Years ago, when I was young enough to play in a recreational soccer league without getting hurt, one of the key phrases we’d shout to our teammates was “Whatcha See!” That translated to “The only thing you need to worry about right now is what you see in front of you.” Of course, the shortened form was essential in the heat of a match. (It was the opposite of “On Your Back!,” which warned the ball handler that a defender was coming on strong from behind.)
In a recent post I discussed how Author Stephen Covey’s “Begin with the end in mind” is relevant to any SPC software trial, especially from a financial perspective. But “Begin with the end…” applies to more than the financial impact of a deployment. It is also a useful perspective when you’re considering what you want people to see when the system is deployed.
Like a soccer team, you should have multiple people in a variety of roles using data from your SPC software trial deployment. Each person may have very different needs, and in keeping with Covey, you should “Begin with the end in mind.”
A good place to start is to identify all of your teammates – that is the stakeholders for your deployment.
Your list will surely include various roles in quality, beginning with the quality manager, and including quality engineers, technicians, and others. It may also include people from operations, plant management, supervisors, and engineering. Information technology usually acts in a support role, but one that should not be overlooked even if it is one that may not have direct need of the data.
Once you have your list of stakeholders, I find putting that list into a matrix is a good way to define “Whatcha See!” For starters, document what data, charts, dashboards, notifications and so forth you want each stakeholder to see. I find it most useful to think of their needs at a point in time, or at an event. This might be a good list to start with:
- During data entry
- When there is a real time failure
- At the end of the shift/day
- At the end of the week/month/quarter
- Minute by minute
- On demand through ad hoc query
- On their smartphone or tablet
Armed with this information, you’ll have the foundation for building a shared vision for how real-time SPC software can change the way you work.
Do you have a clear vision for what each stakeholder on your team needs to see? Is that vision shared and understood by all stakeholders? Please leave a comment, or write to me at ejmiller [at] hertzler [dot] com. I’d love to hear from you.
