Free Process Improvement Worksheet: Improvement Plan (PDCA), Root Cause Analysis with 5 Whys and Fishbone, and a Process Step and Time Analysis (PDF, Word, Excel)

What is on the page

Measure: now, target, after

One or two numbers that show the problem, such as days, errors, cost or complaints, measured before the change, the goal, and the result after. Excel shows the change in percent.

Root cause

The underlying reason the problem happens, found with the fishbone and the 5 whys, rather than the first symptom.

Fishbone categories

People, methods, machines, materials, measurement and environment: prompts to make sure the team considers every kind of cause.

Work and wait time

Hands-on time for each step and the time it sits waiting before the next step. Waiting is usually most of the total.

Value-add and efficiency

Whether the customer would pay for the step (1) or not (0). Excel adds up value-adding time and divides by the total time.

Plan, do, check, act

PDCA is the simplest improvement method and works for almost any process. Plan: describe the problem with a number, find the root cause, and choose one change to test. Do: try it on a small scale, for a few weeks, with the people who run the process. Check: measure again and compare with the starting point and the target. Act: if it worked, make it the new standard, write it into the SOP and train people; if not, adjust and try again, or drop it. In the sample, invoicing time falls from six days to one which brings cash in earlier every month.

Finding the root cause

The first explanation for a problem is usually a symptom ("the picker made a mistake"). Fixing symptoms, for example by telling people to be more careful, rarely works for long. Start with the fishbone: write the problem, then brainstorm possible causes under each category with the people who do the work. Then take the most likely cause and ask "why?" repeatedly, usually about five times, till you reach something the business can change, such as a missing tool, a step in the process or a lack of training. In the sample, the real cause of wrong books was flat scanner batteries, not careless staff.

Timing the process

Walk the process from start to end, step by step, and write down the hands-on time and how long each step waits for the next. Mark each step as adding value (something the customer would pay for) or not. Most office processes are surprisingly inefficient: in the sample, an order takes about 8,160 minutes from email to invoice, but only 38 minutes of that adds value, an efficiency of under 1%. The biggest wins come from removing waits and batches (like collecting paperwork once a week), not from making people work faster. Steps that are re-keying information are usually the next target.

Editing the files

The PDFs are fillable. Excel works out the percent change on the improvement plan and total time, value-adding time and efficiency on the step analysis. Rename the fishbone categories for service businesses if you prefer (for example policies, procedures, people, place).

Questions

What is a process improvement worksheet?

A structured page for improving a process: the problem and its measure, the root cause, the change to try, the results, and whether to adopt it.

What is PDCA?

Plan, Do, Check, Act: a cycle for testing changes on a small scale, measuring the result and standardizing what works.

How do the 5 whys work?

Ask why the problem happened, then why that happened, and so on, usually about five times, until you reach a root cause you can fix.

What is a fishbone diagram?

A cause-and-effect diagram that groups possible causes of a problem into categories such as people, methods, machines, materials, measurement and environment.

What is process efficiency?

Value-adding time divided by the total time from start to end of a process. Many office processes are under 10%.