Continuous Improvement Plan for Academic Excellence in Schools

This report provides a comprehensive continuous improvement plan designed to address declining academic performance at a school. It outlines the application of seven quality control (QC) tools, such as histograms and cause-and-effect analysis, to identify and resolve issues affecting student grades. The plan also incorporates project management techniques like PERT, CPM, and Gantt charts to manage and track improvement activities. Key elements of the plan include assessing current performance, implementing corrective actions, and monitoring progress through performance metrics. The report details specific actions related to business environment, financial records, operational costs, and cultural effectiveness within the school. The ultimate goal is to enhance the school's reputation and improve student outcomes through a structured and data-driven approach to continuous improvement. Desklib offers a wealth of similar resources for students seeking academic support.

Continuous Improvement Plan
Student Group Name
Student Name
Student ID

Executive Summary
The continuous improvement plan is beneficial for the organizations to enhance the current
business operations that are performed on a regular basis. The continuous improvement plan
is used nowadays for organizations due to increase in competition within different industries.
This plan also helps in implementing the process of business continuity. The continuous
improvement plan consists of activities to enhance the performance of different organizations
(Jolanta 2015).
This report provides an overview of the continuous improvement plan which can help David,
director of a school in improving the grades of students. From the scenario, it has been found
out the student’s grades are not up to the mark that is affecting the school reputation. David
needs to find a solution to upgrade the academic activities in a way it could provide success
in terms of acquiring better results.
It has been suggested by the project manager that there seven QC tools that could be used to
analyse the current performance of the school. These tools are used to solve the problems or
issues that occur in an organization. These tools are beneficial for the project manager to
analyse the current situation and propose suitable solutions (Neyestani 2017).
A project manager has recommended a continuous improvement plan for the school. This
plan will provide the academic results of students. This is to conclude from the research and
findings that a continuous improvement plan for the school will help David in enhancing the
school, reputation once again.
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Table of Contents
Executive Summary...................................................................................................................1
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Seven Quality check tools......................................................................................................3
Project management tools.......................................................................................................6
Continuous Improvement & Implementation Plan.................................................................7
Difficulties/Challenges.............................................................................................................10
Proposed Solution.................................................................................................................10
Long-term benefits...................................................................................................................11
Conclusion................................................................................................................................11
References................................................................................................................................12
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Introduction
The report covers details about a school which is owned by David, director of a school. The
school provides educational services to the students from different cities of Australia. The
main concern for David is that the grades of students are not going according to the academic
practices provided to students. David needs to consult a project manager and to discuss more
the details of the school. The report provides a detailed description of how and what can be
done to improve the academic processes performed at school. The seven different QC tools
will be used to analyse the current situation of the school. Other than this, other project
management techniques will be identified in this report.
Seven Quality check tools
As described in the journal by Neyestani 2017, there are seven different QC tools that will be
going to be applied for identifying issues and problems of the school. These tools are
implemented for managing the project activities. For accuracy in analysis, collection and
tabulation of data these quality controls checks are done. Another reason to do quality control
checks is to ensure purity of data at the user end.
Below given are the seven quality control checks used in project management.
1. Check Sheet: To gather data in the form of tally sheets, check sheets are used. Data
concerned with the potential problem is represented in this sheet. All the work done in
this type of sheet is real-time and location-based. The whole sheet is divided into regions
and addition of marks in different regions is done so that easy data reading can be
processed.
2. Pareto Analysis: In Pareto analysis, several Pareto diagrams are constructed which helps
to identify and prioritize all problem areas in the project. Designing of Pareto diagram
consists of data maintenance, data repair, and data collected from data figures.
3. Flow Chart: Flowcharts in project management are used to describe the methodology
used in it stepwise using symbols. Representation of interdependent and parallel
processes is also done with the description of project lifecycle relationships.
 Deployment flowcharts: These flow charts are used to map the whole project
management by articulating the steps taken and stakeholder of given process. A
sequence of interactions between groups and individuals also consists of these
flowcharts.
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 Activity Flowcharts: These flowcharts give a basic visual brief of the control flow
and series of activities in the project. The possibility of activity modelling includes
sequential and concurrent type.
 Opportunity Flowcharts: These flowcharts prove to be useful by providing several
opportunities for improvement in projects.
4. Cause and Effect analysis: After identifying the problem in the project it is important to
determine the cause and then the effects. Representation is done using Fishbone structure
diagram. The process includes identification of the problem selection of the team,
Drawing of problem box and prime arrows, the specification of major categories and
Identifying defect causes.
5. Histograms: Histograms are the basic bar graphs which represent the data as a frequency
distribution. Data whose growth or degradation has to be represented is done using
histograms.
6. Scatter Diagrams: Scatter diagrams are useful for easy representation of bulk data in
segregated from using Cartesian coordinates. Diagrams are constructed under this using
any two or three variables.
7. Control Charts: Control charts are useful for preventing the defects instead of looking
for and rejecting them. These types of charts are used to determine the variations that
take place while analysing issues.
Two selected Methods for David
Histogram:
The histogram can be useful to David for representing the student record year wise.
Representation of student record through histogram can prove to be more efficient and
précised as issues like student data redundancy, result analysis on large scale can be
eliminated. Adding to it, on the parent-teacher meet, it can prove to be useful for representing
student data to their parents.
Table 1: Student percentage detail
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Percentage
Range
Percentage of Four
classes
Percentage per 1000
students
80% 79.40% 7.94
80% 65% 6.5
80% 55% 5.5
80% 82% 8.2

Figure 1: Student percentage Record
Above given histogram briefs about the percentage details of students per 1000.
Cause and Effect analysis:
Cause and effect analysis can be useful to David as this analysis process can be used to
identify the problem in each class whether the issue is in attendance or in poor interactions
with faculties. The best part of cause and effect analysis is the diagrammatic representation.
Diagrammatic representation includes the fishbone structure in which inner line represents
the problem statement, for example, attendance issue or poor interaction issue and rest blocks
attached to it represent causes and effects at the top end rest in the bottom side.
Figure 2: Fishbone diagram of project management
Above given fishbone diagram represents the complete structure of student details including
different entities involved in the project like teachers and students. Functions performed in
teaching, study, grade improvement quality control checks are also covered.
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Project management tools
With project management, comes complex responsibilities. There are many different project
management activities that contribute to the project success. These include the seven QC
tools of the process of six sigma; besides that, PERT, CPM and Gantt chart. As discussed
above, about the seven QC tools that can be used to find out the exact scenario of the school.
Some of the project management tools include PERT, CPM, and Gantt chart (Maserang
2017).
PERT (Program Evaluation Review Technique)- this technique is used to define and
control the project activities. The computing values that are interchangeable provides a
graphical representation of the project activities. Steps involved in PERT planning-
 Identification of project activities
 Determining milestones
 Determining sequence of activities
 Construction of network diagram
 Determining estimated time for project activities
These time bounded activities are performed not only according to weeks but also with the
time of completion for each activity.
CPM (Critical Path Method)- This is one of the project management techniques in which
time scale is added for each project activity. This is used to determine the total amount of
time that is required for the completion of each activity. CPM provides a total duration of the
project activity and also the overall cost estimate required for the project completion.
Steps to be followed while designing critical path method-
1. An initial step to design critical path method is to specify the project activities. For
this, work breakdown structure can be used.
2. Next is to identify the sequence of project activities that have to take place
3. For CPM, network diagram has to be created
4. Time estimation is the next process of CPM. Duration of each activity has to be
designed to ensure the completion time of project activities.
5. Now, a critical path is determined by noting down the earliest time of the processes
that will take place during the project.
6. Design the critical path method to represent the processes.
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Critical path method provides a visual representation of the project activities that will be
going to take place for a project. This helps in keeping a track of critical project activities.
Critical path method id effective to understand the project planning activities for achieving
project success (Tutorials Point 2017).
Gantt Chart- This is used to graphically represent the processes that take place in the project
development. Gantt chart provides visual view of the project activities of the schedules tasks.
Gantt chart describes the start and end date of the project. In this chart, project duration of the
scheduled task. This can be created using Microsoft Project. The effectiveness of Gantt chart
is that enables project managers to analyse the progress of the project management activities
(Project Manager 2017).
Continuous Improvement & Implementation Plan
The project activities are implemented first of all a project team needs to be formed. Project
improvement team discusses the requirements of clients. In this case of the given scenario,
David needs a solution for enhancing the academic activities of a school. It has been found
that there might be different reasons as to why student's grades are decreased. One solution is
to set the criteria for attendance and second is to provide extra classes (Jolanta 2015).
It focuses on providing quality assured services to the clients. This helps in making effective
decisions and improves the decision-making process of the company’s management.
 The primary goal of the project and opportunities are identified.
 Opportunity-benefit matrix (OBM) to detect the impact of these opportunities in the
company.
 Team discussion will be followed by the progress of each project activity
 Performance metrics will also be defined. Performance metrics are designed in order
to measure the progress of the applied continuous improvement plan.
 Regular meetings can be organized in order to address the different project activities.
 Rapid improvement events in which the goals and objectives of the project are
defined for the organization.
 Communication; various programs can be scheduled with appropriate areas of
improvement (McGregor 2017).
The continuous improvement planning elements are shown below in tabular form-
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Table 2: Continuous Improvement Plan
Actions Resourc
es
required
Authority Revie
w date
Corrective
actions
Status Date
complete
d
Assessment Project
manager
Project
supervisor
15-
Dec-
2017
There are
no
corrective
actions
In
progress
23-Dec-
2017
Business
environment
Project
manager
Staff
members
15-
Dec-
2017
Inspections
can be done
to analyse
business
environmen
t t
Complete
d
17-Dec-
2017
Financial Project
manager
Accountant 17-
Dec-
2017
Financial
records of
school are
documente
d
Complete
d
19-Dec-
2017
Operational Project
manager
Manager 19-
Dec-
2017
Operational
costs and
resources
are
analysed
Complete
d
21-Dec-
2017
Cultural Project
manager
Manager 21-
Dec-
2017
Effectivene
ss of school
environmen
t is
analysed
Complete
d
23-Dec-
2017
Business Planning Business
analyst
Experts 23-
Dec-
2017
No actions
required
Complete
d
27-Dec-
2017
Values and vision System Improveme 27- No actions Complete 30-Dec-
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analyst nt team Dec-
2017
required d 2017
Business strategy
 Cost
 Performance
 Quality
 Flexibility
 Innovation
Business
analyst
Marketing
team
30-
Dec-
2017
Cost has to
be
determined
according
to change
in market
requiremen
t
Complete
d
2-Jan-
2018
Business Tactics
 Detailed
planning
 Selection of
tools
 Training
Business
analyst
Marketing
team
2-Jan-
2018
Statistics of
school has
to be
analysed
regularly
Complete
d
8-Jan-
2018
Performance
measures
 Seven QC
tools
System
analyst
Improveme
nt team
8-Jan-
2018
No actions
required
Complete
d
12-Jan-
2018
Project Monitoring Project
Manager
Improveme
nt team
12-
Jan-
2018
No actions
required
Complete
d
16-Jan-
2018
Difficulties/Challenges
As per the details gathered from David, challenges that are faced with respect to academic
results are documented below-
 The student’s performance is degraded due to lower grades
 Scope of the academic activities is not clear which is affecting the competition value
of school
 Unskilled management is one of the reasons for the degraded school performance
 School reputation is doubted due to lack of performance.
 There were not enough personnel to handle the academic results of students
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 Manual records are used in school which is creating inconsistency and data
redundancy
 Academic activities are not performed in proper schedule which leads to improper
management of lectures for students
Proposed Solution
Project manager has found out some of the difficulties while implementing project
management techniques-
 Lack of accountability- there are no sponsors or investors to support the educational
operations that are performed at school
 Risk management- there are no backup options for the school management in case of
unskilled employees or to handle the student’s academic related issues.
 Ambiguous Contingency plans- there are no plans designed in case of any critical
circumstances (Beycioglu & Kondakci 2014).
Solutions that are prescribed by the project manager-
1) An automated system will be going to design for the school. This will enable the
school management to analyse the student's records effectively.
2) Sponsorship will be provided to the school by making an association with the
different business organization. This will provide an opportunity for a school to
conduct extra-curricular activities.
3) Online services will be implemented for school. It will help in maintaining the
student’s records such as their attendance, record of extra classes and their academic
results (Beycioglu & Kondakci 2014).
Long-term benefits
Online services will help the school management to perform academic activities effectively
and efficiently. The information of students will be saved in the database for the designed
automated system that will provide easy retrieval of required information. Sponsorship will
enable higher authorities of school to organise extra-curricular activities to make the students
aware of different educational courses.
Conclusion
It can be concluded from this detailed report that the project management techniques have
been successfully implemented for the school. David, director of school can see long-term
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benefits. The seven QC tools helped in identifying more about the difficulties and challenges
faced by the school authorities.
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