Process Analysis in Teaching
- 1. Process Analysis in Teaching A comparison of necessary skills and knowledge Susan E. James, M. Ed, CSM I, LSSGB
- 2. What Does a Business Analyst Do? Discover, Analyze and Synthesize Information Define Needs & Requirements Create Value for the Business What Does a Teacher Do? Monitor progress and use information to adjust strategies. Maintain accurate and complete records of progress and development. Update all necessary records accurately and completely as required by laws, policies and regulations. Prepare required reports on activities. Participate in meetings. Communicate necessary information regularly. Develops plans and tests that are in accordance with established procedures Provide appropriate feedback on work. Establish clear objectives for all activities
- 3. Create a process to solve a teaching problem… The current process for developing lesson plans is inefficient and takes too much time. Teachers need to gather data from 6 different internal websites and then manually synthesize and input into teacher-created form. Proposed Solution: Automate data from websites to show all data for each child by name code, and the choices of grade level content in a central interface, which would then populate a template for classroom use.
- 4. Room 110 Activity Schedule 8:30 Set up breakfast 8:45 - 9:00 Pick up kids at front door, hang up coats, take out folders, wait for everyone on yellow line, Enter and kids put folders in basket. Eat breakfast 9:00 - 9:15 Large Group Time on Rug Take Attendance, Review Give Me Five, Sing Hello Song, Calendar, Weather 9:15 - 9:30 Review Rules and Check Schedules Literacy Block 9:30 - 10:30 Rotation 1 9:30 - 9:50 Mon Phonics Tues Phonics Wed Comprehension, Story Elements, Strategies Thurs Writing, Concepts of Print Fri Green Table Daniel, Jonny, Chris 10 minutes Long and Short Vowel Sounds Long and Short Vowel Sounds “WH” Questions Writing SANDI 10 minutes Table Toy Table Toy Table Toy Table Toy Reinforcer and Transition Orange Table Andy, Citlalli, Alexa 10 minutes Beginning Consonants Beginning Consonants Main Idea Writing Playdough Letters 10 minutes Table Toy Table Toy Table Toy Table Toy Table Toy Reinforcer and Transition Yellow Table Danuta, Mauricio, Andy 20 minutes Table Toy Table Toy Table Toy Table Toy Table Toy Small Table Andres, Yeilyn, Alex Individual Goals Individual Goals Individual Goals Individual Goals Individual Goals Reinforcer and Transition Current Output Excerpt from my planning template developed as a result of the current process. This template took 6 months to develop. The content took about 8 hours.
- 5. How would a BA implement this change? Gather Information What are the business needs? Analyze and Plan for: Approach – Adaptive Formality – Informal Activities – To be decided Timing - To be decided Complexity and Risk – Just me, a few classrooms, whole district? What can we lose in process? Acceptance – Who decides and how when the process works and we stop?
- 6. How would a BA implement this change? Gather Information (continued) Perform Governance Analysis Plan for decision-making. • Who participates? • Who has authority to be involved in and authorize changes? • What will be the parameters of change requests? Perform Stakeholder Engagement Who will be affected by this process? • List everyone inside and outside the organization. • Elicit information from them about what they think the problem is. • Note their attitude, interest, influence/authority. • Plan how the information will be gathered and communicated.
- 7. How would a BA implement this change? Gather Information (continued) Plan for Performance Improvements Plan performance measures. • How will we know we’ve succeeded? • How will we know if the measures are a true reflection of our goal? • What will be the ways we put improvement activities into play? Plan Information Management Where and how will be store our work products for current and future use? • Someone else may need access to them. • How will we name our files? • How will we make sure that what we do doesn’t adversely affect another process?
- 8. How would a BA implement this change? Gather Information (continued) • Select appropriate techniques. • Plan analysis activities. • Confirm that what was initially said is still true before we begin actual analysis. • Train stakeholders in correct procedures to conduct activities Elicitation and Collaboration Do all the stakeholders view the scope of the change the same way? How will we gather, confirm and communicate? • Plan for and hold meetings, workshops, informal sessions to fully identify characteristics of the change. • Plan logistics of meetings and gather supporting material.
- 9. How would a BA implement this change? Devise, Implement and Analyze Strategies • Determine what specific tasks will be performed to meet the needs/requirements. • Design the strategies used. • Assure alignment between them. • Implement the strategies. Note that these work in a cycle and are considered over and over until solution is satisfactory.
- 10. Some business analysis techniques (teachers use these, too) Brainstorming Business Case Interviews Process Modelling Workshops Document Analysis Mind Mapping User Stories/Backlog Management Item Tracking • Surveys Observation Process Analysis Root Cause Analysis Reviews Functional Decomposition Estimation Decision Analysis
- 11. Back to our process to solve a teaching problem… Process Model of Current State of Planning Process The current process for developing lesson plans is inefficient and takes too much time. Teachers need to gather data from 6 different internal websites and then manually synthesize and input into teacher-created form. SPED Proposed Process Model Proposed Solution: Automate data from websites to show all data for each child by name code, and the choices of grade level content in a central interface, which would then populate a template for classroom use.
- 12. Steps in the process… 1. Gather information • Rules about lesson plans • Data on students’ progress • Required lesson objectives • Information about stakeholders (fellow teachers, school administration, parents of students, case managers) • District and school governance policies • Regulations about how data was and would be stored (confidentiality considerations, reusing designs) • Information about process improvements (charts and graphs on current and proposed future states of process, results of analysis activities) • Information about proposed changes (results of workshops, interviews, informal conversations) • Plans for collaboration and communication about our work.
- 13. Steps in the process… 2- Elicitation and Collaboration • Gather stakeholder’s schedules, role and traceability charts, communication information, room availability, substitute’s availability, languages, typed up meeting agendas and surveys, business documents about regulations • Plan activities and techniques (surveys, interviews, workshops, informal conversations) • Create visual models of processes and results. •Design and distribute collaboration plan, communication plan and documentation plan using information gathered in step 1. •Create presentations of proposal.
- 14. Business Case Presentation Project Goals To more efficiently complete lesson plans for special education students, taking into account individual IEPs. Best practice is to begin with grade level content expectations and Common Core State Standards then merge with individual academic and functional goals. Short-term goal with basic framework to be developed as a recurring process.
- 15. Business Case Presentation (continued) The Project: Realigning Planning Processes for Special Needs Students The Problem: Time, effort and quality in: 1. Writing appropriate goal expectations based on fluctuating ability measurements 2. Aligning grade level content based on CCSS for normally learning students with grade level content for actual developmental age of individual students 3. Formative Assessment and Cumulative Assessment
- 16. Business Case Presentation (continued) Stakeholders: – LBS Teachers, Regular Ed Teachers, Case Managers, Parents, Principals and Assistant Principals, Students Timeline: – Immediate/ASAP Solution – Recurring Process Solution In Grade Level Teams, School Level Teams, Individual Teachers, By Committee
- 17. Business Case Presentation (continued) Examine current measures of student academic and functional ability – Websites – Other measures will require research Examine district policy of gradual release of responsibility – Can we truly release special ed students to responsibility for their own learning? – What are the implications either way? – Decide where to begin – grade level or developmental age?
- 18. High Level Processes (continued) System of Assessment and Documentation of Achievement – Academic – Functional Reporting – Report Cards – State Database – Formative – IEPs
- 19. Plan to Plan 1) Elicit, Confirm, Communicate, Engage Stakeholders • Convene committee to review all inputs, review current issues, suggest what we would like to see. Diagrams used: gap analysis, SIPOC, IGOE, workflow diagrams, RACI chart, requirements traceability chart. Complete these individually and then whole committee to compare different views. Come to consensus. • Communicate and discuss findings with everyone. Write communication plan and timeline.
- 20. Plan to Plan 2) Understanding Culture • Convene committee to investigate and communicate district strategies, business rules, positives and negatives that we work with. Brainstorm how to overcome/use these. Use Internal Analysis Checklist
- 21. Plan to Plan 3) Analyze Current Processes – Strategic Plans – Process Models – Performance Data Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis – Root cause/5 Whys – Pareto Chart
- 22. Plan to Plan 4) Model AS IS Process – What do we want to achieve? – Document in detail: Time, duration and frequency of our current process Methods, tools and techniques used Sequence of steps Environmental Factors – Use workflow and swim lane diagrams – Continuous Process Improvement viewpoint
- 23. Plan to Plan 5) Design Process and Implement (send to developers) 6) Monitor Technical Implementation of Automation 7) Monitor and Control Measure performance of new process 8) Process Improvement Make small, incremental changes to fine tune new process 9) Begin again at Monitor and Control
- 24. The BA Credo Out of chaos, we create order. Out of disagreement, we create alignment. Out of ambiguity, we create clarity. But most of all, we create positive change for the organizations we serve. And I go on to say… On every successful project, you’ll find a business analyst. Thanks to Laura Brandenburg http://www.bridging-the-gap.com