Help Manual

Contents






Sigma Magic Help Version 18

Project Filter

Overview

The Project Filter tool can determine the right approach to solve a problem based on your responses to specific questions. This tool determines if the project should be solved using the Lean approach, Six Sigma approach, or using Project Management methodology. Besides, if several projects need to be selected, this tool can help filter the projects and select the most important project for execution.

This tool can be added to your active workbook by clicking on Project and then selecting Project Filter.

Inputs

Click on Analysis Setup to open the menu options for this tool.

Setup

A sample screenshot of the setup menu is shown below.
inputs
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Analysis Type: Specify the tool format for this analysis. This selection is not enabled since there is only one format available.
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Num Projects: Specify the number of projects. This information is used to reformat your worksheet and create a table for data entry. Note that any data below this table will be cleared.
3
View Example: Click on this button to open the example file. You can view the example to get an idea of how to fill out this tool, or you can use the example as a starting point and modify it to meet your project needs.
4
Help Button: Click on this button to view the help file for this topic.
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Cancel Button: Click on this button to cancel all changes to the settings and exit this dialog box.
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Create Design: If this is your first time using this template, click this button to format the worksheet template. You can also update the worksheet format any time, but remember that you may lose any data entered on this worksheet. Once you are happy with the worksheet template layout, you must enter any required data on the worksheet. When the data entered into the worksheet is complete, you can click on Analysis Setup and then Compute Outputs to generate analysis results.
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Analyze Design: Click on this button to save all changes and compute the outputs for this analysis. Review the results of your analysis and make changes to your inputs if required to update analysis results.

AHP Weights

A sample screenshot of the AHP Weights menu is shown below. Based on the relative weights specified by the user for two factors, the software translates them into an overall score for each factor. These weights can then be used to determine the overall score of each project.
inputs
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Factors: There are four factors for this analysis - impact, time, cost, and others. The other factor could be any other important factor to the company not covered by the first three. For example, the other factor could be a risk. Impact refers to the impact of the project, such as benefits. What is the overall financial impact of the project? Time could refer to the duration required for the completion of the project. The cost could refer to the number of resources required to complete the project.
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Weights: Enter a score for the relative importance of each factor compared to the other factor on a scale of 1-10. Compare each row vs. column element and assign a relative importance score. All the diagonal elements compare the same factors, so their relative weight is 1. For the non-diagonal elements, assign a score between the two factors. For example, which factor is more important when comparing impact vs. cost? It would be best if you came up with a score for how important impact is compared to cost. If we assign a score of 2, we will enter a value 2 for the impact row. The other non-diagonal element is left blank. Similarly, now, compare impact and time. Continue to perform these pairwise comparisons until all matrix elements are filled out.
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Update AHP: Click on this button to compute the overall weights using the AHP process. These weights are then used to score the projects.

Charts

You will see the following dialog box if you click the Charts button. Charts
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Title: The system will automatically pick a title for your chart. However, if you want to override that with your title, you can specify a title for your chart here. Note that this input is optional.
2
Sub Title: The system will automatically pick a subtitle for your chart. However, if you want to override that with your subtitle, specify a subtitle for your chart here. Note that this input is optional.
3
X Label: The system will automatically pick a label for the x-axis. However, if you would like to override that with your label for the x-axis, you can specify a different label here. Note that this input is optional.
4
Y Label: The system will automatically pick a label for the y-axis. However, if you would like to override that with your label for the y-axis, you can specify a different label here. Note that this input is optional.
5
X Axis: The system will automatically pick a scale for the x-axis. However, if you would like to override that with your values for the x-axis, you can specify them here. The format for this input is to specify the minimum, increment, and maximum values separated by a semi-colon. For example, if you specify 10;20, the minimum x-axis scale is set at 10, and the maximum x-axis scale is set at 20. If you specify 10;2;20, the x-axis increment is set at 2. Note that this input is currently disabled, and you cannot change this setting.
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Y Axis: The system will automatically pick a scale for the y-axis. However, if you would like to override that with your values for the y-axis, you can specify them here. The format for this input is to specify the minimum, increment, and maximum values separated by a semi-colon. For example, if you specify 10;20, the minimum y-axis scale is set at 10, and the maximum y-axis is set at 20. If you specify 10;2;20, then, in addition to minimum and maximum values, the y-axis increment is set at 2. Note that this input is currently disabled, and you cannot change this setting.
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Horizontal Lines: If you want to add a few extra horizontal reference lines on top of your chart, you can specify the values here. The format for this input is numeric values separated by semi-colons. For example, if you specify 12;15, then two horizontal lines are plotted at Y = 12 and Y = 15, respectively. Note that this input is currently disabled, and you cannot change this setting.
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Vertical Lines: You can specify the values here if you want to add a few extra vertical reference lines on top of your chart. The format for this input is numeric values separated by semi-colon. For example, if you specify 2;5, two vertical lines are plotted at X = 2 and X = 5, respectively. Note that this input is currently disabled, and you will not be able to change this setting.

Worksheet

Enter the following data in the worksheet for each potential project in your area:
  • Enter a number for each project or a project ID.
  • Enter the project title (short one-line description of the project)
  • Specify if this project supports the company strategy on a scale of "Low", "Medium", or "High"
  • Specify if the right sponsor (at the right level in the organization) is available to sponsor the project.
  • Specify the right team leader and team members are available to work on this project
  • Specify the approach to be used for determining the solution. In some cases, the solution may already be known. In other cases, we may need to analyze data to determine the right solution.
  • On a scale of 0-10, specify the project's expected benefits, duration, and risks. A score of 0 may indicate no benefits, a very long project duration, or very high risk. A score of 10 may be for huge benefits, concise project duration, or minimal risk.

Verify

If you click the Verify button, the software will perform some checks on the data you entered. A sample screenshot of the dialog box is shown in the figure below. Verify The software checks if you have correctly specified the input options and entered the required data on the worksheet. The results of the analysis checks are listed on the right. If the checks are passed, they are shown as green checkmarks. If the verification checks fail, they are shown as a red cross. If the verification checks result in a warning, they are shown in the orange exclamation mark, and finally, any checks that are required to be performed by the user are shown as blue info icons.
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Item: The left-hand side shows the major tabs and the items checked within each section
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Status: The right-hand side shows the status of the checks.
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Overall Status: The overall status of all the checks for the given analysis is shown here. The overall status check shows a green thumps-up sign if everything is okay and a red thumps-down sign if any checks have not passed. Note that you cannot proceed with generating analysis results for some analyses if the overall status is not okay.

Outputs

Click on Compute Outputs to update the output calculations. A sample screenshot of the worksheet is shown below. outputs Upon successful completion of the analysis, the following message will be displayed. Project Filter Outputs
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Notes: The results of this analysis are shown in the figure by the placement of the bubble on the output figure. The recommended methodology to attack the project is listed under the methodology column for each project. A relative score for the project's attractiveness is shown in the score column. Projects with a higher score are more attractive to the organization than those with a lower score.
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Graph: The graph shows the relative placement of the project on a benefit-effort matrix. Select projects that require low resources and have high benefits.


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