Controlling Quarter

Controlling Quarter (hereinafter, the Quarter) is the first of four lectures of Operations Quadrivium (hereinafter, the Quadrivium):

• The Quarter is designed to introduce its learners to enterprise discovery, or, in other words, to concepts related to obtaining data needed to administer the enterprise effort; and
• The Quadrivium examines concepts of administering various types of enterprises known as enterprise administration as a whole.

The Quadrivium is the first of seven modules of Septem Artes Administrativi, which is a course designed to introduce its learners to general concepts in business administration, management, and organizational behavior.

Outline

The predecessor lecture is Monitoring Quarter.

Concepts

1. Controlling. Management function that involves monitoring, comparing, and correcting work performance.
   • Controlling. Monitoring activities to ensure they are being accomplished as planned and correcting any significant deviations.
   • Feedback control. Control that takes place after a work activity is done.
   • Feedforward control. Control that takes place before a work activity is done.
   • Concurrent control. Control that takes place while a work activity is in progress.
2. Control process. A three-step process of measuring actual performance, comparing actual performance against a standard, and taking managerial action to correct deviations or inadequate standards.
   • Variance analysis. Analysis of discrepancies between planned and actual performance, to determine the magnitude of those discrepancies and recommend corrective and preventative action as required.
   • Range of variation. The acceptable parameters of variance between actual performance and the standard.
3. Regulatory compliance.
   • ISO 9000. A series of international quality management standards that set uniform guidelines for processes to entire products conform to customer requirements.
   • Standard.
4. Quality control (QC). 1) The process of monitoring specific project results to determine if they comply with relevant quality standards and identifying ways to eliminate causes of unsatisfactory performance. 2) The organizational unit that is assigned responsibility for quality control.
   • Quality. The ability of a product or service to reliably do what it's supposed to do and to satisfy customer expectations.
5. Heuristic review. Evaluating a product or a process and documenting usability flaws and other areas for improvement.
   • Customer journey map. an holistic, visual representation of your users’ interactions with your organization when zoomed right out (usually captured on a large canvas). See also: Experience Map
   • Experience map. An experience map is an holistic, visual representation of your users’ interactions with your organization when zoomed right out (usually captured on a large canvas). See also: Customer Journey Map
6. Enterprise information.
   • Information.
   • Key performance indicator (KPI). A metric a business measures its progress against when performing BI analytics to determine whether it is meeting its goals. The results are reported in the form of a dashboard or a scorecard report that enables executives, managers, and employees to assess performance, and whether a given goal (or metric) is being met, exceeded, or missed.
7. Content audit. Reviewing and cataloguing an existing repository of content.
   • Analytics. A broad term that encompasses a variety of tools, techniques and processes used for extracting useful information or meaningful patterns from data.
8. Data processing.
   • Controlled processing. A detailed consideration of evidence and information relying on facts, figures, and logic.
   • Automatic processing. A relatively superficial consideration of evidence and information making use of heuristics.
9. Data analysis.
   • Analysis.
   • Analysis paralysis.
10. Data reliability. The trustworthiness of data; this trustworthiness is a result of analysis of (a) content reliability, (b) source reliability, and (c) data intent.
    • Content reliability.
    • Source reliability.
11. Data intent. Intention or purpose with which data was created.
    • Fact-based data. Data created with the intent to provide its users with facts.
    • Opinion-based data. Data created with the intent to provide its users with opinions.
    • Agenda-based data. Data created with the intent to provide its users with information desired to accommodate one's business goals or agendas.
12. Enterprise analysis.
    • Root cause analysis. Root cause analysis is a structured examination of an identified problem to understand the underlying causes.
    • Fishbone diagram. A diagramming technique used in root cause analysis to identify underlying causes of an observed problem, and the relationships that exist between those causes.
    • Return on investment. A measure of the profitability of a project or investment.
    • ROI. This is the much-talked-about "return on investment." It's the money an investor gets back as a percentage of the money he or she has invested in a venture. For example, if a VC invests $2 million for a 20 percent share in a company and that company is bought out for $40 million, the VC's return is $8 million.
    • "Boiled frog" phenomenon. A perspective on recognizing performance declines that suggests watching out for subtly declining situations.
13. Task performance. The combination of effectiveness and efficiency at doing core job tasks.
    • Task performance. The combination of effectiveness and efficiency at doing your core job tasks.
    • Job analysis. An assessment that defines jobs and the behaviors necessary to perform them.
    • Work-in-progress limit (WIP). refers to work that is currently being developed and not yet ready to be released as a deliverable. For Scrum teams, this would apply to the work being accomplished during a sprint. For Kanban teams, this refers to work that has been pulled from the backlog and is being developed, indicated by cards in the ‘Doing’ or ‘Work-in-Progress’ column of the Kanban task board.
14. Productivity. The amount of goods and services produced divided by the inputs needed to generate that output.
    • Productivity. The combination of the effectiveness and efficiency of an organization.
    • Organizational effectiveness. A measure of how appropriate organizational goals are and how well those goals are being met.
    • Graphic rating scale. An evaluation method in which the evaluator rates performance factors on an incremental scale.
    • Breakeven analysis. A technique for identifying the point at which total revenue is just sufficient to cover total costs.
    • Burn rate. “The rate at which a new company uses up its venture capital to finance overhead before generating positive cash flow from operations. In other words, it’s a measure of negative cash flow.” (Source: Investopedia) When your burn rate increases or revenue falls it is typically time to make decisions on expenses (eg reduce staff).
15. Forecast. Prediction of outcome.
    • Qualitative forecasting. Forecasting that uses the judgment and opinions of knowledgeable individuals to predict outcomes.
    • Quantitative forecasting. Forecasting that applies a set of mathematical rules to a series of past data to predict outcomes.
    • Scenario. A consistent view of what the future is likely to be.

Methods

1. Peer review. A validation technique in which a small group of stakeholders evaluates a portion of a work product to find errors to improve its quality.
   • Walkthrough. A type of peer review in which participants present, discuss, and step through a work product to find errors. Walkthroughs of requirements documentation are used to verify the correctness of requirements. See also structured walkthrough.
   • Structured walkthrough. A structured walkthrough is an organized peer review of a deliverable with the objective of finding errors and omissions. It is considered a form of quality assurance.
2. Earned value management (EVM). A method for integrating scope, schedule, and resources, and for measuring project performance. It compares the amount of work that was planned with what was actually earned with what was actually spent to determine if cost and schedule performance are as planned.
   • Earned value (EV). The physical work accomplished plus the authorized budget for this work. The sum of the approved cost estimates (may include overhead allocation) for activities (or portions of activities) completed during a given period (usually project-to-date). In other words, this value is the budgeted cost of work performed for an activity or group of activities.
   • Actual cost (AC). Total costs incurred that must relate to whatever cost was budgeted within the planned value and earned value (which can sometimes be direct labor hours alone, direct costs alone, or all costs including indirect costs) in accomplishing work during a given time period. See also earned value.
   • Planned value (PV). The physical work scheduled, plus the authorized budget to accomplish the scheduled work. Previously, this was called the budgeted costs for work scheduled (BCWS).
   • Schedule variance (SV). 1) Any difference between the scheduled completion of an activity and the actual completion of that activity. 2) In earned value, EV less BCWS = SV.
   • Cost variance (CV). 1) Any difference between the budgeted cost of an activity and the actual cost of that activity. 2) In earned value, EV less ACWP = CV.
3. Gap analysis. A comparison of the current state and desired future state of an organization in order to identify differences that need to be addressed.
   • Gap analysis. A study of whether the data that a company has can meet the business expectations that the company has set for its reporting and BI, and where possible data gaps or missing data might exist.

Instruments

1. Balanced scorecard. A performance management tool that holistically captures an organization's performance from several vantage points (e.g., sales results vs. inventory levels) on a single page.
   • Balanced scorecard. A performance measurement tool that looks as more than just the financial perspective.
2. Quality control tool.
   • Checklist. A quality control technique. They may include a standard set of quality elements that reviewers use for requirements verification and requirements validation or be specifically developed to capture issues of concern to the project.

Practices

The successor lecture is Process Engineering Quarter.