Link to this page: go.osu.edu/DPA-Workflow-Analysis

The DP&A's initial project is to identify our existing workflows that affect born digital acquisitions and processing, digitization, providing access to digital materials and the preservation thereof. Answering the question, “What are the intersections, gaps, redundancies and areas for improvement?”

We will engage in three techniques, to help us visualize and understand the workflows and processes that allow us to provide access to and preservation of, our born digital and digitized content. These techniques come to us from the realm of process improvement, with roots in total quality management (TQM) that continue to be used in Lean and Six Sigma programs.

The  SIPOC exercise provides for a very high level view of our workflow or process. The steps in the process are aggregated up to a level of abstraction that still allows us to understand suppliers, inputs, outputs, handoffs and customers. The intent is to ensure that all processes are represented.

Following up on the SIPOC, each group will be asked to conduct a RACI to determine for each step within a process who is responsible, accountable, consulted or needs to be informed.

Finally, we will engage in brainwriting to further tease out the granularities of the steps identified within the SIPOCs.

SIPOC simply stands for:

• Suppliers

• Inputs

• Process

• Outputs

• Customers

The purpose of a SIPOC is to provide people who are unfamiliar with a process a high-level overview of it, as well as reacquaint people whose familiarity with a process has faded or become out-of-date due to process changes.  It is meant to show what the process or workflow IS, not what it should or what we want it to be. It is a first step in being able to help organizations in defining a new process or improve an existing process. It assists in defining, structuring and scoping complex processes, while also identifying possible problems and/or weaknesses in work processes.

• Suppliers are the providers of Inputs to the Process

• Inputs define the material, service and/or information that are used by the Process to produce the Outputs

• A Process is a defined sequence of activities, that usually adds value to Inputs to produce Outputs, or transforms Inputs to Outputs for the Customers. In a traditional SIPOC:

  •  there are at a minimum 4 and a maximum of 7 high level steps

  • that should be constructed in a "Verb > Noun" structure (e.g. deliver/upload digital object)

• Outputs are the products, services and/or the information that is valuable to the Customer.

• The Customers are users of the Outputs produced or transformed by the process; they can be people, organization, machines or software.

(Adapted from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIPOC)

Conceptually a SIPOC looks like a table, and it lends itself well to being documented in a spreadsheet.

However, the interesting thing about a SIPOC, is that it is not created in the linear manner that the acronym suggests. The creation of a SIPOC, actually sort of happens inside out.

1. The first Phase is to identify and name the high level process or workflow

2. This followed by moving to the middle, and mapping it in 4 to 7 high level process steps:    

   1. There has to be a First Step and Last Step    

   2. With a minimum of two and a maximum of five additional steps

3. Next we identify the output of these process steps.

4. Which is followed by identifying the customers that will receive the outputs of the process steps.

5. Now we jump back to identify the inputs required for each of the process steps to function properly.

6. Finally, we identify the suppliers of the inputs that are required by the process steps.

(Adapted from https://www.isixsigma.com/tools-templates/sipoc-copis/sipoc-diagram/)

Once you complete a SIPOC, it can be reviewed with project sponsor(s), champion(s) and other involved stakeholders for verification.

SIPOCs should range from a minimum of 4 steps and a maximum of 7. The following real example embraces the maximum:

When we have completed the SIPOC we can begin to conduct the RACI exercise. This exercise allows us to identify the roles and their accompanying responsibilities that they may have for each process step. This acronym stands for:

• Responsible: A role is “Responsible” if they are those who do the work to complete the task. There has to be at least one role that is responsible, although others can be delegated to assist in the required work.

• Accountable: The role who is ultimately answerable for the correct and thorough completion of the deliverable or task, is deemed Accountable. They ensure the prerequisites of the task are met, and delegate the work to those responsible. There must be one, and only one accountable role specified for each task or deliverable.

• Consulted: These are roles whose opinions are sought, typically subject matter experts; and with whom there is two-way communication

• Informed: These folks are kept up-to-date on progress, often only on completion of the task or deliverable; and with whom there is just one-way communication

We need to make a distinction between a role and individually identified people:

• A role is a descriptor of an associated set of tasks that an individual is capable of completing; these may be performed by many people, for example: 

  • Role = scan technician

• Whereas, an individual, is one person that performs a particular role or roles.

  • Individual #1 = scan technician #1

  • Individual #2 = scan technician #2; and maybe conservation technician #4

The RACI can be completed by creating a matrix where the rows are at a minimum the process steps from the SIPOC, but could be augmented with more granular steps.  The RACI can be then be filled out in one of two manners:

• in version 1, the columns represent R-A-C-I and for each process the roles or persons are identified. Each step must have someone responsible (can be multiple) and accountable (can only be one). In this version one can quickly identify who is responsible, accountable, consulted and informed, for each step. In this example, we can quickly see that yes, there is one and only one accountable person for each step, while there may be multiple roles/people responsible, consulted or informed

• In version 2, the columns represent the various roles, and could be further broken down by individuals. For each step, one indicates if the role or individual is responsible, accountable, consulted and/or informed. In this version, one can see how a role or an individual’s participation changes throughout the process, and aggregates their responsibilities.

Both versions provide us with valuable insight into the workflow and its processes. Below is an example of each version based upon the Archives Digitization SIPOC above:

The following real v1 and v2 examples are based upon the aforementioned SIPOC example: