What is the Seven Management and Planning Tools ?

   Japanese professor Kaoru Ishikawa originally developed the seven quality tools. These quality tools were simple to use and can be applied by anyone in the organization to improve a process.

Later, these seven new quality tools were used to plan the quality improvement process. These tools are called the seven advanced quality tools or seven management and planning tools. These include:

1. Affinity diagrams 

2. Tree diagrams

3. Process decision program charts (PDPC)

4. Matrix diagrams

5. Interrelationship digraphs

6. Prioritization matrices

7. Activity network diagrams

This post will look at the high-level overview of these seven tools.
1. Affinity diagrams

An affinity diagram is used along with the brainstorming. It is used to organize large amounts of poorly organized or unorganized data into groups that reflect natural relationships. This tool can help you identify patterns in the data.
2. Tree Diagrams

A tree diagram is usually used to break down complex concepts or broad categories into smaller parts, making them easier to understand. A tree diagram shows a hierarchical structure of ideas. It helps organize information into categories.
3. Process Decision Program Chart (PDPC)

PDPC is used to identify what may go wrong in a new plan. This tool is somewhat similar to FMEA. You start with a tree diagram to break down the objective into tasks. Draw the next level as what could go wrong, and at the end, the countermeasures to address issues.

Then draw another layer above it to show how things get to the root cause. The PDPC helps you determine where the problems lie and why they occur. It also enables you to determine if an issue has been identified correctly.
4. Matrix Diagram

A matrix diagram is a tool that helps you to analyze your data. This tool allows you to compare two or more sets of information. It gives visual representations of comparisons between different parameters, such as costs vs. benefits.

The types of matrices include: L- shaped, T–shaped,  Y-shaped,  X-shaped, C–shaped, and Roof shaped matrices.
5. Interrelationship Digraph or Interrelationship Diagram

The interrelationship digraph is a graphical representation of the interdependencies among activities. It shows the dependencies between the activities.

An interrelation�ship graph shows the cause-and-effect relationship among various factors involved in an issue. It helps analysts understand why certain things happen.
6. Prioritizing Matrices

Prioritizing matrix is an L-shaped matrix that helps to prioritize the project based on its importance. It is used to compare various choices.
7. Activity Network Diagram (also known as Arrow Diagram)

An activity network diagram is a tool that visualizes all the activities involved in a particular project. It represents the relationships between the different activities. Each box represents an activity, and the arrows represent the flow.

Activity Network Diagrams manage a number of tasks in a sequence and identify bottlenecks or the critical path in the project execution.
Summary

These seven management and planning tools help us explore our data and make better decisions. We use them to visualize, sort, group and analyze our data. They provide some insights into whether we need to change our planning process. They help us identify the most critical areas to focus on.

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The 7M Tools/ 7 Management tools are known for qualitative data analysis. These tools are used for planning and managing operations effectively. The basic purpose of the 7M tools is to guide the managers in planning, analysis, and decision making.

The 7M tools belong to Operation Research and Japan's Total Quality Management philosophy. The formal research on seven management tools started in 1972, often called seven new QC tools.

The 7M Tools/7 Management tools are an important Six Sigma family of analytical tools that include:




Different individuals invent the 7M Tools/ 7 Management tools for various purposes. These tools are organized and combined over time to achieve efficient planning and decision making.
Why 7M Tools/ 7 Management tools?

    Total Quality Control requires not only quantitative data but also qualitative data.
    Voice of the customer (VOC) provides both quantitative and qualitative data. The basic purpose of 7M Tools is to analyze qualitative data and apply suitable methods to arrive at an improvement plan.
    Each of the 7M tools applies in operation research, value engineering, and other fields.
    7M tools help to plan and manage various management operations effectively.

Affinity Diagrams

Affinity Diagram to reduce larger processes to a few key steps. Possibly invented by Jiro Kawakita and thus sometimes referred to as the K-J method, an affinity diagram is a good technique for identifying & displaying potential root causes for unfamiliar problems.

The affinity diagram requires the least amount of preliminary knowledge compared to other management tools. Matrix diagrams, prioritization matrices, and activity network diagrams all require significant prior knowledge.
How to Create an Affinity Diagram?

    Gather Ideas- Quietly, individually, the team gathers a bunch of ideas. Could be on post it notes or in private survey results. The idea is that no one team member influences the others – in opposed to brainstorming.
    Organize – Now we organize the ideas into large groupings. Group all the ones that sound similar until you get a critical mass.
    Label groupings- Put Affinity titles on the groupings. You have to call them something, right?!
    Create an action plan- Everyone forgets this part! Use the affinities to create workable projects.




Tree Diagrams

A Tree diagram helps you break down big concepts into progressively greater detail. The idea here is to systematically breaking down a concept into its constituent pieces.

You would progress from left to right with the highest order items / most important concepts on the left. You would start with the "whys" and progress to the "hows. Alternately, you would start with the "goals" and progress to the "means" of achieving those goals.
How to create a Tree Diagram?

    Develop a statement of the project or an issue that needs to be resolved. Keep that statement in the left side box of the diagram.
    Ask the question why, which will lead to the next level of detail. By asking why, categorize the causes that may contribute to the problem or issue.
    Keep these causes on the right side of the problem statement and then link with a line to the causes.
    Perform necessary and sufficient checks. Repeat the above steps and identify more causes until root causes are identified.




Interrelationship diagraph

The Interrelationship Digraph is a 7M tool. It often uses input from other tools – like a Fishbone Diagram or an Affinity Diagram to define drivers and outcomes in a process. An Interrelationship Digraph helps you see relations and influences between several concepts – even if those concepts are very different. You can also use it to identify critical issues and key drivers of a problem.
How to create an Interrelationship Digraph?

    Draft a Statement – Draft a statement for the Interrelationship Diagram to explore. Consider using your Problem Statement found from the Project Charter if available. Write the statement on a white board for all participants to see.
    Brainstorm Key Factors – Next, have participants brainstorm key factors related to the statement. Each participant writes their ideas on a card or sticky note. You may gather ideas using the other 7M tools if created in advance.
    Categorize the Information – Once participants have finished brainstorming, place one idea on the work surface and determine the relationships between the other ideas. Be sure to plot similar ideas in the same vicinity. Repeat till all ideas are on the board.
    Analyze the Diagram – Ask the team, "how does this idea influence the other ideas?" Draw arrows from each idea to the one it influences. Ideas that have arrows going out from them are causes or X factors. Ideas that have arrows coming to it are effects or Ys. Consider writing an explanation along side the arrows to validate connections.
    Count the Arrows – Last, count the arrows pointing to and from each idea and record the totals. The ideas with the highest arrow counts deserve special attention.



Process Decision Program charts (PDPC)

Process Decision Program Charts (PDPC) have 2 main uses: documents steps to completing a process and impact analysis. PDPC does this through a systematic exploration of a process and what could go wrong. This is helpful project management tool in the  Improve phase of DMAIC before implementing your plan but I find it helpful in the analyze phase after process mapping to check my understanding of current state.
How to Create a Process Decision Program Chart?

    First you start with a tree diagram of your process – Put your objectives on the first level, main activities on the second level, and the tasks at the 3rd level.
    Then you brainstorm issues that could occur while performing those tasks.
    Cross off issues that are unlikely to happen.
    Identify countermeasures for the likeliest issues.



Matrix diagrams

Cause and effect matrix is a six sigma tool uses to prioritize the key process input variables (KPIVs) based on priorities of customer outputs (KPOVs). In other words, it establishes the correlation between process input variables to the customer's outputs during root cause analysis.

Cause and effect analysis, process flow map and information about voice of customer are the pre-requisites for cause and effect matrix.
How to create a Cause and Effect Matrix?

    First identify the customer requirements or in other words understand the voice of customer. This can be collected by conducting surveys, focus groups and other means to collect their priorities. Place those priorities in at the top of the X-Y diagram
    Assign priority factor for each of the customer outputs. Generally, use 1-10 scale, where 1 being the low priority and 10 being the high priority to the customer
    List all possible key input variables or the improvement factors of the process in each row, those are the Xs in the X-Y diagram   
    Assess the relationship between key input variables to the customer outputs and rank each input variables accordingly. Recommended to use geometric progression scale (0,1,3 and 9) where 0 being no impact, 1-low impact,3-medium impact and 9- Input has strong impact or correlation on output
    Cross multiply the customer output priority numbers with correlation rankings and sum the each row at extreme right column
    Finally, determine the rank based on the highest sum total and highlight the critical few variables. This will help to identify the improvement areas.



Prioritization matrices

A project priority matrix – also known as a prioritization matrix – can help you to work out and negotiate priorities for a project. It can also be used to prioritize projects themselves, although opinions are mixed on whether this usage is a good idea.
How to create a prioritization matrix?

This is a very simple tool, but it requires good information to get good results. You should create this matrix before you start to develop a roadmap for the project.

    Gather your project's stakeholders.
    Explain the concepts involved.
    Talk about what you all want the project to achieve.
    Come to a consensus on which factors to constrain, accept, and enhance.
    Draw up the matrix.
    Base your roadmap development on this matrix.




Activity Network diagram

An Activity Network diagram is a 7M tool that graphically depicts your project timeline. You can gather great information on how to manage your project by mapping out tasks in order of occurrence and labeling each with the best, worst, and average case times it takes to complete them by incorporating PERT and CPM techniques into a flowchart.
How to make an Activity Network Diagram?

Activity network Diagram helps manage the development of projects – especially for organizations that have list activities performed at a particular time.

    List all of the tasks in the project – The first thing that you have to do is to gather the list of the complete tasks of the organization that are required to complete the proposed project.
    Put in Chronological order- Have them arranged in chronological order- that is according to the order of the execution of each task. If tasks can be executed simultaneously, draw them in parallel.
    Label Optimistic, Pessimistic, and Most Likely times
        Most-likely time. The time that you will likely need to complete the project.
        Most optimistic time. The shortest amount of time to complete the task.
        Most pessimistic time.   The longest amount of time to complete the task.
    Calculate the Critical Path -The Critical Path is the longest time through the entire project executing tasks in necessary order. This is important because the project will never complete quicker than the critical path.
    Review and look for Efficiencies – Look for ways to shorten your critical path. Re-evaluate the task dependencies.



Difference between Basic 7 QC Tools and 7M Tools

The basic seven QC tools (scatter diagram, check sheet, flow chart, histogram, cause and effect diagram, Pareto chart, and control chart) are used for data collection and quantitative analysis. In contrast, the 7M tools are for qualitative data analysis, which helps in planning and identifying problem solutions.





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The New seven tools
Affinity Diagram [KJ method]
Affinity diagram

Affinity diagrams are a special kind of brainstorming tool that organize large amount of disorganized data and information into groupings based on natural relationships.

It was created in the 1960s by the Japanese anthropologist Jiro Kawakita. It is also known as KJ diagram, after Jiro Kawakita. An affinity diagram is used when:

    You are confronted with many facts or ideas in apparent chaos.
    Issues seem too large and complex to grasp.

Interrelationship diagram
See also: Cause-and-effect diagram
Interrelationship digraph

Interrelationship diagrams (IDs) displays all the interrelated cause-and-effect relationships and factors involved in a complex problem and describes desired outcomes. The process of creating an interrelationship diagram helps a group analyze the natural links between different aspects of a complex situation.
Tree diagram
Tree diagram

This tool is used to break down broad categories into finer and finer levels of detail. It can map levels of details of tasks that are required to accomplish a goal or solution or task. Developing a tree diagram directs concentration from generalities to specifics.
Prioritization matrix
Matrix diagram

This tool is used to prioritize items and describe them in terms of weighted criteria. It uses a combination of tree and matrix diagramming techniques to do a pair-wise evaluation of items and to narrow down options to the most desired or most effective. Popular applications for the prioritization matrix include return on investment (ROI) or cost–benefit analysis (investment vs. return), time management matrix (urgency vs. importance), etc.
Matrix diagram or quality table
Matrix diagram

This tool shows the relationship between two or more sets of elements. At each intersection, a relationship is either absent or present. It then gives information about the relationship, such as its strength, the roles played by various individuals or measurements. The matrix diagram enables you to analyze relatively complex situations by exposing interactions and dependencies between things. Six differently shaped matrices are possible: L, T, Y, X, C, R and roof-shaped, depending on how many groups must be compared.
Process decision program chart
Process decision program chart

A useful way of planning is to break down tasks into a hierarchy, using a tree diagram. The process decision program chart (PDPC) extends the tree diagram a couple of levels to identify risks and countermeasures for the bottom level tasks. Different shaped boxes are used to highlight risks and identify possible countermeasures (often shown as "clouds" to indicate their uncertain nature). The PDPC is similar to the failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) in that both identify risks, consequences of failure, and contingency actions; the FMEA also rates relative risk levels for each potential failure point.
Activity network diagram
See also: Program evaluation and review technique
Arrow diagram

This tool is used to plan the appropriate sequence or schedule for a set of tasks and related subtasks. It is used when subtasks must occur in parallel. The diagram helps in determining the critical path (longest sequence of tasks). The purpose is to help people sequentially define, organize, and manage a complex set of activities.

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