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PathMaker 6.1 is the most powerful suite of collaborative tools for problem-solving, continuous improvement, Six Sigma, planning and project execution. It is a new breed of software, which automates and supports team processes, decisionmaking, and rapid action. It provides software support for the logical and creative thinking, consensual decision-making, planning, data analysis, organization and virtual collaboration - all the essential activities of the manager, the knowledge worker, and the leader. Where a word processor helps you write, PathMaker helps you think, plan, decide and execute together with your colleagues, in virtual meetings or in real meetings. You will get better results in less time. From our own experience, from talking with quality leaders, from surveys and from extensive study of management literature, it is plain that the vast bulk of the things you need to do as a manager can be accomplished with relatively few tools. The variations, such as Six Sigma, re-engineering, benchmarking and TQM, are all part of the same fabric. They all use the same basic tools the ones that are built into PathMaker. Project Pathway Tool PathMakers unique Project Pathway is the clearinghouse for all project information. In this one window, you can construct a project pathway, track progress toward goals, launch tools and prepare for meetings. Any task, from a simple brainstorm to a months-long process improvement team effort, is part of a project. Every project has a pathway. The pathway lists the steps required to implement a project, each step being associated with one of PathMaker 6.1s tools. When you add a step to the Pathway, a line appears with a description and a launch button, which opens the tool associated with the step. You can construct and store template Pathways for your company's typical projects and for use as guidelines and training tools. Flowchart Tool With the flowchart tool, you can easily create flow diagrams and relations diagrams. Symbols offered include rectangle, circle, oval, diamond, delay and cloud. Fonts, colors and text alignment can be specified by the user on a symbol-by-symbol basis. Shapes can be automatically resized to fit text, automatically aligned, evenly spaced, snapped to a grid and all made to grow proportionally. Five different connection styles are available. You can zoom in and out, lasso shapes to select them and use cut, copy and paste functions to get a jump on charting. An innovative mode lock button lets you stay in a mode - for example, connection-adding mode - until you turn it off again. This speeds the chart construction process, making PathMaker 6.1s Flowchart tool well suited to live use in a team setting.
Meeting Tool You can schedule team meetings right on the Project Pathway. Insert a meeting step at your cursor, and stretch the meeting bracket (which appears beside the meeting's launch button) to include the steps you want to cover. When you launch a meeting, you see an agenda, which includes the bracketed steps, a list of attendees and other details read in from the Project Information Form. During a meeting, you can launch tools from the agenda just as you would from the Pathway. In real time, you record discussion points, decisions and action items, turning your agenda into electronic minutes. You can pre-print agendas for circulation or e-mail them to team members. As the meeting closes, you can print minutes for attendees to take along. There's a great potential for timesavings in this tool alone. Cause & Effect Diagram Tool This tool captures the simple power of the cause & effect or Ishikawa diagram. The traditional fishbone shape has been superseded by a right-angled structure, which is easier to construct, read and use. Zooming in and out permits viewing either the forest or the trees. Branches can be collapsed and expanded, and the tree can flow from left to right or vice-versa. You can auto-fit text, adjust spacing, change colors, drag and drop and more. Diagrams may be built from scratch, but they are often jump-started with data copied from an affinity diagram. This tool can also be used as a tree diagram, contingency planner, classifier and organization chart maker.
Brainstorm/Affinity Diagram Tool Two important creative processes are combined in a split window. The brainstorm portion permits the easy recording of creative ideas that answer a central question. It is designed to allow the team recorder to keep pace with group thinking. Using a "drag and drop" technique, ideas can then be sorted into groups in the affinity diagram (sometimes called a "KJ" diagram, after its Japanese creator, Kawakita Jiro). Like the brainstorm, affinity groups grow to accommodate any number of ideas. Any or all of them can be collapsed, too, so that only headers show. All ideas are editable, as are the central question and affinity set headers. Data from this tool may be used to start a Cause and Effect Diagram or for voting in the Consensus Builder. Consensus Builder Tool The purpose of the consensus builder is to help teams discover "shared thought" through voting and discussion. The consensus builder helps teams whittle down long lists, choose the best options and reach the point where a well considered decision could be made. The unique matrix framework for the consensus builder tool allows multi-voting, simple rating and weighted multi-criteria rating in a single tool. The design minimizes the conformity effect and offers rapid, iterative voting, anonymity, quick overall tallies and graphs of results. An innovative sliding consensus threshold control lets you highlight the most divisive issues in an election, so that you can focus further discussion on those key points.
Forms Tool This is just one example of the many standard forms available within PathMaker 6.1. Some of the forms already built into PathMaker include the Failure Modes and Effects Analysis form and a Problem Solving Guide, SWOT analysis, Customers and Suppliers, Process Boundaries, and many others. The forms usually consist of guiding questions or information to which the user types in responses. They are designed for process analysis and reporting and to help teams or individuals step through pathways in an optimal thought sequence. You can make your own forms, and save them as templates for your whole organization to use.
Force Field Diagram Tool Developed by the American social psychologist Kurt Lewin, the force field diagram helps in decision-making or contingency planning. The force field diagram is built on the idea that forces - habits, customs and attitudes - both drive and restrain change. The diagram is very simple, but it is surprisingly powerful. It is usually constructed with driving forces on the left and restraining forces on the right. The team enters all of this information. The force field diagram can help a team make wiser decisions about implementing change. The balance structure also allows the tools to be used to list pros and cons, strengths and weaknesses, actions and reactions, etc.
Data Analyst Tool PathMakers Data Analyst tool makes it easy to create correct, useful, easy to read charts from all sorts of data. Chart types include Pareto, run, pie, bar, radar, bubble and control charts, scatter and normal test plots and histograms. You can add annotations, lines and pictures to your charts, and change colors, marker sizes and shapes, line weights and colors, label spacing on axes, 3D angles and much more! Integrate actual process data with the management and planning tools provided. Statistics are calculated for all charts, and the histogram can be used in process capability studies. Guidelines for data collection and interpretation are in plain language, assuming no prior knowledge of statistical process control (SPC). The result: a tool, which helps everyone use the power of SPC - without fear or loathing.
Data Analyst Tool-Control Charts Control charts include the xbar s, xbar R, iMR, c, u, p, and np. You can choose whether to use given standards, and which control charts to apply. Also known as Shewhart charts, after their inventor, Walter Shewhart, of Bell Labs, control charts make it easy to see both special and common cause variation in a process. There are many different subspecies of control charts, which can be applied to the different types of process data which are typically available. The point of making control charts is to look at variation, seeking special causes and tracking common causes
Slide Show Tool PathMaker 6.1 doesn't stop at tools. It also teaches, combining learning with doing. One of the chronic problems of quality training has been the lag between training and action. PathMaker 6.1 beats the lag, by making short slide shows available at the click of a button. If you are ready to do a flowchart, but some team members aren't familiar with flowcharting - press a button on the flowchart tool's toolbar, and spend three minutes reading through 10 slides about flowcharting. Then close the slide show, and start your chart. With zero lag-time, there's zero forgetting. PathMaker 6.1 offers slide shows for just-in-time training on 27 subjects, covering everything from the basics of quality improvement and teamwork to how to use each tool. Slide shows may be launched from the pathway or tool bar. The user controls the pace. Virtual Collaboration
You can collaborate in real-time in each of PathMakers tools. Brainstorm together online. Flowchart together. Create charts and graphs together. Meet. Discuss. Analyze problems. Track indicators. Think of solutions. Review progress. It is often helpful to open a discussion (pictured here with a brainstorm that is just starting) so that you can talk to each other while the tools are in use. You don't have to find a time when people can all assemble in one room; just log into the project, see the latest changes, and make your own updates.
Technical Specifications: PathMaker 6.1 is 32-bit software for use with Windows Vista, XP, ME, 2000, NT, 98 or 95. We recommend that users systems have 20MB of available RAM over and above operating system requirements, a 100MHz processor minimum, and 40MB of hard disk storage. PathMaker 6.1 includes Help Cards and a full context-sensitive help file. The software is easy to learn for people who are familiar with other Windows software. Each project you are involved in has its own file. Within the project file, you create a pathway, which grows to include all the steps you take as you work through the project. Details of installation and systems administration are available in a Systems Administrators Guide on http://www.skymark.com.
2009 All Rights Reserved. PathMaker 6.1 is a registered trademark of SkyMark Corporation. Windows and NT are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.