I learned great lessons—often the hard way. One lesson is the need to focus on the process. In this case, the process refers to the method of customizing the effort to fit the needs of the organization.
The discussion about what a customized approach should or should not be can quickly turn into an academic debate. There is no shortage of tools and techniques, and there will always be new ones to solve the problems of tomorrow. These are not my personal principles—these come from the venerated quality gurus who transformed the world and taught us new ways to work and live.
How we put these principles to use may vary by sector, but the principles remain the same. If we start with the basic utilization of the principles—applicable in any environment—then we can lay a foundation to build upon and adapt as we move forward. Who would argue against these principles? No one.
But the business challenge is how to get better and faster at improving what we do—how to drive success for the business and the staff. This requires ongoing, organizationwide structured efforts that adapt and improve over time. The following approach has been successfully implemented across numerous organizations—insurance, banking, staffing services, local governments, secondary education, and the list goes on.
The idea is to improve the business and then learn how to improve the improvement process itself. The following phased approach provides a high-level road map to leadership teams embarking on—or re-embarking on—the continuous improvement journey. The timing of each phase can vary based on the size of the business and the urgency of the undertaking. The phases typically take six months and no more than 12 months each once the implementation has started.
The phases are:. Phase zero: Plan fundamentals With these phases in mind, plan where to start and whom to engage. It may not initially involve the entire organization if the logistics required would take too much time. Move quickly and get started.
Keep it simple. No need to complicate the approach. Plan to expand and mature the approach in phases. To customize to your environment, begin by dropping the jargon. There are lots of foreign words in the lean Six Sigma lexicon, but there are always English translations. Clear communication in everyday terminology is critical.
Drop acronyms like VOC voice of the customer and use relevant examples. Then go! Phase 1 fits any business. It is exciting and should be used to build enthusiasm and momentum.
Kanban : Relying on notecards to visually represent and prioritize project tasks, Kanban boards track the project through stages to keep everyone on the same page.
Agile methodology : Driven by customer needs, Agile produces deliverables using iterative cycles to continuously refine until a final product is created.
To decide which style is ideal for your project or organization, try working backward. Start with what you want your end product to look like. Does your organization do best in large teams or small teams? Do team members like two-week sprint schedules or more free-form processes? Keep track of the pros and cons of each type of project management style, and decide with key stakeholders which process makes the most sense for your unique situation.
Determine the best methodology to meet your needs with the ultimate guide to project management methodologies and make sure your project goes off without a hitch. Rather, be open to taking the best parts of different methods and using them to your advantage. Six Sigma should be recognized and celebrated for what it is: a data-driven approach to streamlining production and manufacturing. For industries and businesses outside of manufacturing, though, teams should explore more flexible project management or process improvement methodologies.
New to project management? Check out this guide for beginners to get your started on the right foot.. Lucidchart is the intelligent diagramming application that empowers teams to clarify complexity, align their insights, and build the future—faster.
With this intuitive, cloud-based solution, everyone can work visually and collaborate in real time while building flowcharts, mockups, UML diagrams, and more. In fact, most of the organizations do not even require these to implement Lean Six Sigma. One can easily implement some of the basic principles and tools to start with.
Wastage can be identified by having another set of eyes overlooking the processes and deriving a process map to do a gap analysis, check for bottlenecks and redundancies.
This approach is not advised as Lean and Six Sigma go hand-in-hand where Lean principles improves the speed of your business output and Six Sigma improves the quality of your products and services.
When you have the chance to get things right in your first attempt, why even consider an incremental approach of applying Lean first and then go for Six Sigma. You can increase both the effectiveness and efficiency in one attempt rather than sacrificing effectiveness for efficiency. In a similar manner, by implementing only Lean you are sacrificing quality and by implementing only Six Sigma you miss out on efficiency.
Only when you combine both that you derive the maximum advantage that Lean Six Sigma has to offer. Any implementation for that matter fails due to various reasons.
As an enterprise, did you examine the reason why it did not work for you in the first place? Few questions you need to ask regarding why Lean Six Sigma did not work out:. Many enterprises across the globe have embraced Lean Six Sigma methodology to improve processes and achieve excellence. So avoid procrastination about adopting Lean Six Sigma for your business by giving above mentioned reasons.
Start your Lean Six Sigma journey and slowly start implementing the process improvement methodologies to take your business to the next level. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.
With GE as its poster child, the gospel of Six Sigma was spread by management consultants to companies everywhere. Soon, Six Sigma was the must-have credential, appearing on countless resumes and feeding a cottage industry of training institutes. But as GE began a long, slow decline, so did the popularity of Six Sigma. The company, in turn, accuses Markopolos of working for short-sellers who would profit from its decline.
Eric Abrahamson, a Columbia business professor who studies management trends, distinguishes between fads and fashions. While fads bubble up organically, management fashions are manufactured and promulgated by consultants and business schools who profit from their adoption. Six Sigma was a classic management fashion, Abrahamson says, and GE was its leading model, a high-performing company touted by consultants eager to help other firms implement the system.
As a result, it spread widely. And as with all fashions, once Six Sigma was picked up by the masses, fashionable companies lost interest and moved on to the next big thing. An obsession with efficiency, researchers have discovered pdf , can come at the expense of invention.
Six Sigma was born out of the theories of a small group of mid-century engineers who became apostles of quality control. Chief among them was W. Edwards Deming, an American statistician who traveled to Japan to teach manufacturing techniques in Japan, in desperate need to reinvent its industry in the aftermath of World War II, was eager to learn, and the companies that adopted his techniques of statistical process control saw enormous gains.
Deming became a hero to Japanese industry and the Deming Prize is still awarded by the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers to companies that master his methods. Only by closely studying outputs could managers understand if defects were the product of random chance, or flaws in manufacturing equipment or raw materials.
The process was applied continually to narrow the variability in finished products. Deming believed quality control was an organization-wide imperative, and insisted on involving CEOs when he worked with companies. He pushed corporations to break down barriers of communication between workers and managers, and to eliminate production quotas and targets that could compromise the process.
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