Thursday, June 19, 2014

Six Sigma – Variant of a Tornado Diagram

Tornado diagram is used for sensitivity analysis i.e., comparing the relative importance of variables. It’s a special type of bar chart where the data categories listed vertically instead of horizontal. The chart visually resembles like a tornado. For each variable you need to estimate the low, base and high outcomes considering the uncertainty involved. This helps in understanding the sensitivity/risk with respect to the associated variables.

Below scenario explains one of the variants of the tornado diagram, this is been applied in the context of sub processes combined into a process and each sub process has varying cycle time and targets. The main ideas for this variant representation is to understand the sub process wise mean cycle time, variation and the targets in a single diagram.

Scenario:
One of the Projects that we get as a part of our service catalog is to configuring new servers for hosting the applications. The entire process of configuring new servers will take around 1-2 months. To configure the new server there are multiple steps including creating a request, assigning a project manager, purchasing the hardware if required, space approvals, capacity review etc.,

Each of these steps needs time that is varying from project to project depending on multiple reasons. There is a need to understand the mean, variation and the targets with respect to cycle time for all the steps of a new server configuration visually in a single diagram.

Variant of Tornado Diagram:

Data is gathered on all the sub process/ steps involved in this project. Data gathered includes cycle time mean, variation and target. 95% of the time the projects have to meet the targets as per the commitment with customer.


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