunity. • During the next step, the team selected the appropriate approach: • Just Do it (JDI) – Used when the solution was clear • Rapid Improvement Event (RIE) – Used for “quick-hit” wins • Standard Project (Two to Three Months) – Used when more time was necessary to complete the effort • As appropriate, some opportunities were scoped together so they could be addressed at the same time.

16. VA Demand VSA and VSM • Finally, the weighted improvements then were rank ordered for implementation. This resulted in twelve JDIs, 39 RIEs, and three standard projects.

17. Scheduling the Events • The prioritization matrix, resource availability, and the priority of the client were the biggest drivers for scheduling events. • Next, we considered the stakeholder analysis to ensure Innovators and the Early Majority were engaged during the first events. • Finally, the team selected events that drove improvements to support the RCP. • 45-day sprints were used to conduct the RIEs and JDIs.

18. Sprint Approach

19. Methodology Tools • Supplier, Input, Process, Output and Customer Analysis • VSM • Value Stream Analysis (VSA) • Nominal Group Technique • Cause and Effect Diagrams (Fishbone) • Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) • Functional Requirements Document • Responsible, Accountable, Consult, Informed (RACI) Chart

20. Case Study One - Provisioning Process • Problem: Management desired to increase provisioning delivery times. • Goal(s): • Identify tasks to eliminate or streamline • Speed up completed handoffs • Reduce overall cycle time • Project Scope: Scope focused on looking at the provisioning though change orders Hardware Device Install, Operating System Install, and Database Install. • The next slides show which tools were used.

21. SIPOC

22. VSM (Partial) Duplicate Process Review Earlier in Contract Process

23. Value Stream Analysis

24. Affinity Diagram • Used to organize qualitative data: • Arrange ideas in logical categories • Combine/clarify a large amount of ideas • Help create consensus • Identify trends and patterns • Refine and define ideas

25. Affinity Diagram • Steps to Complete: • Generate and collect ideas • Group ideas into logical categories • Select titles for categories • Refine and consolidate the categories

26. Results of Provisioning Event • The team used an Affinity Diagram to brainstorm improvements ideas from the VSM. • We grouped ideas together, eliminated duplicates, and consolidated the same ideas into one improvement action. This resulted in 63 ideas grouped into 29 improvements. • We then prioritized 29 improvements using weighted criteria. The 15 top priorities were selected and action plans created. • This resulted in a 20-percent improvement in cycle time in the provisioning process.

27. Case Study Two – Available Equipment • Problem: Some servers and IT equipment sit available in the warehouse longer than expected. • Goal(s): • Understand and eliminate the causes of aging equipment • Create a list of unallocated and serviceable equipment. • Process governance and trigger points for the list • Project Scope: Look at available servers and IT equipment more then six months old. (This did not include software or software licenses.) • The next slides show which tools were used.

28. Cause and Effect Diagram (Fishbone) Represents potential causes

29. FMEA

30. Results of Available Equipment • The team used FMEA to develop action plans for the highest Risk Priority Number (RPN). • We prioritized 27 opportunities using Impact, Occurrence, and Detection scores of 1, 3 or 9. • The top eleven priorities were selected and action plans were created. • This effort resulted in an estimated savings of $500K in reused equipment.

31. Case Study Three – RCP • Problem: The process to distribute resource capacity information is manual. • Goal(s): • Customer wanted to decrease time to gather data. • Improve visibility and access of capacity information for current and planned (demand) work. • Provide total cost of ownership of their portfolio. • Project Scope: Labor, Property, Materials, and Expenses • The next slides show which tools were used.

32. Recognizing and Driving the Need • It is important to guide a client to an understanding of the need for change management, rather than dictate the solution to them. • After discovery conversations, the LSS team recognized a need for Project Portfolio Management (PPM) and RCP. PPM provides total visibility into investments and RCP provides total cost of ownership.

33. Project Portfolio Management • The PPM approach integrates all focus areas and provides insight into how EO will service customers and manage the cost of all EO investments.

34. Resource Capacity Management • The four focus areas have inter-dependencies with one another; when used together, they provide EO actionable, relevant, and accurate information on investments.

35. Functional Requirements Document

36. RACI Chart

37. Results of RCP • The team used functional requirements and RACI chart to determine the requirements for the RCP. • We submitted an RCP pilot approach to EO management in two phases. • Phase One – Demand labor capacity planning • Phase Two for materials and properties and technology improvements • The successful pilot resulted in the implementation of a permanent capability, which saved overtime for the resource managers who performed these functions.

38. Summary • These three case studies are only a glimpse of the activity we supported over a nine-month period. • The team later pivoted to doing more the actions items and fewer events to add value and produce deliverables. • Over time, EO management approached the LSS team with additional requests for events and help with other projects. One example was to help with data center consolidation projects with more than 300 dispersed data centers and 20,000 servers. The success of the initial events showed that the KGS IRW approach provided value to their organization.

39. Inter-relationships of Activities

40. Conclusion • At the beginning of this project, the LSS team recognized the need for PPM and RCP. All other events fed into the RCP group, which had the biggest impact on the organization. • These initial efforts have led to additional success, as we continue work with EO and other organizations within VA OIT. • I will be available after this presentation if you have additional questions.

41. QUESTIONS • Jobby Johnson • February 13, 2013 • Disclaimer of Endorsement:  Reference herein to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) does not constitute or imply VA’s endorsement, recommendation, or favoring of KGS or its products and services. The views and opinions of KGS do not state or reflect those of the United States Government, and shall not be used for advertising or product endorsement purposes.