Continuous ImprovementFor

Cedar Rapids Community Schools Support Services

Action Research Teams

Susan Leddick, Jay MarinoNovember 1, 2005

Purposes of the Workshop To help administrators in support services

to Choose and use data critical to department

decisions; Use simple and powerful tools for data analysis,

problem analysis, and department planning. To establish a common language and

approach to improvement in both the instructional and support sides of the district—and at all levels. This includes, especially, the action research process.

Key Questions

1. Why data?2. How do you decide what to measure?3. How much data and how often?4. What’s the purpose of data analysis

and how do you do it?5. What are some simple graphs that

are effective?6. What do we need to know about

interpreting graphs?

Connecting to the Instructional Side

Action Research (Plan-Do-Study-Act Cycle)Data-driven decision makingQuality tools for group processes

Impact? Implications?

Choosing What To Measure

Customer

System

Variation

Knowledge

Planned Change

People

Definitions…

A customer is someone who depends on your work in order to do his or her work.

A supplier is someone who provides a product or service used by a customer. All of us are both at different times.

Application 1

Choose two products or services you receive Who is the supplier for each?

Choose two products or services you produce Who is the customer for each?

For which of the products or services you listed in either column do you currently keep and use data on a regular basis? Why did you make that choice? If you keep no data on any of these, why not?

Measurement Framework

Processes

Results

Common Database

Decisions on WHAT to do

Periodic results data

Real-time process data

Decisions on HOW to do

Query, Interpret, Compare

Inform Stakeholders

Align, Improve, Redesign

Work in the next system to change what is done.

Work inside the system to change how work is done.

Copyright Leddick, 2004; used with permission

Application 2

Complete the diagram on page 6.

What Customers Care About

Function Cost Safety Delivery Morale/Satisfaction

Your Customer Example?

Stop and Think

What ideas so far today have suggested a change to how you are using data in your work group? How would things be different if you made such changes?

How Much Data Is Enough? … how fast your

process changes and how quickly you want to make changes to it.

…never enough data to tell you what to do…just whether you should do something.

…less data can be more useful. Sampling allows good judgments to be made from small groupings of the data.

Examples of Sampling The director of custodial services learns

about the square root… Percentage of failed repairs in the bus

garage… Use the square root if you are making

frequent measures and want to save time while preserving information quality.

Every tenth invoice… Square root of the teachers observed… Every fifth SPED referral…

Use the square root if you are making frequent measures and want to save time while preserving information quality.

Remember…

When Not to Sample

…there are not a lot of potential data …the process changes very rapidly …you have never taken data on this

process before …it is easy to get “all” the data

Application 3

Where might sampling save you and your work group time and give you better information, to boot?

Using Data to Make Better Decisions

The purpose of analysis is insight.

November

3:07

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Bus Departure Times

Silver Bus DepartureTimes

January

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Bus Departure Times

Silver Bus DepartureTimes

Application 4

Suppose that you are the director of transportation. You have the graphs on page 10, as well as others for several months, all showing the same pattern. What questions would you ask? Of whom?

Leddick’s Three Principles of Data Analysis

1. Graph the data.

2. Graph the data.

3. Graph the data.

Application 5High Schools Middle Schools Elementary Schools

17, 012 18, 558 14, 016

18, 768 19, 859 14, 318

21, 389 22,232 14, 845

27, 625 23,751 15, 876

18, 022

18, 854

The Pareto Diagram

Fights and Assaults by Location: Hometown District, 2001

269

18

28

63

98%94%

87%

72%

50%

0

15

30

45

60

75

90

105

120

Parking Lot Playground School Hall Classroom Restroom Gym

Location

Num

ber

of O

ccur

renc

es

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%n=1

Wrapping Up Select data you would like to collect

and bring along next time. Consider

Related to a customer issue Something we need to analyze, anyway Something we need to improve Something that cycles pretty fast (plenty

of data) Reflects repeated measures over time

Our Next Session

Help with data analysis. Introduce the action research

process. Select a learning project.