What quality is my initiative at?

Often I get asked "why is my initiative not on", or "why is my initiative giving the wrong level of quality?"

Lets use the following model to consider why that would be.

 

Why is my initiative not on? 

If we set this model to none, intermediate and optimal in the optimise window we will get no outcome performance.

This may seem odd, but the reason is that in Realisor you don't force Initiative performance, but request it.  When you set an initiative to a quality it asks the capability linked to that quality to turn on.  As such, any quality is considered active whenever the capabilities behind it are turned on.

As such if we change the model to

We get the expected

Why is my quality / outcome at the wrong value?

The next mistake people make is chaining capabilities.  As discussed before we ask capabilities behind the quality to turn on, and the highest quality with it's capabilities fulfilled is the working quality.  Lets see an example.

 

This seems right?

But then doesn't...

 

Why is this?

Setting I1 to optimal sets the chain behind it to on.  This activates cap 5 as it is chained behind Cap-1, which in turn means that although the intermediate quality of I-2 was requested there is sufficient capability to activate the optimal quality of I-2, so you get 100% quality from I-2.

Why don't we fix this bug?

It isn't a bug.  What this does is allow you to model shared wins.  If we consider

This tells us that if we set our top initiative to optimal we automatically get the intermediate quality on the bottom Initiative (or intermediate on the bottom automatically gives us optimal on the top).  There is no extra cost to this, and could show a shared facility etc.

However there is a danger, and that is chaining capabilities where one sits behind another.  This must not happen, otherwise the calculations are strange, so always avoid

Adding Key Measure Data for Benefit Tracking

Select a Benefit Measure and click on it (right-click on an Outcome and choose ‘Add Measure’ if none have been created). Click on the bar on the right of the screen called ‘Details’ to see some key information.  Information required for a benefit measure is under a heading called ‘Measurement’. Click on this heading to see more and add data.

Basic information:

a. Enter the Units, for example £, $, FTE, hours etc.
b. Mark as Has Financial Implications if financial information is to be forecast and captured, if so also  select if it Is Cashable or not, choose the reporting Financial Frequency and select if the measure is Cost/Revenue.

Performance Levels: Baseline and expected/ target values

Key information for the setting of performance levels is under a heading called ‘Performance Levels’. Your measure will have an existing baseline value – add this to the line with 0% on, headed Number of Units and if a financial measure then also to have a baseline Finance Value (if the measure is not financial then Financial Value cannot be entered).  Add the expected/ target value for Number of Units and Financial Value on the row with 100% on, headed Units. (You can use the green plus and red minus buttons to add and remove options in between).

To see a short, sound free video of this, please click here

Introduction to Realisor

Principles of Realisor method

Realisor can model and monitor an already decided process or give insight into how to optimise a change process in terms of cost and capability.

1. Cause and Effect: Identify the outcomes you want and you can design the activities needed to achieve them
2. Options: By choosing the activities conducted you can model different options for programme delivery
3. Resources: Resources are used to conduct activities and create costs
4. Phasing: You can choose when activities are conducted through time
5. Benefit Realisation: Benefits are realised when the activities needed are conducted

Realisor Structure

The method consists of three stages:

•       Model the relationships between activities and outcomes

•       Optimise the programme by creating and comparing delivery options

•       Realise the benefits and maintain optimisation through-life

A Realisor model is a way of describing the relationships between benefits and delivery.

The Realisor Work Flow

Creation activities take place the Model tab in Realisor. Within this tab is the Model or Map screen, the specification of data and expected benefits as well of the definition of expected programmes and processes. It allows a high level view of detailed initiatives that can be chosen at different levels of capability.

The qualities attached to initiatives allow for a choice of options to be compared, empowering users to find the best mixture of programmes in terms of cost and benefit within the Optimisation tab. Effectively creating a number of costed options at each quality is important as this allows for choices to be made between cost and benefit.

Realise enables you to monitor real life delivery to ensure the benefits are achieved, manage costs and rapidly react to any plan deviations.

Cost Tracking

Data capture is always against a delivery plan. Before beginning to report the delivery plan dropdown in the ‘Programme Overview’ tab must have an option selected.  It is simple to check if an option has been chosen correctly as the reporting tabs within the Realise function of the application are hidden until an option has been selected to report against. Ticking the 'Delivery Option can be changed' will 'unlock' the drop down menu and allow you to select a different option. Clicking 'No Delivery Option' will not allow access to any reports or the Realise function.

Activity Costs

The Activity Costs tab is the third and final Realise tab. In the top left hand side of the screen, there is a box which lists the Activities. This gives you the ‘finer’ details of the programme versions activities: the capabilities and programme nodes. Programme nodes are the nodes that hold the resources.

 Changing the selected programme node in this box changes the data grid and the graph, as these report on the selected programme node. It displays the capabilities and beneath them the programme nodes that are required to achieve that capability.

 For clarity of viewing, you are able to minimise by Capability the nodes that you do not wish to view – simply click the arrow to the left hand side of the Capability to expand and collapse the programme nodes list of that Capability.

There is a Notes box beneath the Activities which can be used to capture extra information about a value that is being added for a resource. Note that a value needs to be added to the data grid for the notes box to become available for editing.

Within the ribbon menu at the top of the screen there are ‘Realise Cost View’ options.

These allow rows to be added and removed from the graph and data grid. These are ‘Realisor Expected’, ‘User Expected’ and ‘Additional Costs’. When all these are turned off, the data grid displays only the ‘Actual’ values and the totals.

 The Graph

 

The graph displays the costs calculated in the data grid above it. This is a visual representation of the data grid, allowing a simple and clear comparison of the Expected Costs, shown here in Green and the Actual Costs, shown in purple. Lines can be added and removed using the ‘Realise Benefit View’ options to improve the clarity of the model and to see comparisons.

The vertical lines on the graph differentiate between the different phases of the programme. Hovering over a point on the graph will display its exact value on the x axis.

There are many options available to change the view of the graph. Right click on the graph and select ‘Quick Help’ to obtain the help. You can also copy and paste the graph as an image or hover over a data point to see the value on the x axis of the graph. Selecting the Quick Help function when you right click on the graph will pop up the window shown in the left. This gives information on how to zoom in and out on the whole graph and selected areas, pan the display of the graph, fit to view and copy and save screenshots.

Data Grid

This is where all the activity’s data is displayed. It includes expected, actual and variance values as well as the calculated costs. This displays all of the selected activities report data, including the expected values, the actual values, the total costs based on those values and the variance in between. When you enter data into the User Expected cell, this will overwrite the data in the Expected cell. If the current date is after the data grid column date and no data has been added, the column actual value will be auto populated with the expected value. As such, only differences in resource usage need to be added.

If requirements change and additional resources are required, these can be added to an activity through the Activity Costs screen. There is a green plus symbol above the data grid on the left hand side. This allows you to add a resource to an activity. When this is clicked, it loads the Resources screen. The red minus symbol to the top right of the graph allows you to remove a selected resource from the activity.

Through Life Benefit Tracking

Choosing an option to report against

Data capture is always against a delivery plan. Before beginning to report the delivery plan dropdown in the ‘Programme Overview’ tab must have an option selected.

It is simple to check if an option has been chosen correctly as the reporting tabs within the Realise function-area of the application are hidden until an option has been selected to report against.

Making changes to the model during the process of reporting will be likely to change the expected values you are reporting against and this must be considered before making changes. However if changes need to be made to bring a programme back under control, you can continue reporting but you will be reporting against new expected values from that point onwards.

The Benefit Measures Screen

On the left hand side of the screen, there is a benefit measure summary, which lists all the benefit measures and shows the current status of the programme at a glance. Each of the benefit measures has a coloured status marker, which shows blue for no data collected or Red/Amber/Green depending upon the value against the expected value. Select the benefit measure in order to see its information in the data grid and on the graph.

There is a Notes box beneath the Benefit Measures which can be used to capture extra information about a value that is being added. Note that a value needs to be added for the notes box to become available for editing.

The Data Entry Grid allows the entry of User Expected and Actual Data values at set dates. User entered actual values always have a red-amber-green status, with the whole column changing colour. If the current date is past the date grid column date, the actual value will be populated with the expected value.

Row selection

Within the ribbon menu at the top of the screen there are ‘Realise Benefit View’ options. These allow rows to be added and removed from the graph and data grid. The values are ‘Show Baseline’, ‘Realisor Expected’, ‘User Expected’, ‘Critical Thresholds’ and ‘Moderate Thresholds’. Toggling these on and off will determine whether they are displayed or not. ‘Actual Value’ cannot be toggled on and off – this will always be displayed in the data grid and on the graph.

The Graph

This is a visual representation of the data grid, allowing clearly understanding of whether the data is within the bounds. Lines can be added and removed using the ‘Realise Benefit View’ options to improve the clarity of the model and to see comparisons.

Visualising Status

Each week that a measure has been entered for it coloured in the data grid (RAG) depending upon the value entered compared to the moderate and critical bounds. The quick status visualise on the top left benefit measures list changes colour depending upon the most recent report and in this case will change from red to green when a new report is added that is above the upper moderate bounds but below the upper critical bounds. If it is felt that the bounds are incorrect, these can be amended in the Model Data screen. Note that automatically populated actuals do not have these colours.

·         Blue state shows that no actual performance data has been entered.

·         Green state signifies that the actual performance data entered is within the Moderate Bounds.

·         Amber state signifies that the actual measures are between the Moderate Bounds and Critical Bounds, and therefore attention given to bring the benefits being realised back within the Moderate Bounds category. 

·         Red state signifies that it is outside the Critical Bounds and urgent action should be taken to either bring the benefits realisation back on track, or to re-evaluate the measure and expected values forecast. 

You are able to sort by importance and select whether to show the Benefit measures that are strategic, all benefit measures or all non strategic benefit measures through clicking on the drop down arrow next to benefit measures ‘Is strategic’ column and selecting the appropriate option.

Filtering Benefit Measures

You are able to sort the Benefit Measures by field heading by clicking on the heading to arrange the Benefit Measures.You are able to sort by importance and select whether to show the Benefit Measures that are strategic, all benefit measures or all non strategic Benefit Measures through clicking on the drop down arrow next to benefit measures ‘Is strategic’ column and selecting the appropriate option. Similarly, with the Importance field you are able to input a value to show only Benefit Measures that have an Importance above the value that you put in. For example, enter Show above 0 to show all Benefit Measures with an Importance of 1 or above.

Sorting the Measures

You can also sort the measures by the state by clicking the State Header.  This allows you to see all the different colours of the state grouped together to allow easy analysis. 

Tailoring the Values

Altering the expected values to better reflect reality is easily achieved by entering values into the ‘User Expected’ column. This will overwrite the expected values, both here and in the printed reports.

The Graph

 This is a visual representation of the data grid, allowing clearly understanding of whether the data is within the bounds. Lines can be added and removed using the ‘Realise Benefit View’ options to improve the clarity of the model and to see comparisons. There are many options available to change the view of the graph. Right click on the graph and select ‘Quick Help’ to obtain the help. You can also copy and paste the graph as an image or hover over a data point to see the value on the graph. In the chart you can place the mouse pointer over each value plotted on it and the value of the measure can be seen.  

The Y axis of the graph shows the values that the benefit measure is being recorded against and the x axis shows the time of the phases. The start/end of the phases is indicated on the graph by the darker vertical lines.

The thin red lines on the graph indicate the upper and lower critical bounds. The thin amber lines indicate the upper and lower moderate bounds. The purple line represents actual values entered into the date grid, with the points on the graph marking where values have been entered. The green line represents Expected values (Realisor and User), with the points on the graph marking where values have been entered. Hovering the mouse over the points on the graph will display the value at that point.

You are able to view multiple graphs simultaneously for comparative purposes. This is done by selecting two (or more) measures on the left using the control key to select the second (etc) then the graphs selected are shown with one on top of the other. 

What the Data Grid displays

When a Benefit Measure is selected the data grid for that measure appears to the right. The legend will correspond to the colour on the graph. The Expected values (as defined by user for the Performance levels for that Benefit Measure) and Moderate and Critical bounds (as defined by user in the Model Data screen) will be automatically inserted into the grid based on the information you have previously entered on Realisor. Each week that a measure has been entered for it coloured in the data grid (Red, Amber or Green) depending upon the value entered compared to the moderate and critical bounds.

-          Green state signifies that the actual performance data entered is within the Moderate Bounds.

-          Amber state signifies that the actual measures are between the Moderate Bounds and Critical Bounds, and therefore attention given to bring the benefits being realised back within the Moderate Bounds category.

        Red state signifies that it is outside the Critical Bounds and urgent action should be taken to either bring the benefits realisation back on track, or to re-evaluate the measure and expected values forecast.

Note that the columns with automatically populated 'Actual' data do not have these colours.

The Data Entry Grid allows the entry of User Expected and Actual Data values at set dates. User entered actual values always have a red-amber-green status, with the whole column changing colour.

If the current date is past the date grid column date, the actual value will be automatically populated with the expected value from the last value that the user has entered. Automatically populated values are shown in gray.

To enter data onto the grid simply click the cell you wish to add a value for and input the value. You are able to tab across the cells to enter data along the row. Any data that is entered will automatically generate on the graph below the grid.