Focus toolkit
The Focus toolkit is designed for anyone to use to help you improve ways of working and embrace Continuous Improvement (CI) approaches.
The toolkit introduces a variety of approaches used by the Focus team to identify improvements, solve problems, gain feedback and other techniques. We provide a short guide to get you started, and where applicable share the associated template.
Staff and students looking for more information about the Focus toolkit should go to OxIntranet.
Browse the A-Z List of tools or look at a particular project stage to see what tool might help you at a particular time. Focus tools and techniques aim to support continuous improvement and in this spirit the toolkit will evolve and be updated. If you have comments or ideas please get in touch at [email protected].
Toolkit
Scoping is where you begin. It enables you to take stock of your present situation, set your course and navigate forward.
Understand the high-level situation
It is important that before rushing to a solution you take a step back to understand what is going on and the areas you want to focus on – the Scope.
Scoping is key to understanding the high-level situation. You may want to change something about how your team works; may need to change something as a result of changing demands on your team; or aware that there is a problem somewhere within the activity of your team.
Do you really know what the problem is?
Unless you really understand the problem you cannot identify the causes or consider options. Collaborative Problem Solving can be used to quickly move through the issue.
Do you know who your customer is?
Across the University the end recipient (customer) of a process or service will vary – students, academics, the general public, applicants, etc. But there are also customers within the process – other teams, who must not be forgotten.
Confused by who your customer really is, or what are the expected outputs? Consider SIPOC (Suppliers, Inputs, Process, Outputs and Customers), an overview tool that helps you bring everything together.
- Download learning: SIPOC (PDF)
- Download template: SIPOC (Word)
What will be the benefits?
It is important to consider what you are aiming for when making any change. A benefits exploration map can help with this.
How will you clarify and create a shared understanding of your proposed project?
An Initial Work Proposal provides a framework for clarifying your thinking about your proposed plan of work and recording it in a short summary format that you can share with others to establish a shared understanding.
Download template: Work Proposal Summary (Word)
What should you document to get approval for your project?
A Project Charter is a formal summary of the proposed project, including objectives, scope, high-level deliverables and milestones, success factors, resources and key stakeholders. A Project Charter ensures that the project manager, sponsor and stakeholders are aligned in their expectations of the proposed work and - once signed off - the Charter formally authorises the project to proceed.
Download template: Project Charter (PowerPoint)
Engage is where you find out who else has a contribution to make, a stake in a project outcome or may be affected by any changes.
Find out who needs to be involved
So, you're planning to embark on an improvement project. Who else has a contribution to make to it, or a stake in its outcome, or may be affected by whatever changes result? How will you ensure these people are identified and appropriately involved?
Who needs to be involved?
With any change, whether it is required by legislation, or an idea suggested from within your team, it is important to understand who needs to be involved, who can make decisions, who needs to be informed and so on. Without this agreed and documented the change can fail or create further issues.
A tool that will help you is RACI. A RACI is a simple table documenting who is Responsible; Accountable; Communicated with; and Informed. A RACI can help to ensure all involved understand where they fit. Where team members are not sure of their role in a process or task, the uncertainty can lead to fraction and loss of focus on the aims. By agreeing as a team the different involvement everyone has, you can all focus on getting on with the tasks without the distraction of confusion.
- Download learning: RACI (PDF)
- Download template: RACI (PPT)
Do you know what your customer wants?
Are you sure you know what your customer (whether internal or external) actually needs? We recommend asking them by following the Voice of the Customer technique.
The Diagnose stage supports you to fully understand the sources of a problem and provides valuable insights.
Understand what's going on
It's tempting to jump straight into 'solution mode' and start coming up with answers. But this can lead to hasty decisions and false solutions. It's important to accurately diagnose and fully understand the sources of a problem. This gives you valuable insights into where, how and why a problem is arising and how you can 'design out' the problem in your new way of working.
Do you really know what the problem is?
We often come up with a solution, but are we clear what we’re trying to fix or really know what the problem is? Collaborative Problem Solving can be used to quickly move through the issue. It brings together a set of tools to help you including the 5 Whys and Specific Problem Statements (SMART).
- Download learning: Collaborative Problem Solving (PDF)
- Download learning: 5 Whys (PDF)
- Download learning: Specific Problem Statements (SMART) (PDF)
- Download template: Specific Problem Statements (SMART) (PPT)
How to summarise and record your problem-solving steps
The Problem on a Page template is designed for use alongside the Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS) process described above. The template enables you briefly to record the key points from each stage of the CPS on a single sheet of A4. We have printable and digital templates for you to use.
- Download template: Problem on a Page - printable version (PDF)
- Download template: Problem on a page - electronic version (PPT)
What’s the cause?
There may be one cause or often there are several causes - each should be investigated as a separate cause. Fishbone is a useful tool to help you and your team identify, collate and organise the possible causes.
Another way of identifying the cause may by observation using Go See or Fresh Eyes – ideally by someone outside of the process.
- Download learning: Fishbone (PDF)
- Download template: Fishbone (Word)
- Download learning: Go See (PDF)
- Download learning: Fresh Eyes (PDF)
Is the process broken?
If the problem is with the process, then Process Mapping can be a useful way of identifying where the process is going wrong. Relationships with teams working around you can be improved by ensuring that everyone understands their part in the process and understands the impacts of their actions.
Overlaid with the 8 Wastes, process maps can provide a wealth of useful information.
Are you clear on your customers' expectations of the process?
Before you try to change your process, it's worth being clear on what your customers need from it and what is most important to them. This might be different to what you have assumed is most important to them, or different to what's most important to you. For example, if you change your process to deliver outcomes more quickly when what your customers would prefer is greater accuracy, your changes will fail to hit the mark. Furthermore, if what they most prize is customer service with a more personal touch - and you failed to realise this, then you've missed the chance to exceed their expectations.
Kano is a tool for categorising your customers' needs according to the importance to them. By doing this you can understand whether the changes you are planning will meet their expectations or not - and you can also plan to exceed their expectation.
- Download learning: Kano (PDF)
What next?
Having identified the underlying or root cause of the problem, the team should consider all the options – think outside of the box, not just the obvious options. There may be lots of options identified and so using a matrix to look at the impact and effort of each is key to help prioritise.
How do I set out a clear case to gain agreement for a change?
You've identified the problem and want to propose a course of action to address it. Now you need to gain approval to proceed. Having a well set out Case for Change will put you in a strong position. Use the Case for Change template to set out, clearly and concisely, a reasoned case for making the change. Having this information summarised in one place, under headings that anticipate the key questions you're likely to be asked, will help you to gain buy-in from decision makers and from colleagues who will likely be involved in designing and implementing the changes.
The Design stage is when you collectively agree the future scenario and create a plan of action.
Consider changes and new ways of working
Taking everything that you have learnt so far, the Design stage is the point at which you collectively agree the future scenario that you are aiming for. You will also create a plan of action for the changes that you will make to get there.
Depending on the options and causes there may be a whole range of different things you can do.
Disorganised and cluttered working environment?
Try 6 S. A cluttered, chaotic workspace or environment can have a negative impact on all involved, including visitors and colleagues outside the team. By following these steps, you can make a real difference in the way your team works.
- Download learning: 6S (PDF)
What’s your vision?
It is at this stage that having a future state process agreed is important.
Actively manage the implementation of change so that it can be successfully sustained.
Introduce and sustain changes and new ways of working
Now it's time to make the change happen and cement the habits of your new ways of working. How will you ensure that the change sticks, and that things keep on improving and don't slip back?
Make the change and keep it going
Having made any change to a process or other way of working it is important to document it and keep it going, but also to remember to regularly review it. Fundamental to implementing and maintaining a process are Standard Operating Procedures.
Process Confirmation and Plan-Do-Check-Act are useful tools to help with sustaining and improving your Standard Operating Procedures.
- Download learning: Standard Operating Procedures (PDF)
- Download learning: Process Confirmation (PDF)
- Download learning: Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDF)
After action review
For continuous improvement to be successful, you must know if a change has worked or not for everyone involved. An After Action Review is a quick way of doing this.
- Download learning: After Action Review (PDF)
- Download template: After Action Review (PowerPoint)
Record what your project achieved and any lessons learned
An End-of-Project Report provides a framework for recording what your project set out to do, how it was conducted, what the outcomes and impacts have been, and what you learned in the process to inform how future projects are approached.
Embedding Continuous Improvement (CI) into daily life, taking small steps which lead to big changes.
Keep changing and improving
Focus has a set of tools, which - even if you are not looking to change anything in your team processes - can help improve team morale, team efficiency and team results.
Daily Update
A Daily Update is a 10-15 minute team check-in, with the aim of keeping everyone in the loop, tracking progress and raising any issues so these can be quickly addressed – without waiting until the next team meeting. The completed documents are useful Visual Management for anyone who wasn’t able to attend, or for new team members. The Daily Update can be held in the office, online or hybrid.
Once you’ve decided which of the parts of the template work for you, save the template somewhere where everyone in your team has access, for example, on SharePoint or within Teams.
Agree a time slot for the update and send everyone a Teams meeting so they can join the Update from their work location for that day.
It is good practice to take turns with leading so everyone gets involved.
Whoever is leading the Daily Update on a day opens the template and shares their screen with everyone in the call/meeting. As they talk through the different tabs, the leader adds comments/updates from the team; or in the case of the barometer, moves the chosen icons up or down the scale as required by the individuals.
At the end of the session save the changes and it is ready for the next day.
Discoveries
Get your team into the habit of regularly reflecting on, sharing and logging their discoveries - you'll together compile a wealth of useful learning points that others in the team will benefit from. While this can be done as a standalone activity, Discoveries capture is built into the format of the Daily Update so if you're running a Daily Update you'll be building this habit into your team's daily routine.
- Download learning: Discoveries (PDF)
- Download template: Daily Update (which includes a Discoveries log) (Excel)
The POST Agenda
Are meetings too long? Do you struggle to get through everything? Does the focus of the meeting get lost?
The POST is a structured agenda, which may involve more time to put together before the meeting, can help guide/control a meeting particularly where there are lots of people involved, lots of agenda points and limited time. By sending out the POST in advance of the meeting, any queries/concerns can be raised before the meeting, leaving more time in the session.
- Download learning: POST (PDF)
- Download template: POST (Word)
Visual Management
Key to Continuous Improvement is a common understanding of how things work and access to performance data. Sharing key information through visual management is important to ensure that everyone can support each other and pull in the same direction.
Visual management is also key for the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle.
Stop, Start, Continue
This is a simple format to gather feedback from an individual or group regarding a specific area of activity. It gives an insight into what is working well now and what needs to be improved, along with ideas on how to improve. It can be used with team members to improve an internal operation or with customers to improve an aspect of your service. The end goal is to have an action plan to take forward.
Stop, Start, Continue is a helpful tool in Continuous Improvement since it combines reflection on a current situation with ideas to tweak it - while focussing on a defined / manageable sphere of activity (rather than overhaul a big, complicated process). For example, you could ask: "What do we need to 'Stop, Start, Continue' in how we run team meetings?"
After Action Review (AAR)
For Continuous Improvement to be successful, you must know if a change has worked or not for everyone involved. An After Action Review is a quick way of doing this.
- Download learning: After Action Review (PDF)
- Download template: After Action Review (PowerPoint)