Running Head: Unit 4

Unit 4

ED 672

Systems Analysis Strategies

in Case Study Methodology

Robert A. Hess

18 June 2013

Unit 4

Abstract

Within this unit I will create a several unit objectives that are in alignment with the

course purposes and learning outcomes. I will create a blog post that will explore the use of

systems analysis in case study design. I will describe at least one approach to systems analysis

such as Six Sigma that is appropriate for use in a case study. I will examine the positive and

negative benefit of its application.

Use of Systems Analysis

Systems analysis is the decision making process of an organization. Its focus is on the

interaction of systems analysis with the broader decision process, including the bargaining

environment. Decision-making consists of more than simple choice from a set of know

alternatives. It also involves definition of objectives, laying out the structure underlying the

decision, generating alternatives, and evaluating the alternatives in terms of the objectives. Since

strategic decisions are frequently made in the face of complexity and rapid changes in the

environment, the lack of a firm structure for the decisions (conceptual uncertainty) requires that

the decision process be an iteration of these activities rather than a linear progression from given

goals to the final choice, and an approximately rational rather than deductively rational process.

Systems analysis is a way of addressing strategic decision problems that emphasizes explicitness,

quantification wherever appropriate, recognition of uncertainties, and sharpening – rather than

replacing – the judgments of the decision-makers. (Whitehead, 1967.)

Systems analysis and design is a technique used to ensure that the solution which is

reached fulfills the requirements of the user. It can be used to represent almost anything from

population growth to audio speakers. A system is characterized by how it responds to its inputs.

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A system can be characterized by the number of inputs that it has. A system can have a

combination of a single input to a single output, a single input to multiple outputs, multiple

inputs to a single output, or multiple inputs to multiple outputs.

According to Tom Ritchey (Ritchey, 1991) there are different types of signals, different

types of systems, and different characteristics that those systems may show. I have paraphrased

below my interpretations of his theories.

There are three different types of signals. Signals that are continuous in time and in value

are often referred to as analog signals. Signals that are discrete in time and discrete in value are

often referred to as digital signals. Signals that are discrete in time and continuous in value are

often referred to as discrete-time signals.

There are different types of systems. A system that has analog input and analog output is

known as an analog system. A system that has digital input and digital output is known as a

digital system. A system which has analog input and digital output or digital output and analog

input is possible but need an analog to digital or digital to analog converter. Another way to

classify systems is by whether their output at any given time depends on the input at that time or

the input from some time in the past. Memory less systems do not require any past input.

Memory systems do depend on past input. Causal systems do not depend on any future input.

Non-causal or anticipatory systems do depend on future input.

Systems may also be characterized by certain properties that they show. A system is

linear if it has superposition and scaling properties. A system that is not linear is non-linear. If

the output of a system does not depend explicitly on time, it is time-invariant; otherwise it is

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time-variant. A deterministic system will always produce the same output for any given input.

A stochastic system will produce different outputs for a given input.

Description of systems analysis approach

I recently attended a class where they taught me the principles of lean six sigma and how

to apply it to workplace environments. What I took out of the class that lean six sigma is a

method used in business that are easy to implement and very effective when implemented. Lean

Six Sigma focuses on the customer, it helps to identify and understand how work happens and

how it gets done, it helps to manage and improve processes and how they flow, it helps to

remove steps, processes, and operating procedures that are not needed and wasteful, it helps to

manage a business through facts and figures, it involves people and empowers them during the

process, and it helps to improve the overall activity, plan, business one step at a time.

Lean Six Sigma teaches you to define the project by starting with a problem that needs to

be solved. During the definition phase you let everyone know their role, why the project is being

done, and what you hope to accomplish with the project. Lean Six Sigma teaches you to

measure the work you’ve done in the definition stage against what you think the problem is.

During this phase I learned it is important to clarify things by seeing how the work currently gets

done and how well. Lean Six Sigma teaches you that now that you’ve figured out what is

happening it is time to use analysis and find out why things are happening through the use of

facts and the possible causes in order to get to the root cause. Lean Six Sigma teaches you that

once you’ve figured out the processes and problems you must come up with ideas, select the best

one, and test out that idea. This is called the improvement phase. Lean Six Sigma teaches you

that you need to ensure that the program achieves and holds onto the gains that were originally

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sought out. The control plan puts into place a way to ensure the process is carried out

consistently.

I also learned that things must have values in Lean Six Sigma to fulfill some basic issues.

Value is what a customer is willing to pay for and can include: the right products and services, at

the right time, at the right price, and at the right quality. In order for something to have value the

customer must care about it, the change must affect the product or service in some way, or must

be an important part of another step, and the step must be the correct one the first time around.

I learned that an important step to Lean Six Sigma is to reduce waste. You must remove

waste in the transportation of materials, the inventory of your materials, the motion of things, the

waiting times of repairs and of your customers, the removal of unnecessary steps, the production

of more items than are required, and how to deal with reworking issues or defective items.

Another systems analysis method is the Delphi method. According to Lynn Stuter

(Stuter, 1996) it is a communications technique, originally developed as a systematic, interactive

forecasting method which relies on a panel of experts. The experts answer questionnaires in two

or more rounds. After each round, a facilitator provides an anonymous summary of the experts’

forecasts from the previous round as well as the reasons they provided for their judgments. Thus,

experts are encouraged to revise their earlier answers in light of the replies of other members of

their panel. It is believed that during this process the range of the answers will decrease and the

group will converge towards the "correct" answer. Finally, the process is stopped after a pre-

defined stop criterion (e.g. number of rounds, achievement of consensus, and stability of results)

and the mean or median of the final rounds determine the results.

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Delphi is based on the principle that forecasts (or decisions) from a structured group of

individuals are more accurate than those from unstructured groups The technique can also be

adapted for use in face-to-face meetings, and is then called mini-Delphi or Estimate-Talk-

Estimate (ETE). Delphi has been widely used for business forecasting and has certain advantages

over another structured forecasting approach, prediction markets. The participants remain

anonymous. Their identity is not revealed, even after the completion of the final report. This

prevents the authority, personality, or reputation of some of the participants from dominating

others in the process. It frees the participants from personal bias and allows for free expression

of opinions, encourages open critique, and facilitates admission of errors when revising earlier

judgments. Initial contributions from the experts are collected in the form of answers to

questionnaires and their comments to these answers. Someone must be appointed as director to

filter the information and relevant content. This avoids the negative effects of face-to-face panel

discussions and solves the usual problems of group dynamics. Participants comment on their

own forecasts, the responses of others and on the progress of the panel as a whole. At any

moment they can revise their earlier statements. While in regular group meetings participants

tend to stick to previously stated opinions and often conform too much to the group leader; the

Delphi method prevents it. The person coordinating the Delphi method can be known as a

facilitator or Leader, and facilitates the responses of their panel of experts, who are selected for a

reason, usually that they hold knowledge on an opinion or view. The facilitator sends out

questionnaires, surveys etc. and if the panel of experts accept, they follow instructions and

present their views. Responses are collected and analyzed, then common and conflicting

viewpoints are identified. If consensus is not reached, the process continues through thesis and

antithesis, to gradually work towards synthesis, and building consensus.

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Overall the track record of the Delphi method is mixed. There have been many cases

when the method produced poor results. Still, some authors attribute this to poor application of

the method and not to the weaknesses of the method itself. It must also be realized that in areas

such as science and technology forecasting, the degree of uncertainty is so great that exact and

always correct predictions are impossible, so a high degree of error is to be expected. Another

particular weakness of the Delphi method is that future developments are not always predicted

correctly by consensus of experts. Firstly, the issue of ignorance is important. If panelists are

misinformed about a topic, the use of Delphi may only add confidence to their ignorance. One

of the initial problems of the method was its inability to make complex forecasts with multiple

factors. Potential future outcomes were usually considered as if they had no effect on each other.

Later on, several extensions to the Delphi method were developed to address this problem, such

as cross impact analysis that takes into consideration the possibility that the occurrence of one

event may change probabilities of other events covered in the survey. Still the Delphi method can

be used most successfully in forecasting single scalar indicators.

Delphi has characteristics similar to prediction markets as both are structured approaches

that aggregate diverse opinions from groups. Yet, there are differences that may be decisive for

their relative applicability for different problems.

Some advantages of prediction markets derive from the possibility to provide incentives

for participation.

1. They can motivate people to participate over a long period of time and to reveal their true

beliefs.

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2. They aggregate information automatically and instantly incorporate new information in

the forecast.

3. Participants do not have to be selected and recruited manually by a facilitator. They

themselves decide whether to participate if they think their private information is not yet

incorporated in the forecast.

Delphi seems to have these advantages over prediction markets:

1. Participants reveal their reasoning

2. It is easier to maintain confidentiality

3. Potentially quicker forecasts if experts are readily available.

Strengths and limitations of systems analysis in case study design

The strengths of Lean Six Sigma are that it is a proven method. By following the

model of Lean Six Sigma you can improve the value of your services to your customers, you

can improve the job satisfaction for employees, the satisfied employees then deliver the best

services and products available to the customers, thus providing customer care improvements

and benefits. Employees with job satisfaction tend to continue to want to focus on what’s

going right and the model put in place. Focused employees communicate better and work as a

team. Together this increases the business’s workflow. Customers who are getting the right

products and services, at the right time, at the right price, and the right quality will come back

to your business and refer others to you. People who care tend to have infective qualities and

make those around them care as well. A manager who cares about an employee makes and

employee who cares about a customer who makes a customer who cares about your business,

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etc. The rigor and discipline of the statistical approach resolves complex problems that cannot

be solved by simple intuition or trial and error. The data gathering provides strong business

cases to get management support for resources. The focus on reduction of variation drive

down risk and improves predictability.

There are several advantages to the Delphi technique. One of the most significant is its

versatility. The technique can be used in a wide range of environments, e.g., government

planning, business and industry predictions, volunteer group decisions. Another important

advantage lies in the area of expenses.

For example, the Delphi technique saves corporations money in travel expenses. They do

not have to gather participants from several points of the globe in one place to resolve a problem

or predict the future, yet they still can generate relevant ideas from the people best suited to offer

their expertise. This is particularly beneficial to multinational corporations, whose executives

and key personnel may be based in cities as far apart as Melbourne, New York, Tokyo, Buenos

Aires, and London.

The technique also protects participants' anonymity. Thus, they feel better protected from

criticism over their proposed solutions and from the pitfalls of "groupthink", i.e., the withholding

by group members of different views in order to appear in agreement. On the other hand, the

technique has its drawbacks.

The weaknesses of Lean Six Sigma are that it can be very difficult to implement.

Everyone in the company must be committed to the Lean Six Sigma principles and willingness

to cooperate in them must come from all sides. The method defines tight methods for

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improving communication, inventory control, and customer service. If all the players in the

company from management to the individual worker are not on board with Lean Six Sigma it

will be a very difficult process. Another downfall is that Lean Six Sigma requires a lot of

statistical gathering and data analysis. Lean Six Sigma is a complicated and time consuming

process. Depending on the size of the company this process may be too complicated to sustain

for long periods of time and give up the use of Lean Six Sigma as a model for them. Statistical

methods are not well suited for analysis of systems integration problems. (Sigma can be

calculated for a product specification, but how is sigma established for process interactions

and faults.) The heavy reliance on statistical methods by its very nature is reactive, as it

requires a repetition of the process to develop trends and confidence levels. The strong focus

on stable processes can lead to total risk aversion and may penalize innovative approaches that

by their nature will be unstable and variable.

The Delphi technique is somewhat time consuming, which renders it ineffective when

fast answers are needed. It might also be deficient in the degree of fully thought-out resolutions.

People acting together in a group setting benefit from others' ideas. Thus, there might be more

insightful and pragmatic resolutions to problems offered by people in interactive settings, e.g.,

through the nominal group technique, in which participants are gathered in one place but operate

independently of one another. However, in situations where time is not of the essence or group

interaction is not important, these disadvantages diminish in importance.

Another drawback to using the Delphi technique is that it can be difficult for researchers

to design an effective study. As with survey and other respondent-dependent research designs,

the results from a Delphi study are determined in large part by how they are framed and

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conducted. For example, the study coordinator may inadvertently railroad dissenters on the

expert panel into accepting the consensus view before allowing them to express potentially

important ideas that might otherwise change the consensus. Similarly, if the study coordinator is

summarizing each participant's responses, care must be taken that the full breadth and depth of

each expert's comments is recorded for the others to respond to.

Summary

System analysis is a broad, technical area focused on the creation, enhancement, and

trouble-shooting of systems for users. These can be data, information, or knowledge systems.

The purpose of these systems is to provide an understanding of what is going on in a particular

environment. Sensors, including radar, sonar, and satellites, for example, are components of

systems that provide specific knowledge about the physical world. Sensors in the home can warn

residents that someone is breaking in. Telephones are part of a system that brings police

assistance when one dials 911. People have computers they use to perform a number of tasks—

from writing term papers or diaries to communicating with people they have never met via

"messaging" software programs. There are decision support systems that help people use

computers to solve problems, and communication systems that tell people what is happening

around them.

Lean Six Sigma makes a process faster. Lean Six Sigma makes a process more efficient

and economical. Lean Six Sigma delivers satisfactory quality products. Lean Six Sigma reduces

the amount of defective products or services that your business provides. Lean Six Sigma results

in increased revenue. What I believe the most important part is that Lean Six Sigma results in

greater customer satisfaction.

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The Delphi technique is a research approach used to gain consensus through a series of

rounds of questionnaire surveys, usually two or three, where information and results are fed back

to panel members between each round.

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References

Ritchey, T. (1991). Analysis and synthesis on scientific method. Retrieved from

http://www.swemorph.com/pdf/anaeng-r.pdf

Stuter, L. (1996, March). The Delphi technique - what is it? Retrieved from

http://www.learn-usa.com/transformation_process/acf001.htm

Whitehead, C. (1967, September). Use and limitation of systems analysis. Retrieved from

http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/papers/2008/P3683.pdf

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