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MANAGING INFO IN THE INFORMATION AGE – A CLIENT CASEMATT FOURIETHINKING DIMENSIONS

Some of our recent clients...Thinking Dimensions International - operating KEPNERandFOURIE RCA company initiatives for the last 23 yearsSpecialise in RCA for IT, Telecoms & ManufacturingBarclays ITMacquarie ITGUnisysWoolworths ITCapita UKSITA GlobalBT FinancialMcDonalds IT

AGENDA“Most incidentinvestigators askthe wrong questions, so don’tchange your people, change thequestions they areasking”Introduction Intro Client Case Stakeholder commitmentManaging InformationQuality of InformationInvestigation supportProcess demonstrationClient outcomesQuestions & answers

Investigation Info “It takes a company without a formal and effective Root Cause Analysis culture, up to 3 days to restore service incidents, but up to 25 days to find the root cause”KEPNERandFOURIE 2010

Client Case situationLack of Stakeholder commitmentPoor management of informationWorking with poor quality information Poor incident investigation supportInternationalAustralian Investment Bank’s IT Division2007-2010

Client situation - resultsReduced downtime of critical systems by at least 60%Virtually eliminated recurring incidentsLevel of escalations dropped > 50%Visible improvement of productivity“The key to successis to be insistent about specificity –the more specificyou are the betteryour chances tosolve the incident.”KEPNERandFOURIE

How did they do it?Decided tofollow four strategiesto improve themanagement& quality ofIncident InvestigationinformationImprove Stakeholder involvement & commitmentImprove management of informationImprove quality of information thus decreasing incident investigation cyclesImprove support for incident investigations

Strategy 1: Improve stakeholder commitmentClient ActionsIntroduced a formal division wideRoot Cause Analysis (RCA)system Provided common processes in troubleshooting and solution findingIntroduced stakeholder/info source analysisProvided an easy way for SME’s to contribute meaningfullySpecific challengesLack of cross-silo collaborationPoor stakeholder buy-inReluctant contributions from subject matter experts (SME’s)

Best in class 3 hrsStakeholder CommitmentResolution time to repair a critical outage (3 hrs vs 45 hours)71% increased improvement in mean-time-to-repair of critical bus apps vs 11% decline98% availability of critical business applications vs 82% availabilityAberdeen GroupBoston Feb 2010J DeBarros & G Patil

Best in class with RCAStakeholder Commitment69% of Best in Class Co’s implemented RCA over the last 2 years with 50% improvement in productivity and 19% improvement in profitability. 28% indicated they will do RCA in next year19% of Average rated Co’s implemented RCA with a 12% improvement of productivity. Only 19% is planning to do RCA in next 12 monthsThe Laggards did not do any RCA with a 9% drop in productivity. Nearly 30% to implement RCA

Common processEverybody uses the same process for finding causes and solutionsThe process determines which questions to ask at each step for each type of incident investigation approachDesigned for minimalistic information combined with a good focus to provide quick answersStep 1: Identify Problem SituationStep 2: Gather Incident InformationStep 3: Analyse Incident InformationStep 4: Determine Conclusion

Stakeholder analysisWhat do you know?What don’t you know?Who has the information?How will you obtain the missing information?Decision makersImplementersInfluencers

Strategy 1: Improve stakeholder commitmentSPECIFIC RESULTS ACHIEVEDIncident is first attempted in natural teams but if not resolved, Management gives permission to ask for appropriate SME’s

Management sanctioning incident investigation meetings, because they know it will provide results

Achieving more in less time and not adverse to attending Incident Investigation meetings

Management promoting the use of the formal RCA processes“If a team couldnot solve aproblem, theperson with theinformation wasnot invited!”Chuck Kepner

Strategy 2: Improve management of informationClient actionsIntroduced “rules of engagement”Introduced a framework of “levels of troubleshooting” to align with PM’s severity levelsTaught staff to trust the processes to deliver the correct answers – templates with questionsIntroduced the “minimalistic” principleSpecific challengesInappropriate use of information sourcesEither too much or too little informationHigh level of escalationsDuplication of efforts

Rules of engagementTOP – Commitment to training of key staff and facilitators. Publicise the rules for engagementTopMIDDLE – Commitment to declare a situation as an unresolved incident. Gives instruction for direct reports to do a RCA exercise to resolve incidentMiddleWORKFORCE – Allow IT professionals 2-8 hours to resolve a problem. If not, they would be allowed to escalate incident and apply the RCA processworkforce

Levels of troubleshootingSEV 3: - Thinking on Your Feet – “Checklist” problem solving using appropriate checklists. Leadership would allow the IT professional to resolve an incident within 8 hours. If this does not happen the incident is escalated. SEV 2: - Intuitive Analysis – Leadership instructs and allows the natural team to perform an intuitive RCA on the incident. If not resolved the team escalates the incident. SEV 1: - Investigative Analysis – In-house trained RCA facilitators have the permission of Leadership to assemble a cross-silo team to formally investigate the incident with the appropriate RCA tools to systematically arrive at the TRUE & ROOT causes for a problem situation

“Minimalistic principle”..“Too much informationcan cause confusion.The key is to get all therelevant information onto one page and that is normally substantially less than gathering ‘all’ the Information.”Innovation – the FreeZone thinking experience.by Kepner & FourieOnly need to analyse the information that would be relevant to the incidentWorked questions within a customised “factor analysis” frameworkGet a quick factual “snapshot” of the characteristics of the incident and then use SME experience and gut feel to explain the snapshotTest SME inputs against logic of snapshot

Example of templates with questions

Strategy 2: Improve management of informationSPECIFIC RESULTS ACHIEVEDStaff knew exactly when to apply a formal RCA process, when to involve a facilitator and when to call on a cross-functional SME

Gave IT professionals the confidence that they were working through a problem situation systematically and comprehensively

Developed a “no-nonsense” incident investigation culture – you ask a question; you either have the answer or you need to go and get it.“Every incident has multipleentry points. Tobe successful insolving theincident you needto find the correctentry point.”Matt Fourie

Strategy 3: Improve quality of informationSpecific challengesWasted time and effort having to do too many replicationsMostly dealing with raw data instead of informationLong investigation cycle timesHigh levels of recurring incidentsClient ActionsIntroduced a set of interrogative questions to convert raw data into meaningful informationCreated “deductive” reasoning culture to arrive at answers quickly and effectively Testing possible causes on paper to eliminate 90% of replication time, effort and money

Snapshot info for causesOBJECT – What object and which other object(s) not?FAULT – What fault and which other typical faults not?USERS – Who has the problem and who does not?WHERE – Where are these users and where could they have been but are not?TIMING – When did it happen first time and when not?PATTERN – What is the pattern of faults and what could it have been but is not?CYCLE– In which cycle does the problem occur and in which cycle does it not occur?

Snapshot info for SolutionsFour Question DrillWhat are the results you want to achieve with this solution?What are the existing problems you would like to remove with this solution?What are the potential risks you would like to avoid with this solution?What money and time do you have or do you need to preserve? What are the restrictions out of your control?

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Reducing cycle timesXXXServer slowXX

Strategy 3: Improve quality of informationSPECIFIC RESULTS ACHIEVEDIncident root cause found first time every time.

Meetings became more productive

RCA method always created a better and common understanding of the problem situation to all stakeholders

Recurring incidents were virtually eliminated

Lea Dit 2010 Td Presentation Au Email[1]

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