Process Improvement Methodologies Project

Running head: TEXTBOOK ORDERING: 1

MAN 4584 – Assignment 1

Mary Smith

St. Petersburg College

This assignment will define the current process used to order textbooks for courses at St.

Petersburg College. This definition will include a description of stakeholders or process owners,

as well as the boundaries this process must follow. Then a SIPOC diagram will be provided on

the current process to identify “all relevant elements of a process improvement project before

work begins” (iSix Sigma, n.d.). Further key measures or indicators of this process will also be

provided on current performance. As well as lessons learned while doing this assignment.

Ownership and Roles

There are five key stakeholders or process owners associated with textbook ordering for St.

Petersburg College courses:

• Students: The student’s role is to be able to read the textbook to support learning their lessons in

the course. Ideally the textbook should be at a level the student can understand and can afford,

along with being readily available for the timely start of class.

• Organizations: Students fundamentally earn college degrees to support growing careers in

organizations students will work (if working for others) or start (if self-employed as an

entrepreneurs or small business owners). Ideally the lessons students learn should support the

program needs for the College of Business (St. Petersburg College, n.d.c.). Additionally an

advanced college degree should help students prepare for success in practicing the course content

in these organizations so they may be more productive and competitive in today’s dynamic and

global market (Wise Geek, n.d.).

• Faculty: The faculty’s role is to help the students learn the subject content associated with the

course. This typically requires identifying and requiring a textbook associated with that subject

Running head: TEXTBOOK ORDERING: 2

for the lessons. Other action items need to be prepared for the lessons that use the textbook

specified in their syllabus and assure students are learning the objectives for the course.

• Bookstore: All textbook requirements for courses are to be adopted by the semester prior the

course offering. The campus bookstore is the policy standard to be used for each course. While

students always have the option to purchase, rent, borrow, online, etc. textbooks outside the

campus bookstore, it is up to the students to plan the necessary time and needs accordingly.

• Publishers: Their role is to work with authors that are subject matter expects in the field

associated in order to prepare and publish a textbook to meet academic needs.

The following stakeholder map in Figure 1 illustrates how these relationships are further

inter-related and needed to support college course development and offering needs.

Figure 1. Stakeholders

Process Boundaries

This process definition will start at the point in which faculty need to evaluate textbook

options from different publishers in order to develop the lessons for a new course to meet curriculum

needs. It will end with student and organization feedback on the course after the initial course design

is developed and beta tested from its first offering. Other process interfaces or rules that are

boundaries (Andersen, 2007) to understand and enable this process include:

1. The course must meet the curriculum and instruction (C&I) requirements defined and approved

by the State of Florida for the degrees in which the course it taught.

Organizations

Experts - Prevalent

Practices and

Theories

Faculty

Publisher

Bookstore Students

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2. The textbook must be available through the publisher to support the course offering, as well as

the curriculum and instruction needs.

3. The textbook must have a book adoption form done the semester prior the first new course

offering so the bookstore can acquire and stock for students (especially on financial aid). This

must follow board rules P3/PC 912 and P5/P5 071 (St. Petersburg College, n.d.a.).

4. Academic requirements and rigor recommend that lessons in an 8 week modmester plan 12-15

hours of course work each week to enable students to master at least 70% of the learning

objectives for the course (St. Petersburg College, n.d.b.).

5. The course lessons must be reviewed and approved by a faculty peer group that includes

organizational feedback (i.e. from the college advisory board).

6. The book must fit the level of students in an upper division college course.

7. Affordability considerations regarding options and stocking decisions is encouraged.

8. Further materials from the publisher to support actions items in the lessons are encouraged.

9. Faculty has the academic freedom to design the lessons to achieve the learning objectives.

10. Course must be designed to support both blended and online delivery of credited courses.

Map Process

The process in which textbooks are evaluated, ordered, and reviewed for new courses is

visually mapped in Figure 2. This process map illustrates the current state or as-is methods used for

this process (Andersen, 2007). This process, up until the point of a new course being taught once,

needs to be completed before the start of the semester prior a new course starting (to support

bookstore adoption needs). Any analysis or recommendations for improvements on this process will

be conducted in other interdependent processes outside this assignment.

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Suppliers Inputs Outputs Customers

Organizations Career Opportunities Price Students Knowledge & Skills

for Needed Positions

Availability (source

options & dates)

Study/Read

Faculty/Dean Curriullum &

Instruction (C&I) Financial Aid

SPC Administration Book Adoption Form Course Design Instructor/Faculty

Learning Objectives

Bookstore(s) Mark-up/Profit Action Items Options: New, Used,

Rent, Online, Library

Advisory Board Organizations &

Publishers ISBN Faculty Peers Faculty

Cost Review & Approve

Instructor Manual

Layout

Supplements

Content

Authors Problems/Cases

Theories/Examples

Process

Evaluate Textbook Options (1 to 3

months)

Fit C&I

(<1 day)

Complete Book Adoption

Form (< 5 min.)

Bookstore(s) Obtain

Textbook (1 to 2 weeks)

Inventory Textbook

Yes

No

Course Developed

(new or update) (1 to 3 months)

Course Offered (8 to 16 weeks)

Course Evaluated

(30 to 45 min.)

Improve- ments

Needed?

Yes-Other Text

No-Same Text

Figure 2. SIPOC Diagram

As illustrated on the SIPOC diagram, some key metrics that will be used to define this

process is the time to complete key tasks. Some tasks show a range of time (dependent upon the

complexities of the course and the approval/review cycle). These metrics or measures will be used to

gauge current process performance and later evaluate how improvements will help this process to

better achieve the goals and objectives identified for the stakeholders (or not). Additional metrics for

this process include:

• Accuracy of fit: Number of course learning objective met by the textbook for MAN 4584

example is 80%. Further supplemental articles selected to achieve 100%.

• Inventory decisions: Correct ISBN ordered 100%. For MAN 4584 course 90% of the textbooks

as demanded are available within 24 hours of order.

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• Number of textbook options: For MAN 4584 (Amazon, n.d.) = 34 options that might fit course

(would then need further evaluation to prioritize and select for course).

• Student Survey of Instruction: For MAN 4584 the last two offerings students rated the class 6.72

and 6.89 (out of 7).

Verify Accuracy

This process was reviewed with other faculty individually (S. Kays and I. DeGraw, personal

communication, April 28, 2009). Their feedback was incorporated into this prior definition. Further

research and networking was conducted on what other faculty do at other colleges and universities

(FacultyOnline, n.d.). Additionally this process was followed in the redevelopment of MAN 4584

and ETI 3116 as a pilot study to experiment and test results further (W. Huehn-Brown, personal

communication, Nov. 30, 2009). Many refinements to this process have occurred already and will

continue to evolve as courses are developed and redeveloped to support the ongoing nature of

offerings to meet enrollment demands and development of key concepts in this discipline.

Lessons Learned

Even what seems to be a simple process has many inputs and outputs that must be

coordinated to support achieving the desired goals and objectives for the process. Only after all

stakeholders understand the transformation needs to take these inputs and create the outputs desired

can the improvement process even begin. During this exercise all stakeholders learned more about

the current process in order to elevate understanding the process to better see the issues and

opportunities for improvements that we’ll address in the coming assignments. Additionally different

tasks and practices used by faculty will offer valueable ideas that may be useful on upcoming

assignments to improve this process. Due to diverse schedules, meetings with stakeholders were

hard to do at once so this was conducted separately (not meeting as one team made communication

and collaboration difficult to build understanding and agreement).

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References

Amazon (n.d.). Process Improvement. In Books. Retrieved from

http://www.amazon.com/s/qid=1275502302/ref=sr_pg_4?ie=UTF8&keywords=Process%20I

mprovement&rh=n%3A!1000%2Ci%3Astripbooks%2Ck%3AProcess%20Improvement&pa

ge=4

Andersen, B (2007). Business Process Improvement Toolbox. ASQ Quality Press (2nd Edition).

FacultyOnline (n.d.). Textbook Selection Best Practices. Retrieved from

http://www.facultyonline.com/

iSix Sigma (n.d.). SIPOC Diagram. In Tools and Templates. Retrieved from

http://www.isixsigma.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=1013:sipoc-

diagram&Itemid=219

St. Petersburg College (n.d.a.). BOT Rules and Procedures. Retrieved from

http://www.spcollege.edu/central/botrules/index.php

St. Petersburg College (n.d.b.). Credit Programs and Course Objectives. Retrieved from

http://www.spcollege.edu/central/curriculum/

St. Petersburg College (n.d.c.). The College of Technology and Management. Retrieved from

http://www.spcollege.edu/bachelors/mgtorg.php?program=mgtorg

Wise Geek (n.d.). What is a Bachelor of Applied Science? Retrieved from

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-bachelor-of-applied-science.htm