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		<title>Six Sigma Blogs at the iSixSigma Blogosphere</title>
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		<description>Six Sigma Blogs at the iSixSigma Blogosphere</description>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: A Spoonful of Sugar]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/a_spoonful_of_sugar.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I've been thinking a lot lately about resistance to change.  The Rogers Adoption / Innovation curve (innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, laggards) is referenced in some form by most people involved in change management.
Now, I'm not an innovator myself.  My special form of creativity doesn't manifest itself by coming up with new ideas that no one else has thought of, or completely new ways to do things.  I'd tag myself as being in the early adopter or maybe early majority categories most of the time.
So it can be a stretch for me to work with the late majority or laggards.  "Don't you know this will be good for you?" I ask incredulously.  "Can't you see all the benefits and advantages that you will have once you've made this change?"  I confess that I get very impatient sometimes.
Fortunately I have great team members that a) calm me down and prevent me from sending career-limiting emails, and b) remind me that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.  Or, as the movie musical "Mary Poppins" character sings, "Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down."
(Of course, as she's singing that, she's snapping her fingers and making the children's clothes go back into the drawers without any effort on anyone's part.)
But in the real world, it's good to ask ourselves what's in it for the stakeholders, and try to see what would make the change more palatable.  The trick is, it has to been seen as a value-added return even before the gains are realized.  For example, a promise that the work will be easier might not be believed, even if you know it will be true.
Have you found a good way to engage stakeholders who might need a little extra encouragement to buy into a change plan?  It would be most helpful if you would share your experiences!]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Change Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:20:37 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: With Thanks]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/with_thanks.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I had a very nice phone call today, from a colleague who had chatted with me earlier about a current project.  She called to say thanks for allowing her to bounce ideas around, which helped her clarify some things about her approach to the process.
Naturally I felt good to receive this feedback, and it made me think about my many associates who are in the process improvement community with me.  Sometimes it feels like skiing downhill, but sometimes it feels like I'm trying to go uphill without the ski lift.  It's during the tough times that I really rely on my fellow improvers to help me see a clear direction.
My colleague said that she had felt lost in the trees and confused about the path out of the forest.  I know I've felt like that sometimes too, and I told her that I'd probably be calling her soon so she could return the favor!
And, it reminded me to say a heartfelt "thanks" to the many people who have helped me to see more clearly when my own path seemed confused.
And also to say a sincere "thank you" to those of you who have read, and contributed to, this blog over the past three years.  It's hard to believe that this will be my 100th post, which milestone I would not have reached without your continuing support and responses!  I hope that you will keep on giving me your feedback - your conversations have been spirited, inspiring, generous, truthful, and above all educational!
With thanks for your time, your sharing of feedback with the iSixSigma blogosphere, and your efforts on behalf of your customers,
 Sue K.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Change Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:19:50 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: The Fourth Musketeer]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/the_fourth_musketeer.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA["One of all and all for one!"
Or, in the original French, "Tous pour un, un pour tous!"
In the story by Alexandre Dumas (1844), the three musketeers, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, were joined by the musketeer-wannabee D'Artagnan, without whom the first three would have led very boring lives.
I was reminded of this the other day, when discussing the elements of a successful process improvement deployment.  You will recognize the top three that were mentioned: focus on the customer; front-line engagement; structured methodology.  I'm going to submit to you that the concept of the Three Musketeers can serve as a metaphor for those three.  And, then, add the fourth (which you have already thought of anyway), which is committed leadership - without which, you will not be having many grand adventures in improvement.
So in your improvement experience, how many times have you gone into a project doing an assessment for these four issues - whether the organization knows how to focus on the customer effectively, or not?  Whether they treat their front-line workers as knowledge resources and Subject Matter Experts, or not?  Whether they have, or are willing to adopt, a structured methodology and all that is implied?  And, perhaps most importantly, whether the leadership is truly engaged and committed to process improvement as a way of life - or whether they just think it's the next best thing to try?  And, are these four elements integrated so that they can proclaim "One for all, and all for one?"
Please share your thoughts on this.  How many Musketeers do you have, where you work???]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Tue, 13 Oct 2009 07:07:19 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: It's a &quot;Circle of Life&quot; Thing!]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/its_a_circle_of_life_thing.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I used to be really annoyed with people who took a wait-and-see approach to change.  They're not resistant, exactly, and they might be classified as "late adopters."  But I could understand active resistance better than passive indifference.
Now, however, I have a little different take on things.  Because I have realized that if you wait long enough, you may find that whatever was changed comes back around again!
Such as... 

Centralization vs decentralization of departments or functions
Use of consultants vs hiring internal resources
Outsourcing vs insourcing
This reminded me about the lines from the Disney movie, "The Lion King," where young Simba gets the explanation about how the antelopes eat the grass and the lions eat the antelopes, and then the lions die and their bodies turn to grass (OK, you knew it would be a PG version) which is then eaten by the antelopes.  So everything comes back to a big circle of replaying the same scenarios.
For process changes, it's easy to see how this becomes just another bright idea to wait out, to someone who's been around a long time.  Especially when you're in an organization that promises that every change is NOT just the flavor of the month, and then six months later it's disappeared.  So how can I criticize someone for saying, "Well, go ahead with this Lean thing, I'll just wait and see what comes of it before getting enthusiastic about it."  After all, they've probably been right about all the other wonderful new initiatives and changes that have come and gone before.
Maybe you are fortunate enough to work in a place which has solved this circular pattern, or maybe you are trying to break out of that.  Would you care to share your experiences, to help us put some perspective on the issue?
 
 ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Fri, 09 Oct 2009 08:51:52 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Will the Real Process Owner Please Stand Up?]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/will_the_real_process_owner_please_stand_up.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[When I was leading a department, I never thought of myself as a process owner.  It wasn't in my job description, and I never heard anyone used the term.  It's one of those useful concepts that I wish I had known, prior to my Six Sigma and Lean education.
Here's my working definition:  The process owner is that leader who is closest to the process itself, who has responsibility for achieving the expected outcome of the process, both before and after an improvement project.
So now, I try to introduce the term right away and use it frequently so that everyone knows what the role is, in respect to a project (and afterwards).  I also try to spend extra time with the process owner if they are new to the role.  Even then, though, it's hard sometimes to get across the continuing expectations.  A statement that I hear frequently is, "I'm glad that the project is over - now I can quit being the process owner!"
Have any of you faced this challenge, or is it more clearcut in some industries than in others?  Have you had to do extra education or mentoring of someone who was not sure they were a process owner - for either a project or a process?  Do you have a different definition of process owner, that's been helpful for you?
It would be great to hear your thoughts.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Change Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 24 Aug 2009 12:38:33 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: My Favorite Tools]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/my_favorite_tools.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Well, maybe I have more than one favorite tool - but there are 2 that are fun to use with a group.
One is sticky-note brainstorming.  It avoids the perils of the regular "everybody call out their ideas" brainstorming, because (a) you get 100% participation; (b) you can get LOTS of ideas in just a few minutes; (c) you don’t need a scribe to try to capture everything as multiple people are speaking quickly; (d) you avoid people being worried about "what will my boss think" about an idea; (e) it’s anonymous so people are braver; (f) you can put duplicates on top of one another and categorize with ease, just by moving them around.  Also (g) you can use colorful sticky-notes and make a cheerful impression rather than a boring one!
Secondly, if I’m using the group’s ideas to capture possible solutions, I really like to use an Impact/Effort Matrix.  You may have heard of this under another name - it’s a 2x2 matrix with Impact along one axis (High, Low) and Effort along the other (Easy, Hard).  I ask the group members to place the sticky notes in the appropriate category - if there’s doubt they can place them on the dividing line.  Then I can facilitate the group to ask, "Does this idea belong here?  Do we all agree that it’s High Impact (or whatever) and Easy to do?"  If not, we have a good discussion and end up with consensus.  It’s amazing how this helps to prioritize the efforts - we will definitely pursue the "High Impact, Easy" ideas; think about a plan for the "High Impact, Hard" ideas; see if we can catch some low hanging fruit with the "Low Impact, Easy" ideas; and forget about the "Low Impact, Hard" ideas.
These ideas can then be turned into action plans or placed in a parking lot as appropriate.  Using the sticky-note brainstorming to get 100% participation, and the Impact/Effort Matrix to prioritize ideas, results in better decision-making and better buy-in to the resulting plans.
What are your favorite change management / process improvement tools?]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Change Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Tue, 04 Aug 2009 08:33:35 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Parachute in the Fire Fighter]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/parachute_in_the_fire_fighter.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Organisation in chaos? Emergencies erupting? Been blind-sided by the unexpected? Project a few years late and still does not work? Need to get things under control? Make way for the Corporate Fire Fighter. (Phew!)
This trusted pair of hands hits the ground running….makes rapid assessment of situation….. takes urgent action …... reports an outstanding success …….moves onto the next big fire. 
You could be thinking, “Hey that’s me!”. Agreed fire-fighting can be fun, exhilarating and very rewarding for those involved. Your organisation may place a high degree of recognition and reward on people with these skills.
But is this a measure of a healthy and successful organisation? 
Would an alternative model be of a highly organised machine where everything fits strategically together; risks are identified and addressed early; projects invariably deliver on time, cost &amp; quality; business metrics provide robust leading indicators. Achieving that level of capability is difficult, very difficult.
An organisation may not have this level maturity for any number of reasons. They may be a business start-up and just about managing to keep a lid on issues as the business grows. They may be working in a highly innovative sector where new products and competitors frequently appear to “eat your lunch”.
But what about the fire starters? The leaders who raise the alarm? Is this the right thing to do?
I am no expert on management leadership &amp; behaviour theory. It might be just the right thing to do to keep people on their toes? Creating a crisis can be a good way to drive things forward. Or is it a reactive and costly approach?
Ultimately I think it comes down to looking at the root-cause and fixing what/who caused the crisis in the first place rather than heroic fire-fighting.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Robin Barnwell]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Change Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Tue, 09 Jun 2009 05:27:45 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Training:  Enough, Already?]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/training_enough_already.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I enjoy teaching, so if you asked me whether you could do too much training, my first response would be "no, of course not!"
But, on second thought, I would have to say, "well, maybe."
It's been my experience that knowledge alone is usually not enough to create an improvement.  A lot of people enjoy being trained (a day away from the office, with lunch included) and also like knowing what could be done to create a better process.  But, having a lot of knowledgeable people bumping around in your organization doesn't necessarily mean that there are any improvement activities going in.  It's the doing - or execution, if you will - that separates the thinkers from the achievers.  So the important question seems to be, when do you know enough to start improving things?
There is a train of thought that runs like this:  "We don't need to train our whole organization in Lean or Six Sigma; that takes way to long to get any ROI (Return on Investment).  Let's start by getting some project teams together and use them to drive improvements."
There's another train of thought that says, "Let's not go shooting off in a lot of different directions. We'll train our executives, then our other leaders, then our managers, then our front-line staff; we'll come up with a deployment plan, and then we'll be ready to do projects."
So is there a "right" way to approach a Lean Six Sigma deployment?
Now, before you all write back to me telling saying that the answer is "IT DEPENDS!" I will ask the question a different way:  Have you, in your experiences, ever found that an organization did too much training?  Or that an organization did too little training?  What were the effects or consequences?  And what advice would you give an organization new to Lean Six Sigma, on the balance between training and project focus?  Thanks in advance for sharing your thoughts!
 ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Tue, 26 May 2009 11:10:15 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Getting the Word Out]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/getting_the_word_out.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[When I begin a new project, I include a Communication Plan as part of my team work.  That is, we take the stakeholder list and think about who we need to be in communication with, as we move through the project phases.  Some of you may do this based on an ARMI exercise (Approvers/ Resources/ Members/ Interested Parties) or Stakeholder Analysis exercise (List of key stakeholders and their estimated level of commitment to the project).  We include activities like face-to-face conversations, presentations in department meetings, newsletter articles, postings on the web site, etc.
But even though we try to heed the mantra, "communicate 8 times, 8 ways" it seems like we always have a gap in our communication.
For example:  Our team invites a key department leader to our project meeting; we discuss our project and get agreement as to next steps.  We plan an elevator speech and ask the leader to discuss it at his/her next department meeting and get agreement to do that.  We talk about possibly sending an email or posting information on the department's bulletin board for those who can't attend the meeting.  All good so far!
Then, a week later - after the department meeting, and having seen for ourselves that the information is posted on the bulletin board, a few team members stroll through the department to gauge the level of buy-in.  And - do they find that everyone is informed, interested, and enthusiastic about the project?  Or, do they find that people are negative toward the new process that's coming their way?
Why, no!  We find that most people remember vaguely hearing something about some new process, and others just give us blank stares.  When the bulletin board is mentioned, we get the response "Oh, I know it's there but it never changes so I don't look at it."
So, what are our learnings from this type of situation?  We only communicated once or twice, one or two ways - so obviously we would need to keep our communication plan active!  But are there other ways that you have been successful communicating outside of your project team, as you make progress?  Thanks in advance for sharing!]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 11 May 2009 08:24:06 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Ready for Change... Almost!]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/ready_for_change_almost.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[You've completed your planning phase - whether it's specifying value and mapping the value stream, Defining / Measuring / Analyzing, or Planning - and you're ready to move into Creating Flow, Improving, or Doing.  Hooray!  The pilot plan has been finalized, the Process Owner says it's fine, the team is ready to move forward.  And then...
Little cracks start appearing in the plan.  "We forgot about..."  "One of our team members says the plan won't work because..."  "We thought the computer system did THIS and instead it works like THAT so our plan needs to be changed!"
How many times have you gone through these pre-improvement jitters?  Is it a matter of staying calm in the face of chaos, staying the course, trusting the process?  Have you ever had an experience where you really did have to call a halt and regroup, because you found out that there was a major roadblock in your path?
As an optimist, I try to stay flexible and reassure the team that we can address issues as they appear, usually by obtaining additional information and clarifying the issue before deciding that we need to make a change.  But I have had to halt a project just as we were moving into Improve, because the hospital decided to implement a new computer system in the department just at that time, rather than waiting for the project to be completed.  And in fact, if we had completed our project without the new system, we probably would have had to re-do the process following the system implementation anyway.  Plus, the same people who were on our team were also the people who were wanted for the design of the new system, so there was a resource conflict as well.
What we did was to put the project on "hiatus" for three months.  Then, we re-measured and re-analyzed, to see if we still had the same critical factors, tweaked our Improve plan, and proceeded.  It didn't feel very good at the time, but it all worked out in the end.
Have you had this experience?  How did you handle a halt or delay in a project that was in full swing?  Please share your stories!]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 04 May 2009 07:28:14 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Small Things]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/small_things.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I've attended a lot of leadership development courses over the years, and received many handouts, folders, and binders chock full of ways to make myself into a better manager... of people, time, money, etc.
One precept that has stuck with me is that we should pay attention to the small things that are annoyances today, so they don't become bigger problems tomorrow.  Even if it's unlikely that something will become a big problem, it's worth the effort to eliminate it so that it isn't draining our energy to deal with.
Ben Franklin figured this out long ago, with his saying "A stitch in time saves nine."  As a youngster, I confess that this didn't make much sense to me.  What is a stitch in time?  (Is that a problem in the space-time continuum?)  Saves nine what?  Now I get it - sewing up a small rip saves it from getting larger and needing more stitches to fix later - perhaps after all my money has fallen out of the pocket!  (Just goes to show why I wasn't any good in my Home Economics classes.)  
In my daily work, I try to be on the lookout for those small things - like, my stapler broke and I can't take the time to order a new one, so I have to keep using paper clips that fall off.  Like, my AAA battery died in my mouse but I don't have time to stop and get new batteries from central supply, so I'll use the keyboard alternatives.  Like, one of may chair casters fell off and I've propped it up with a book "for now."
Sometimes it's a matter of looking at things from a lean perspective - kanban or 5S is very helpful.  But it's also the concept of taking time to fix the small things, so that I don't spend a lot of time doing work-arounds which are innately less efficient and less satisfying.
Maybe you have already found this out for yourself - want to share any related examples or experiences?]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 20 Apr 2009 09:59:24 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Management by Brutality is MUDA]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/management_by_brutality_is_muda.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I can not help but wonder if there is a Six Sigma tool for managers to use before they decide to administer discipline or impose a behavior intervention to a poorly performing employee.  Management style is one of the key factors affecting high employee morale, optimum functioning and low turnover.  When high morale is present, process improvement initiatives are embraced by employees and capacity increases.  Seems some managers still have not learned this universal truth. 
In the private sector the owner of a company does not have to be nice or effective, he or she owns the company.  Long term it is possible for ineffective management to survive if there are mitigating influences among other senior managers.   If you read Henry Ford you see very clearly that he believed that if the owner cares about his employees capacity will increase and be sustained.   
More difficult to accept are managers in the public sector who think the department they manage belongs to them.  They think they can step on, yell at and or berate employees without consequence.  They were appointed by the elected governing body and some believe they are immune to disciplinary actions for poor management decisions or unethical confrontation/intervention with employees.  If a direct service employee publically or even privately criticizes a manager, some time in the near future that employee may receive a  poor performance evaluation and the case to terminate will be opened. This will teach a lesson to the free speech expression in the workplace and further confine direct service employees to keep their opinions to them selves.  In the public civil service environment this seems counter productive. Muda in six sigma speak, if managers are spending their time “going after” employees who is managing the department?  
So what can be done when it is clear that a department manager is ineffective or disrespectful of employees?  Political reality poses that some governing authorities protect its appointees without regard to the truth of their mismanagement or ineffective management style.   It is the job of the governing authorities to confront this manager? No or maybe, that decision is up to the elected authority and how public opinion influences their decisions. But, in the interest of continuous improvement, a much better response is to set a clear professional expectation that self examination, at all times with all work related behavior, is part of the agency management philosophy.  Then managers catch them selves on unethical or questionable actions, hopefully before the action takes place, and ultimately employee morale stays positive or improves and capacity increases with the other process improvement initiatives. If they never look in the proverbial mirror, well… I would like to think most do and really work hard to treat subordinate employees with respect.
That, in an ideal world of work, would be wonderful.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Stephen C. Crate]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Sun, 19 Apr 2009 08:55:49 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Before &amp; After]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/before_amp_after.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[My organization requires that we write our annual performance goals into a web-based system that can be sent to our bosses for their review.  As I was working on this last week, it struck me that in the past I would not have written those goals the way I do now.
For example, "improve service" would have been a typical goal for one of my previous positions.  Today I'd be examining:  What data will be used to measure the improvement?  What is the target?  What type(s) of service would be in scope?  What customer segment would be studied?  Who are the stakeholders for this service, and how many would have influence or control over aspects of the improvement?
In other words, I'd be a lot more specific - call it SMART if you want - and at the end of the year I could clearly tell whether or not I had met the goal.  In the past, I'd say "well I worked really hard all year on this and I think people are more satisfied with the service, based on the 2 - 3 customers I spoke with."
Now, it's still possible to "game" the system by picking easy targets that would be hard to miss, or choosing focus areas without established metrics.  But, I wonder how much more effective I would have been as a supervisor, manager, or director if I had known and used a process- and metrics-oriented approach to leadership.
So here's my question to my readers!  Have you used a Lean, Six Sigma, or other process-based approach your whole professional career, or did you learn it mid-career?  It would be interesting to know what your reflections on the difference it might have made, had you been exposed to the concepts and methodology earlier in life - I invite you to share.
[Note:  For those who may not have run into this acronym before, SMART refers to goals or metrics that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-bound.  There are a few variant versions but all reflect the same basic principles.]]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 13 Apr 2009 12:40:04 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: More Than Advice]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/more_than_advice.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I've done a lot of informal coaching in my career - you know, the kind where you're in conversation and someone says, "Gee, Sue, can you give me advice on..." and I get to cheerfully dispense my words of wisdom and then wish them good luck with their problem.  Sometimes people seek me out and ask to talk over things with me, to help clarify an issue or opportunity.  That's also fun and from feedback I've received, people usually appreciate having me as a sounding board.
But I've recently been asked to take on a more formal coaching role with project leaders.  I won't be on the project teams, but I will meet with the project leaders to provide guidance.  Some of my leaders are experienced and some are new to the whole thing; some are using Six Sigma and others Lean.  Mostly I try to tell them things I wish I had known when I started in process improvement, and to give them good advice that they can take or leave at their discretion.  If they run into problems I try to help develop an approach with them.
I'm at ease about technical coaching - tools, methods, reports, etc., but this "soft side" is more of a challenge for me.  
As a "Driver" by nature I worry a lot about subconsciously trying to make them fit into the pattern that works for me, rather than letting them find their own way.  Should I "give them enough rope to hang themselves" and then help them pick up the pieces?  (I've been mentored this way myself and found it to be quite uncomfortable at the receiving end.  On the other hand, I did learn a lot!)  Or should I try to guide them on every foreseeable response and give them Plan A, B, and C for every contingency?  (Over-thinking?)  If they have a different personality style than I do, am I trying to make them more like me because that's what I'm comfortable with?  If I think they are going off-track, do I "give it to them straight" or tactfully share some hints on how it might work better the next time, so I don't discourage them too much?
For those of you who are experienced mentors, can you share any general advice on how to balance the "push" of helping the project leaders to get their project deliverables accomplished, and the "pull" of guiding, aiding, and supporting?]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Change Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 06 Apr 2009 09:57:53 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Lean at Work, Lean at Home???]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/lean_at_work_lean_at_home.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I was asked a very interesting question last week, after I gave a lecture on 5S.
"Do you find that people who are very organized and who apply Lean or Six Sigma principles at work, also apply these same principles at home?  Is this linked to a personality trait?"
Now I will confess right off that I am NOT always as organized at home as I am at work.  Part of that has to do with the different amounts and types of stresses that are in the work vs home environment, and part of that is related to my particular personality trait or preference if you will.  I am (believe it or not) an introvert by nature.  Now, my favorite definition of the terms introvert and extrovert is not related to being happy in a crowd - but is related to how we recharge our batteries.  Think of a Friday evening, when you have just gotten off work and are heading home.  It's been a long, exhausting week with a lot of extra time spent on the job.  Do you prefer to recharge by (a) going to a party or event with a lot of excitement and energy in the room, or (b) going home or to a quiet place with soft music, a good book or show, and limited interaction?  I'm in the (b) category, so I call myself an "adapted introvert" - most of my work is done with and through people, so at work I'm a driver and always "on" for my audience.  At home I'm a low-energy kinda gal.
So back to the question - my answer was that I know many people who are as driven at home as they are at work - color-coded containers, everything in its place, ready for a surprise meeting or out-of-town guests at a moment's notice.  I also know people like myself who are very organized at work but more laid-back at home.  Truthfully I don't know anyone who is unorganized at work, but very organized at home.  (But maybe I should get out more!)
What do you think?  Do you agree with my categories, and would you have answered the question differently?]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 30 Mar 2009 10:25:44 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: The C Word]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/the_c_word.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[That would be... Consultants.
I was fortunate to have the opportunity to speak about lean for clinical laboratories at the recent Leadership Exchange conference, hosted by the American Society for Clinical Pathology.  In discussions during the conference, I was asked many questions about the use of consultants to get started with lean.  In many cases, stories started with "Our lab has been leaned out," with the consequences of positions being eliminated, front-line workers being unhappy with the standard work that someone else had decided for them, and being asked to clock each and every step of their process for days on end.
So my question is, what is passing for lean these days?  No wonder I hear people saying, "Lean doesn't work!"
Now, I know that there are many fine, upstanding lean practitioners out there, who use strategic planning and the A3 approach to lean deployment.  Maybe I don't hear about them because they're doing a fine, value-added job.  But I do hear many stories about lean gone wrong.
Have you had an experience where someone was claiming to be a lean expert, but it didn't resemble lean philosophy as you know it?]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Tue, 24 Mar 2009 06:49:30 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Is Healthcare the Next Big Thing?]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/is_healthcare_the_next_big_thing.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I've had a lot pf people asking me about healthcare lately.  As in, "Now that big corporations and the automotive companies are reeling, with the stimulus coming and promises of healthcare reform, isn't it a great time to move out of the manufacturing sector and into process improvement in healthcare?" 
Well, it's true that there are vast opportunities for improvement in healthcare.  No one has the corner on perfection in care processes (although we're all working madly on it, especially now that there's public posting of healthcare quality - check out "Hospital Compare") or in the support processes like patient accounting and billing.  If I had my way, there'd be an improvement professional as a permanent part of every department's budget.
But, just think a moment.  Who pays for healthcare in the US?  First of all, the federal government, which is desperately trying to shrink the amount it pays for healthcare even as it's talking about access for all.  Many hospitals have 40 - 60% of their revenues coming from Medicare and/or Medicaid.  Frequently the government reduces reimbursements with very little warning.  It's an interesting thing, these days, to try to budget for healthcare when your major source of revenue pays 10% - 15% less every six months or so.
Then, there is the second largest healthcare revenue source, and that would be employers.  Specifically, those same big corporations and automotive companies that are in a bit of trouble these days, along with their suppliers and vendors.  As these companies have massive layoffs, and shrink benefits for the remaining workers, what's the outcome?  People will tend to utilize preventative services less frequently (because of those big copays and deductibles).  And out-of-work employees have usually have a little coverage with COBRA (Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act) benefits, but then may have trouble paying the premiums - thousands of dollars a month.  Therefore, hospitals are bracing for huge increases in emergency care visits which will either be reimbursed at lower rates (Medicare / Medicaid) or not reimbursed at all.  So there will be less revenue there as well.
Now, back to those opportunities.  If you were a hospital executive, knowing that less-costly processes would have a positive impact on your contribution margin, wouldn't you invest heavily in the very people who can do this work for you?  Why wouldn't you want to have a trained group of healthcare Black Belts or Lean Practitioners at your hospital or healthcare company?
Well, because of the decrease in insurance revenue and the hit everyone's pension plan took with the stock market plunge, there just aren't enough dollars to fund everything that needs to be supported.  Hospital executives are having to make hard choices - and believe me, they'll lay almost anyone off before they lose nurses or other direct care staff.
So, while ideally every healthcare company and organization would be heavily into process improvement, the truth is that if you're trying to go from a manufacturing or transactional position into healthcare, it's almost like "out of the frying pan, into the fire."  Admittedly, I'm from Southeastern Michigan where we are really feeling the impact of the uncertainty in the automotive industry.  However, the economic downturn has affected just about everyone in healthcare, whether they were prudent with their pension fund investments or not.
As an optimist by nature, I'm sure we'll pull out of this slump and eventually be able to look on the bright side of life once again.  In the meantime, if you're looking for a healthcare position, do your research and speak with those already involved, so you go in forewarned and forearmed!]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Change Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 09 Mar 2009 09:19:35 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: WWDD?]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/wwdd.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Perhaps you all arrived at this conclusion way ahead of me, but I’m starting to worry more and more about the way we, as continuous improvement professionals, are spending our time.
It’s becoming increasingly clear that the world in general, and the economy in particular, has gone off meds. Yes, I know, this isn’t news at this point. But lest you think I’m the last one to get the message, seek out the open letter that John Stumpf, The CEO of Wells Fargo, recently placed in the New York Times and elsewhere. He was explaining his view on “the value of team member recognition”…which apparently boils down to paid travel to fun places in his mind. Clearly there’s at least one other person slower on the uptake than me.
The press has been all over this letter, including this piece by Maureen Dowd. I don’t have anything to say about it that hasn’t already been said by smarter people. But it does highlight that there is a true shift going on out there. What used to be reasonable, even commendable, has become detestable.
Deming exhorts me to create constancy of purpose, and Wheeler explains to me why reacting to random variation is a bad thing. I feel I have both and intuitive and statistical understanding of “special cause”, and I try to apply that understanding to the work in front of me. Usually that means resisting the tendency to chase special causes in favor of common cause work, and for a long time I have been confident that was the right thing to do.
But now? A lot of things are changing. Those changes feel drastic. Is it time to react in a special way? Or is this just fluctuation of the larger system? Do we keep running our Six Sigma programs, Lean initiatives, and Quality Management systems and wait it out? Or has the time come to move on to changes and initiatives that are more radical and sweeping? More special? Deming does advocate constancy of purpose, but in the next breath he points out the need to adopt a new philosophy for a new economic age. Which advice applies now? What would Deming do?
Let me offer a few more things to think on to frame this question. Continuous improvement programs usually rely on projects as units of work. Using various toolsets, each project is able to return more value to the organization than they consume in money and resources. Group a bunch of these projects together, add up the saving, and you have a program.
Successful programs might generate 5% productivity each year. In other words, if we do things right, we might produce 105% of what we produced last year for the same amount of money. Or maybe we produce the same amount for 95% of the cost. You get the idea. For the past several years, maintaining that sort of incremental improvement in consecutive years was a great result. 
But now? Your sales are down 80%. Your raw material cost are up 150%. You can’t spend $100,000 even for a guaranteed return of $125,000 because credit is frozen. Double digit percentage layoffs abound. In this environment, that ongoing 5% productivity that was great a few years ago is less than a rounding error compared to the huge swings that are happening largely outside our control.
Take Wiremold as a cautionary example. If you are reading this blog, there’s a good chance you already know something about this company from Womak and Jones’ book “Lean Thinking.”
Great company, hugely strong in Lean, right? Well, read this. Sure, there were clearly other factors involved, and maybe their commitment to Lean isn’t as strong as back in the day. But anyway you slice it, this is a titan in the continuous improvement world staggering from a serious blow. Lean can’t help if there is no demand. You can’t save your way to top line growth. It doesn’t matter how efficient you are if no one has money to buy what you are selling.
I think we at least need to ponder whether anything that we are doing matters at this point. Whether we are maybe even part of the problem. It’s easy to spank Wall Street CEOs as they assume the position in front of Congress, but are we just as guilty of failing to confront a new reality?]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Andrew Downard]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Thu, 12 Feb 2009 22:01:00 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Sensei Sue???]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/sensei_sue.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I was talking with a group of people about leading lean, and someone asked me, "Are you a Sensei?"
So of course I said "No!"  I don’t call myself a Sensei, because I consider myself to be at the grasshopper-level of lean expertise.
However, the question did make me think.  I call myself a Black Belt without blinking an eye - on the checklist of how to be a Black Belt, I have filled in all the boxes:  [ ] Go through formal classroom training with hands-on practice and exercises. [ ] Be mentored in leading a project team through a Six Sigma DMAIC project, with all the bells &amp; whistles (graphical, statistical, and lean analysis). [ ] Get seal of approval in the form of a signed certificate from the MBB teaching the class. [ ] Fulfill additional years of leading Six Sigma teams with demonstrated tangible &amp; intangible benefits. And, because I’m an overachiever, [ ] Obtain certification from a national professional organization so my credentials would be a little more portable/marketable (being honest about it!).
So why don’t I call myself a Sensei?  What’s the checklist for that?  One of my teachers told me it would take leading hundreds of lean projects.  There’s a lot of debate about whether Lean practitioners should get into the certification race.  I’m starting to see jobs posted that require "certification in lean."
Are you a Sensei?  Do you know anyone who is?  And what does that mean?  Inquiring minds want to know!]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 09 Feb 2009 08:50:27 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Defects in Healthcare]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/defects_in_healthcare.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Last Friday I taught a Lean Leadership class for my healthcare organization.  The participants included all levels of support staff, physicians, nurses, and department leaders.  They grasped the concepts easily, and we had a lot of fun with the simulation exercise.  In the first round, of course, no products made it to the customer.  In the second round, after applying 5S and reducing batch size for better flow, a few products made it to the customer but with some defects.  
In the third round, after applying takt time and level loading, more product units made it to the customer but with even more defects.  This prompted an interesting discussion, as we were reviewing the cost of defects (in our simulation, a delivered product brings revenue of $100 per unit, defects cost $20 and Work In Progress $5).  One of the physicians brought up a great point - what is the "cost of defects" in healthcare?  
In the most purely commercial aspect, the cost of poor quality is the cost of rework and so-called service recovery.  In a risk-managed world, you might add in the cost of potential law-suits and malpractice insurance.  You can even go so far as to put a value on the person's life, for example the number of years remaining of potential employability, and possible value and/or contributions to family, employers, and community.
But the defect that the physician was talking about was the defect of an adverse outcome for a patient.  And it was obvious that every single person in the room had a dedication to the safety of every one of the patients under their care.  So we talked about the cost of a defect related to patient safety, and that the lives under their care were literally "priceless" regardless of what the risk-adjusters might say.  And we can have a huge impact on that safety by using Lean concepts and tools, and integrating the check-do-check into our processes, while streamlining the work and empowering healthcare professionals to call "Stop!" when they see something that may not be right.
The rest of the exercise went very well - the fourth round was organized around a pull system adjusted to takt time, incorporating check-do-check.  The customer had just the right number of units, WIP was minimal, they made money, and they had no defects.
But the memory that I will take from this class is the absolute dedication that this group had to the welfare of their patients.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 02 Feb 2009 06:25:32 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: New Year's Resolution]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/new_years_resolution.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[This year, I'm making a resolution to do a good deed daily.  This is inspired in part by Gianna Clark's latest blog, How W.O.W.?, but also by my own sense of imbalance in the customer feedback that most organizations receive.
I've communicated about problems and complaints many times - but - I realized that I don't give positive feedback very often.  (And don't we Process Improvers always say, that we receive more negative feedback than positive?  It's embarrassing to realize that I'm not walking the talk!)  So this year I'm trying to look for daily opportunities to give kudos and complements - not only for the WOW moments but when people show special care and attentiveness.
Like Gianna, my husband and I had the occasion to process a transaction at our local bank the other day.  We stopped in to cash out a CD (boy, just when you think your child's college expenses are all set, there's always another special need!!).  Anyway, the young man who helped us a) checked our interest amount for our savings account and increased it, based on our average balance over the past few months; b) suggested a better way to transfer funds to avoid fees and delays; c) talked with us about special offers and opportunities related to our credit and debit cards, and didn't pressure us when we declined.  
We didn't have a bell to ring, like GIanna did, but we asked to speak to his manager, and then asked her to put a note in his file for excellent customer service.  They were both surprised and pleased (expecting the negative) and we felt that we had done a good deed.
This is one resolution that will be fun to keep up!]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Change Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 05 Jan 2009 08:59:22 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: When is Lean... Not Lean?]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/when_is_lean_not_lean.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I have been thinking a lot lately about how the Toyota Production System was developed.  Unlike those of us who have books, websites, and training programs in abundance, Toyota engineers took their process of assembly-line manufacture of automobiles and created, in incremental steps, the methodology that's now known as Lean.  It took shape over a long period, as different contributors added their ideas to create a strong "House of Quality" for the Toyota Motor Company.
But - what if these bright people had not come from automotive manufacturing?  What if they had come from (for example) healthcare?
I know that this is akin to imagining what the earth would be like today if there were no moon.  (Just think - no tides.  Different air and water currents.  Little shore erosion - no sand?  Hard to imagine!)

What if their initial process studies were not based on repetitive motions that could be adapted to robotic or at least automated mechanisms?
What if their major source of variation was not the mechanical devices, but the people who provided the process?
What if their processes were not amenable to on-the-job training, but required differentiation of skill and ability at the level of advanced education and training?
What if their product was not someone who "ordered" a tangible object, but someone who showed up unannounced with a mysterious problem that couldn't be solved by just looking at it?
It made me think that if those bright young engineers had worked in healthcare, that what we now call Lean would be vastly different than what was developed by Toyota.
And, as a related thought, it made me wonder what we are doing by applying lean manufacturing principles to healthcare.
Now, I'm not the healthcare equivalent to Eiji Toyoda.  Or Shigeo Shingo.  Or Genichi Taguchi.  Or any of the other brilliant minds that helped to develop the Toyota Production System.
But, am I doing a disservice to my providers and customers, when I try to fit lean manufacturing methods to a highly technically-skilled service environment?
I've heard over and over again that lean can be adapted to any process, anywhere, in any industry or branch of service.  I've done many lean projects myself, and seen the very tangible benefits that value-stream thinking and creation of flow can produce, along with level loading and consideration of takt time.
But are we only seeing the tip of the iceberg?  What further benefits might we see if we developed a "service system" that used tools uniquely intended for service processes, rather than adapting manufacturing tools as best we can?
Just asking!]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 29 Dec 2008 11:27:41 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: A Lean Carol]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/a_lean_carol.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Well, it's time for my annual Christmas Blog!  With apologies to Charles Dickens, here is my adapted version of his "Ghost Story of Christmas" (first published in 1843).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Stave 1:  Muda's Ghost
The workers at the Shusendo &amp; Muda Company are very busy being highly productive.  The boss, Ebenezer Shusendo, only gives performance bonuses based on individual productivity so everyone works as hard as they can regardless of what the customers want.  Shusendo's nephew, Eiji, stops by to wish him a "Lean Christmas!" but Shusendo dismisses him with "Bah, Humbug!"  The clerk, Taiichi, knows there is a better way to approach things and vows to "keep Lean in my heart, all the year long!"  After intense negotiating, Taiichi is allowed to take Christmas day off, which confirms Shusendo's opinion that his employees just don't work hard enough.
When Shusendo returns home, he starts to see all kinds of apparitions - movement of product in a continuous flow, loud ringing of andon signals, and pictures in his rooms turning into Value Stream Maps.  The ghost of Muda visits him, and warns that if he doesn't mend his ways, his company will continue to show decreasing profits.  All of his workers will leave and his company will fold.  He will walk the earth in misery, bearing the burden of waste that he could have eliminated in his processes.  His only chance of redemption is to listen to three spirits who will visit him that night.
Stave 2:  The First of the Three Spirits
The Ghost of Lean Past, Henry Ford, visits Shusendo and takes him on a journey to his childhood.  Shusendo is shown a happy party given by his first employer, who shared profits with his workers.  He is reminded of his first love, Puriti, and how she left him because he was too busy doing rework at his company.  They visit Frederick Winslow Taylor and see him writing "The Principles of Scientific Management;" and they take a tour of the Rouge plant in its heyday in Dearborn Michigan.  Finally, they end up at the Toyota Automatic Loom Works.  Furious at being shown the opportunities that were missed to make a huge improvement in his own company, Shusendo gets angry at the spirit only to find that he has been returned to his own bed.
Stave 3:  The Second of the Three Spirits
The Ghost of Lean Present, Genichi Taguchi, shows Shusendo busy factories and organizations in the modern day.  Many companies are incorporating lean principles into their operations, and sharing the least-waste way.  They value their employees as creators of value for their customers, and try to make sure that there is flow in each step.  Shusendo sees the huge impact that pull systems have, and becomes interested in lean concepts.  They watch his clerk Taiichi (who tries to use Lean tools when his boss isn't watching) at Christmas dinner with his family, including Tiny Toyoda, who has carpal-tunnel syndrome from unnecessary processing.  Even though many people are trying to become lean, the Ghost shows Shusendo two pitiful workers huddled under his robes who personify the major causes of poor production, Mura (unevenness) and Muri (unnecessary work).  As the bell strikes twelve midnight, the Ghost vanishes.
Stave 4:  The Last of the Three Spirits
The Ghost of Lean Yet to Come arrives as a shadowy figure, robed in black, who points grimly at all of the waste present in production processes all over the world.  The Ghost shows Shusendo's clerk Taiichi mourning the loss of his son, Tiny Toyoda.  Even worse is the scene of the Global Takeover Company in the process of purchasing what's left of Shusendo &amp; Muda, only to liquidate it for a quick profit.  In great fear over this possible future, Shusendo begs the Ghost to send him back so he can change everything for the better.  Weeping, he wakes to find that it is Christmas morning and he has been allowed to return to his former life.
Stave 5:  The End of It
Shusendo is overjoyed to mend his ways.  He sends his clerk Taiichi a roast goose "just in time" for Christmas dinner, and promises to implement Lean in his company.  He surprises everyone with his new-found respect for people, and reduces overprocessing so Tiny Toyoda doesn't need to wear his wrist braces any more.  He earns a reputation for incorporating the spirit and principles of lean, in addition to utilizing lean tools and concepts.  He even changes his name to Sensei Soushou.  
To quote from the end of the story:  "He had no further dealings with the Spirits, but lived upon the Lean Principle, ever afterwards, and it was always said of him, that he knew how to eliminate waste, if anyone alive possessed the knowledge.  May that truly be said of us, and all of us!  And so, as Tiny Toyoda observed, Learn To See, Every One!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Happy holidays to all!
 
 
 
 ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 15 Dec 2008 07:27:36 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Act II]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/act_ii.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Six Sigma, which is beginning to acquire some grey around the temples, has now advanced to the stage where the basic requirements for success of the program are fairly well known. That doesn’t stop it from being screwed up in about 95% of installations, but no one can say that’s due to a lack of reference material detailing what’s required to be successful. Implementing Six Sigma has become a matter of excellent execution rather than invention and discovery. Or at least it should be.
The same is true of many other large-scale organization programs and installations. Converting to Oracle or SAP, for example. Building a performance management system. Opening and managing a call center. Developing a strong Innovation or New Product Development process. Outsourcing. The list goes on and on. There are a lot of things under the general “organizational transformation” umbrella that while still very difficult to pull off, require excellent large-scale execution skills rather than a lot of invention.
All of this leads to what I call the “Act II” problem. As you might guess, Act II follows Act I. Act I can be any of the things I described above, including starting a Six Sigma program. It can also be fixing or “re-energizing” previously botched execution, which is actually more common with Six Sigma programs these days. Whatever the case, the defining feature of Act I is that is it usually so pressing and painful that no one is thinking ahead to Act II, especially the person who was hired to produce Act I.
So what is Act II? Simply put, it is making use of what was produced in Act I to achieve some desired end. Wait, you might say, isn’t that the point of Act I? Generally speaking, not really.
Take a Six Sigma deployment, for example. Act I usually consists of hiring or training belts, engaging consultants, conducting training classes, filling a project pipeline, getting initial projects done, delivering results, etc. Many (most?) organizations fail at some point in Act I, which is why Act II doesn’t get much mainstream attention. Act II can only begin when Act I is complete – that is, when the program is already up and running and hitting on all cylinders. The project and talent pipeline is flowing well with little intervention, and results are being regularly delivered. Six Sigma isn’t new or exciting anymore, it just a part of the fabric of the business. Though rare enough, all of that just gets you to the starting line of Act II.
Act II is where you start to think beyond the simple running of the program. Now that you have all the machinery, what are you going to do with it? How does it play with the other processes in your business? How will what you have built evolve over time? If you’ve mastered the basics, what do the advanced levels look like? How can what you’ve got become a competitive advantage in the marketplace? What should be emphasized and what should be dropped in the future? In short, what will you do with what you have built? Act II is all about answering these questions, but only after the initial execution has been completed at a high level. Only after the initial build is done.
The problem is that Act II takes a much different skill set than Act I, so it is rare to find one person who can do both effectively. And many people who have built careers on Act I – particularly those who are called in to fix an ailing Act I – simply have no Act II. When the time comes, they let the results of their excellent execution operate on a performance plateau. They, and the organization, will often feel they’ve earned the right to do so. But unfortunately, in the world of organizational change, standing still means moving backward. If you’re not growing, leaping, expanding, and evolving with whatever you are doing, then you’re marching to the grave. There really is no in between, no time to enjoy the plateau. If you have no Act II waiting to begin, you might as well not even have done Act I. That’s a tough lesson to learn, but non the less true for it.
I think this explains why the business landscape is littered with the carcasses of many once-strong programs. They had a strong Act I, but there was no Act II, so the show ended abruptly. As hard as Act I is, and as rare as it is to see an Act I successfully conclude, Act II is even trickier to plan for and pull off, and consequently more rare and valuable.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Andrew Downard]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Change Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Wed, 26 Nov 2008 22:01:00 -0800</pubDate>
		</item>

		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Rigmarole]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/rigmarole.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Six Sigma is an amazingly persistent program. I was left off the list for the official birth announcement, but someone should probably be planning ahead for a thirtieth birthday party in the next few years. That’s remarkable longevity for trumped up flavor-of-the-month program.
I think Six Sigma is utterly absurd in many respects. Even if you love the methodology, you have to admit that the jargon and belt terminology are over the top. Honestly, to the uninitiated we must sound like a group of arcane techno-monks spoiling for a fight. We're the drag queens of the quality world. Six Sigma training methods are generally excruciating, and often rooted in dubious pedagogy. Quality control at the program level is non-existent. Statistical methods are routinely abused. Many conclusions reach are just plain wrong. I can see all this quite clearly, and I like the program.
So why does Six Sigma survive? If it is patently ridiculous, potentially misleading on crucial questions, and generally very annoying, why do people keep using it? The answer is simple, I think: because despite all that, it works. But not for the reasons you might expect.
Consider the window dressing that accompanies a full-blown Six Sigma project. For the sake of this example, let’s assume we’re looking at one of the first projects in an organization. The process probably kicked off with the search for a consulting partner. Six Sigma consultants come at great expense, so some native set of requirements likely kicked in that required multiple consultancies to be evaluated by a high-level team. Once the consultant was picked, candidates for training had to be selected. Because the training is so expensive, this again required a great deal of concerted time and attention from the organization. Ditto for project selection. Finally training takes place, and everyone has to learn a whole new dictionary. The project gets rolling, toll gate reviews start up, and they’re unlike any project meetings ever seen before. No one really understands anything. Questions are asked, arguments begun, experts called in. Eventually paths forward are determined, and execution starts. Implementation is carefully staged and monitored because, let’s face it, no one involved can afford for the project to fail at this point. Results occur, processes are changed, metrics are reported, and success is celebrated. Everyone is happy, and not a little bit relieved. Now repeat, and repeat, and repeat.
That’s a lot of rigmarole. And it’s generally considered to be the ugly side of Six Sigma, the messy underbelly that necessarily accompanies the elegant statistical approach, the data driven decision making. But I think that view gets it backward, suggests that the tail wags the dog. Far from being undesirable, I think all that rigmarole is actually what adds the value in the whole process. I’m convinced the content of the program is immaterial. All the program content needs to do is trigger the window dressing, because the window dressing is what gets the right people in the room.
Let me put it another way. Many companies hire consultants to do things that they supposedly cannot do for themselves. But it is sometimes the case that consultants come in to the organization and seek answers to the question being asked entirely within the organization. Which is strange because logically, consultants are not needed if the answer is already present in the population hiring the consultant. (If you haven’t experienced this phenomenon you might think I‘m making it up. But ask around, because I’m sure you won’t have to go too far to find someone who can provide relevant story from your part of the world.) Development of corporate strategy is an archetypal example. So why use consultants in such cases? They are extremely expensive, and the answer is already there. Well, you use them precisely because they are expensive. Writing that check triggers a set of behaviors in the organization. It forces important players to take notice. It makes it politically dangerous to ignore the outcome of the project. It means people show up at meetings and complete their action items on time. And all that means that the answer is suddenly taken very seriously, even if it was known all along, and even if it happens to be incorrect.
I think Six Sigma works the same way. The crushing structure, bureaucracy, and cost of a deployment sends all kinds of signals to the organization that the program is important and needs to be taken seriously. I’m not saying it makes sense, but I am saying it works. All the rigmarole serves the very important purpose of getting the right people in the room, which means decisions can be made and execution can happen. The guts of the program don’t matter, as long as it serves that purpose in the end. Six Sigma does this by accident rather than by design, but it nonetheless does it very well. And that’s why I think we should probably be planning for a thirtieth birthday party.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Andrew Downard]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 13 Oct 2008 22:01:00 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: The L Word]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/the_l_word.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[That would be "Leadership."  I've been given a definition of leadership that I'd like to discuss with you and ask your opinion about.
The question that was posed to me was, "What is a leader?"
I gave what I thought was a pretty good response - about having a vision, bringing people along in the direction needed to support the vision, and instilling accountability as a management philosophy.
But, I was told that I was wrong.  A leader, I was told, is one who has followers.
So, if followers are appointed or assigned, a person is a leader?  I asked.
Just so, I was told.  And if you don't have followers, then you aren't a leader.
Now, this caused me some ego anxiety, particularly as I am currently self-employed and don't have any assigned followers at the moment.  (Although I've had plenty in the past.)  So, I used to be a leader but now I'm not, but I might be again in the future?
I did a little research on this concept and it turns out that there is a saying, There is one irrefutable definition of a leader, and that is someone people follow.  However, I've seen that attributed to Drucker (seems like he should know what he's talking about), but also to Michael Maccoby (management consultant and author, unfamiliar to me).
It occurred to me that maybe "leadership" is a term like "quality."  You can have good quality, or poor quality.  When we say that we have a quality process, however, we're implying that we have a high-quality process.  (I hope.)  So, for the term "leadership," maybe we're implying "positive leadership."  And, going back to the statement that a leader is someone who has followers, I see that it's a neutral type of definition.  Cult leaders, presidents of countries, Ghandi, front-line supervisors, Hitler - all of them leaders by that definition.
So, maybe I need to be a little more specific when talking about (and answering questions about) leadership.  If anyone has operational definitions or comments that they'd like to share, I'd love to continue my education on this topic!
 ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Sun, 21 Sep 2008 11:20:23 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Thinking Ahead]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/thinking_ahead.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[One of the central problems all organizations face is balancing long term thinking with short terms needs. It is clear that time and resources need to be devoted to both; companies that live moment to moment don’t survive very long, while those that focus on the big picture without worrying about the details usually don’t live long enough for their vision to matter. So the question isn’t which is more important, the question is how to do both simultaneously.
The strategies :

Ask everyone in the organization to simultaneously focus on long term vision and short term execution. 
This is the most intuitively attractive answer. It’s the one that various business books and seminars recommend. And it would be a great strategy if it could be pulled off, but I’ve never seen it happen. Toyota might be a counter-example based on books I have read, but I’m guessing insiders could educate me about the ways in which it is difficult there as well. If you know of others, please comment.
The problem with this strategy in my experience is that firefighting always wins. No business I’ve ever seen has been willing to let a short term issue fester in favor of providing time for employees to think about the long term. “Oh, I’m sorry we just short-shipped out biggest customer…but we’re in a long range planning retreat this week so I’ll deal with it on Monday”. That sort of thing gets you fired at most companies. There’s no question which takes precedence.
Interestingly, I think continuous improvement as it is practiced today is part of the problem rather than the solution. Many companies now run so lean in terms of personnel that there is no excess capacity to fight minor fires, and everything becomes an emergency. At the same time, positions on the floor and elsewhere have been time-studied to death, so there is no extra seconds in the day to devote to long term thinking. Individual projects are optimized like crazy with very little though given to the whole. I know it’s not supposed to be this way, but often it is.
The answer to this is widely seen as the next strategy.

Ask everyone to worry about long term vision and strategy at certain times, while focusing on short term execution the rest of the time.
Future state mapping is a great example of this strategy. You haul people out of their normal responsibilities for a few days to consider what the future state should look like. People who are practiced at this develop not only an ideal state, but a few interim states along the way as well. Then when the mapping is done, the team goes back to their regular jobs, which are usually execution focused.
The follow-on strategy often involves projects and/or Kaizen events. Both of those can work. Projects work by forcing project leaders (and sometimes their teams) to continue working towards a long term goal, balancing that with their short term responsibilities. In essence this strategy works by forcing the first strategy (above) to occur for some period of time. Because projects are inherently limited in duration, this can be successful. Kaizen events, on the other hand, work by forcing the second strategy to occur for some period of time. Both projects and Kaizen events function by preventing the natural tendency of an organization to focus on short term needs.
The problem with this strategy is that the short term and long term thinking usually become divorced from one another. The classic example of this is annual “Strategic Planning” (which goes by many names), wherein everyone works like crazy for a month or two to prepare an X-year plan and get approval for it up the chain. Then once that’s done, the plan it put away and never seen again. Everyone goes back to managing the short term. Projects and Kaizen events still occur – and may even help the organization –but they are rarely explicitly connected to the broad strategic plan.
Recognition of this tendency is, I think, what makes the third strategy most common.

Employ a few people to worry full-time about long term vision and strategy, while most others focus on short term execution.
This is a very common answer. Maybe the most common. Especially in corporations for which selling the product (or otherwise dealing with a customer) is resource intensive. Consider a retail chain, for example. If there are  1000 people working for the company, 900 of them might be on the sales floor selling products directly to customers. Another 50 might work in logistics (distribution, transportation, warehousing, etc), perhaps another 25 are support staff of some sort. On a good day, that might leave 25 people to think about long term strategy for the company. And not just standard business strategies like how to market, what to sell, and where to operate, but also things like how to attract and retain employees, where to hedge and where to spot-buy, and who to fire. Oh, and maybe how to run a continuous improvement program.
If you are part of an organization, you probably already know the problems that crop up here. In the example above, 25 people who are sitting somewhere other than the front lines are trying to determine strategy for the 975 who actually know first-hand what is going on. The ones who are closest to direct feedback and subtle shift are the ones least empowered to influence and select the strategy. It’s a set up doomed to failure for all but the most talented (and rare) of leaders. It’s a strategy that looks good in theory, but is devilishly hard to successfully practice. And even when you get it right, you’re not taking advantage of the knowledge and expertise of all those people out in the field.
The saving grace for this strategy, and the reason it is so common, is that it is a stable structure. Even if it isn’t a great strategy overall, it’s better than the other two because it is tenable. It is a compromise way for the organization overall to pay attention to both short term and long term thinking, even if no individual within the company is doing so. It survives and flourishes not because it is a great way of doing things, but because it is slightly better than the alternatives.
Is there a better way?]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Andrew Downard]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Sun, 14 Sep 2008 22:01:00 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: If Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Prioritized Projects...]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/if_peter_piper_picked_a_peck_of_prioritized_projects.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Which prioritized projects would Peter Piper pick?
I've been asked to speak about project selection at an upcoming symposium.  In doing research for this, I've reviewed articles from iSixSigma and other sources, from both the Six Sigma "ranked project hopper" perspective and the Lean A3 - strategic deployment perspective.  And I've done some project-picking in my time, too, using both those methods. With all the emphasis on data-driven decisions, there's one element that is usually mentioned in passing that may be the most important of all.  And that is... (drum roll please) Which problems are the executive leaders most emotionally driven to resolve?
Even if significant costs can be saved - even if reliability can be improved - even if staffing efficiencies can be realized - in my experience, if the project or deployment champion isn't engaged, you may end up with a beautiful project that won't be sustained.
A trite saying is that "people treasure what their bosses measure."  If one or more leaders is emotionally engaged in a project, they will pester the facilitator and team members.  They will ask for data at inconvenient times.  They will ask whether there are any barriers to be resolved.  They will cheerfully provide resources.  Staff members will know this is important to them, and will respond accordingly.  These leaders will behave in a way that lets everyone know this is important work - they have an obvious commitment to the project and its success.
When leaders are somewhat interested, they may ask questions and be willing to meet, but forward movement is definitely in the realm of the facilitator.  These leaders may be helpful when asked, but they will wait to be asked.  They are pleased to be involved as long as it doesn't take too much effort on their part.
When leaders are not engaged, it's hard to get meeting time with them, and meetings may be frequently postponed or cancelled.  They don't want to be bothered with details about the project.  They only want to know when it's over so they can go back to spending time on their other "more important" activities.
If you've ever led a project, you've seen behavior that falls into one of these categories.  The pain-in-the-butt activist leaders can be the most forward thinking.  The middle-of-the-road hobbyists can be helpful, if always a step behind.  The don't-bother-me-now-can't-you-see-I'm-working types will be happy to take credit once the project is done, but then ignore it to concentrate on other crisis situations.
So I'm suggesting that, while project prioritization matrices and strategic deployment models are great when all of the leaders are equally and emotionally engaged, there may be a simpler method to use when getting started or when engagement is not high across the board.
Have any of you ever selected your project by which executive was most enthusiastic?  It would be great to hear your experiences!
 
p.s.  For those of you detail-oriented folks whose memories are tickled by Peter Piper, it's from the collection of "Mother Goose" rhymes.
 ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 25 Aug 2008 10:02:57 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Sensei Certification?]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/sensei_certification.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[A lot of my conversations recently have centered around certification for lean.  Coming from colleagues who started in Six Sigma as a Green Belt or Black Belt, it seems "natural" that when you add lean facilitation to your skills, you could get certified in lean, too.
But, as I understand it, the traditional path for lean practitioners has been based more on experience and expertise than certification.  The concept of taking a test and getting certified as a lean leader seems not to fit the philosophy as I have learned it (so far!)
Is there a move to create a lean certification, either for facilitators or senseis, similar to the Green Belt / Black Belt / Master Black Belt model?  If so, does it require a project as part of the certification?  And, what is the title that you end up with?
I know there are "lean facilitator" certificates offered by a variety of universities and vendors.  I've even seen an ad for "Lean Six Sigma Sensei" certification.  How about "Lean Greenbelt, Lean Blackbelt, and Lean Masterblackbelt?"  "Lean Expert?"
I'm also starting to see classified ads for positions that read "Master Black Belt / Lean Sensei certification required."
So is there a new push for "Sensei certification?"  Or is that just wishful thinking on the part of people who like to collect letters after their names?Inquiring minds want to know!]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Fri, 18 Jul 2008 15:53:36 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Take me out to the Gemba]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/take_me_out_to_the_gemba.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[By popular demand, words to an old favorite tune that you can use while watching the Major League Baseball All-Star Game, at the Seventh-Inning Stretch:
Take me out to the Gemba
Take me out to the flow!
Find me a Value Stream I can track
I don't want waste to ever come back!
For it's root, root, root out the defects,
Reduce variation even more,
For it's 1-2-3-4-5-6 Sigma we want
On the old shop floor!
 
(With apologies to Jack Norworth who wrote the original words in 1908, and with thanks to Albert Von Tilzer who wrote the tune!)
 ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 07 Jul 2008 15:35:41 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Cargo Cults]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/cargo_cults.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I can’t remember the first time I head the concept of a “Cargo Cult” used as a business analogy. But I can recall thinking that it was a powerful way to explain the dangers of throwing money and resources around trying to duplicate what another company had done without really taking the time to understand exactly what they did and why they did it. There were obvious applications to Six Sigma deployments in particular, since Six Sigma is rife with rituals and jargon.
And I was right. It was very effective. So I used the analogy in conversation, in training, and during presentations with great frequency for quite a while. Others were out there doing the same. At some point I became convinced that everyone in the world must have heard the story. Plus, I’m not a big fan of making arguments by analogy because you open yourself up to a simple, but devastating criticism. So for the past few years I stopped talking about Cargo Cults.
Then, the other day, I brought the Cargo Cult idea up in conversation again. To my surprise, no one around the table had heard of it, and they all reacted enthusiastically. I admit the possibility that the crowd was just being polite, but on the other hand maybe it’s time to polish this chestnut and put it back on display. If you’ve heard it a million times, you can stop reading now. If you haven’t…
I’m not sure if he was the first to do so, but Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman eloquently described Cargo Cults it in his 1974 Commencement Address at CalTech as an evocation of science done badly:

"In the South Seas there is a cargo cult of people. During the war they saw airplanes with lots of good materials, and they want the same thing to happen now. So they've arranged to make things like runways, to put fires along the sides of the runways, to make a wooden hut for a man to sit in, with two wooden pieces on his head to headphones and bars of bamboo sticking out like antennas--he's the controller--and they wait for the airplanes to land. They're doing everything right. The form is perfect. It looks exactly the way it looked before. But it doesn't work. No airplanes land."
The entire speech is available here if you want Feynman's context, but it's not essential to the story.
An interesting fact (but also not essential) is that Cargo Cults are real. Wikipedia has some history, and also makes the following point:

"From time to time, the term 'cargo cult' is invoked as an English language idiom, to mean any group of people who imitate the superficial exterior of a process or system without having any understanding of the underlying substance."
If you’ve ever worked on a Six Sigma deployment, this has to sound familiar. How many deployments were launched simply “because GE did it”? And how many deployment were launched just like GE did it? I’m not knocking GE – quite the opposite. But for some other organization to simply mimic what GE did in an attempt to achieve the same results they did is the worst kind of Cargo Cult behavior. Still, it happens all the time, and is still happening to this day. And as detractors are fond of pointing out, the planes don’t land.
The power of this analogy arises for three reasons. First, the Cargo Cult story is fun and very easy to tell. Second, the link between Cargo Cults and Continuous Improvements deployments is easy to recognize. And third, there are so many botched deployments out there falling prey to the fallacy of Cargo Cult thinking that your audience will immediately start nodding their heads if you bring it up in conversation.
So, there you have it: the Cargo Cult analogy. Stifle a yawn if you’ve heard it too many times before, but try it out on your friends if you haven’t. It can be strecthed and pulled in a hundred directions to illuminate a hundred different points. Unfortunately, using it to talk about Six Sigma deployments doesn't require much stretching at all.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Andrew Downard]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Sat, 28 Jun 2008 22:01:00 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Educational]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/educational.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I had the privilege recently of helping to teach lean to a group of university leaders.  I had great fun assisting with the first day of class, when we introduced basic lean concepts.  However, when my instructing partner and I looked at our plus-deltas from the day (comments about what the participants valued, and what we should change), there were some sticky-notes saying "too much material" and "went too fast" and "too much to remember."  Even though we had paced the day rather slowly, as I thought, it caused us to wonder whether we needed to restructure the day - or had we just not taught effectively?
On the second day, we got into Value Stream Mapping.  As we went through the material, topics from Day 1 kept popping up, as you would expect.  By repeating the concepts and giving specific, education-based examples, we were able to build a lot of momentum around the purpose and usefulness of Value Stream Mapping.  The plus-deltas on Day 2 showed that most people enjoyed putting the concepts to work around real-life examples.
By Day 3, when we used examples of frustrating processes to create Future State maps, the group was in full swing.  They were coming up with so many ideas to remove waste and reduce delays and hand-offs, that we were hard-pressed to keep them from going right out and implementing their suggestions.  ("Wait, you don't have enough feedback from the front-line workers yet!!!  Remember, it's JUST an exercise!!!")  The evaluation included many "plusses" and only a few "deltas."
What made the difference?  We introduced just as many new concepts the first day as we did the second and the third.  But by incorporating the tools that we'd already introduced, as we brought up new ones, we gave the group practice in "trying on" the lean approach in different ways, and finally we let them loose on real-life examples.
This experience made it clear to me that I shouldn't be judgmental when people need to hear things more than once, in order to incorporate and integrate the concepts.  I've seen many learners become anxious when they're overwhelmed with new terminology; but on the other hand, there are always some "drivers" in the audience who aren't satisfied unless you're covering each slide in about 30 seconds.  It's interesting that each group seems to have its own pace of learning.  In the educators' group, we may have gone a little too fast at first, but then they hit their stride on the second and third days.  It was fun to watch the light bulbs turn on and the enthusiasm kick in!
As usual, for every day that I'm giving instruction, I learn just about as much as I teach.  Hooray for the educational process!]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 16 Jun 2008 17:18:49 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Leadership: Right tools, Centered source]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/leadership_right_tools_centered_source.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Tools are wonderful. Have you ever tried to unscrew a Phillips head screw with a wrench?  Of course not.  The right tool is critical to the job.  Six Sigma tools are a wonderful technological advance that can transform an organization when used in the correct context.  This is undisputable. Resistance is futile.  But the ability to choose and implement the best change tool or process is not the only factor we must look for in leaders.  Certainly their analysis and skill in choosing the best tool for the situation is critical, but again this is not the end of the story.   There is another factor that in most cases will assure success of the goal.  
C. Otto Scharmer discusses this factor in an article called Uncovering the Blind Spot of Leadership.  He asks readers to question the source of the leader.  He suggests 4 kinds of listening which describe how leaders and others listen to team members when group problem solving is occurring.  Generative listening is the most effective of the four kinds because, “This level of listening requires us to access our open will—our capacity to connect to the highest future possibility that can emerge.” 
When the leader and group members are listening from this place transformation and new visions are created from the group which can then be planned and implemented for the good of the organization.  
I encourage all  Six Sigma practitioners and leaders to check this article out.  I plan to read his book on Theory U which outlines more in depth the author’s thinking on organizational development.  I think it will give leaders and others who want to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem some excellent perspective.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Stephen C. Crate]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 09 Jun 2008 12:07:26 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Who's Your Jack Welch?]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/whos_your_jack_welch.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I was privileged recently to attend the American Society for Quality's World Conference in Houston, TX.  What an energetic gathering of quality-minded people!
One topic that I heard a lot of conversation about was concern for leadership of Lean and Six Sigma.  There were many stories shared of new deployments, attempted deployments, and failed deployments.  One question that I've been asking, when I hear these accounts, is "Who was your Jack Welch?"  In other words, who was the top executive that championed the initiative over all obstacles?
Too many times, I heard that the push for Lean or Six Sigma came from middle management - not a criticism of those individuals, of course, but if top executives don't catch the fever, then the initiative can be treated as a hobby for someone down below.  When the going gets tough, it's easy to fall back on an excuse such as "Six Sigma's not working for us."  As my MBB Todd Sperl used to say, it's the difference between support and commitment.
Therefore, it was not a big surprise to read, in Michael Marx's recent post Project Failure, that the number one reason for failure of Six Sigma projects was... no management support.  I suspect that could read, instead, no top-level executive support.
So now, when I come into an oragnization that says they're "doing" Six Sigma or Lean, I ask:  "Who's your Jack Welch?"  The answer is always illuminating.
 ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Change Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Tue, 20 May 2008 07:01:33 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: The Consultant Within]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/the_consultant_within.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[The state of the US economy notwithstanding, retention of talent is a major issue across many organizations these days. Operational Excellence, Six Sigma, and related disciplines are no exception, with a lot of the mobility fueled by the same high standards for training and certification that are intended to attract folks in the first place.
Indeed, that sucking sound you hear just might be the vacuum created as Black Belts bolt one manufacturing company for another. Or perhaps they’re leaving for jobs in healthcare and finance, both of which seem to be consuming experienced practitioners at an alarming rate. And if you are in China or other similarly hot economies, that sucking sound is probably closer to the wail of a hurricane, as the best talent ricochets from employer to employer with all the subtlety of a midnight freight train.
For the organization suffering defections, there are many downsides to this churn. Consistency is hard to maintain. Standards are hard to enforce. Long-term projects and initiatives are hard to complete. Relationships suffer. Departments break down. And organization memory shrinks to a pinprick.
Priority number one in this environment is, of course, to hold on to your talent. I won’t go into that lengthy topic (others could probably do it more justice anyway), nor will I tarry for an admittedly interesting discussion about why a lot of technical folks feel the need to hop employers to get ahead  in their careers (although I do think that is a fascinating phenomenon).
Instead I want to talk about the flip-side of the phenomenon, and why it can actually be a good thing for an organization. Even the best organizations lose people sometimes, and those people are generally replaced with people from other good organizations. So there is a constant stream of people and knowledge going back and forth. All of which means that, big or small, you probably have a lot of “outside” knowledge resident in your organization. This is old news, and I’m hardly the first one to point it out. But I think its especially true of continuous improvement professionals, and in my experience there isn’t a whole lot being done about it.
This is in part due to a love affair with outside consultants. Many of us were initially trained by outside consultants, and out first instinct in new situations is to look towards them. This is a familiar mode for all involved, but is very expensive and results tend to be mixed at best. What if there was a way to get exactly the same benefits with virtually no cost and very little risk? With as much cross-fertilization as there is going on between companies these days, the best consultants are probably already colleagues just waiting to be consulted. That’s always been the case, but it is exacerbated as the flow of talent is becomes ever more fast, furious, and global.
Like I said, this is hardly an original thought. But even so, I see a lot of consultants engaged for jobs that could very well be done just as well by internal employees. The missing link is a high degree of communication and organization, especially across geography and business functions. For example, if a large company needs 5S help in a plant in Chicago, it is very easy to go out and hire a consultant. But if the company is large enough, there’s probably a distribution center in Warsaw that has already been through a 5S journey and has plenty of expertise and experience to share. The trouble is that the folks in Chicago almost never know about the people in Warsaw. And even if that connection is made, doing something about can look pretty daunting. Getting the domestic consultant in is a lot easier. It may cost more, but it is the kind of cost that the organization is used to paying. 
All of which means that in an environment where talent and experience are migrating both in and out of the organization – like they are right now in Six Sigma and related areas – having the infrastructure and processes in place to identify and leverage expertise globally is at least as important as any other task a deployment executive has. You’ve got people coming in with new skills and experience all the time, and you need to be learning from them and leveraging what they know. You can be victim to the sucking sound, or you can profit from it. Setting up to do that looks and feel a lot different than a traditional deployment, but we’re no longer living in a world where big companies don’t have Black Belts or Continuous Improvement specialists. The question isn’t whether you have them, it’s what you know about them and what are you doing with them.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Andrew Downard]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Sun, 27 Apr 2008 22:01:00 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Lean Six Sigma for Healthcare]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/lean_six_sigma_for_healthcare.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Quite a few Black Belts from manufacturing environments have told me, "I don't know anything about healthcare, but my industry is in a downturn so I'm looking for a Black Belt job in a hospital.  I figure I can pick up the lingo once I'm there."
I've also been asked to speak to Industrial and Process Engineers who wanted to learn about healthcare so they could apply for jobs in that sector.
Now, I'm in full agreement that healthcare is a hotbed of opportunity for applying Lean and Six Sigma concepts!  And I applaud people who are willing to step out of their comfort zones to try something in a new area.  So here are some tips for Process Improvement Experts seeking to transition from another industry into healthcare.
Things you should NEVER say when discussing Lean Six Sigma with healthcare providers:
1.  "Even though Lean and Six Sigma were developed in manufacturing environments, it's directly applicable to treating patients - after all, it's just like moving widgets down the assembly line!"  (Trust me - this will be perceived as an insult.)
2.  "Everyone will need to do standard work - there's no room for creativity in healthcare processes!"  (Healthcare workers pride themselves on their ability to solve problems in a creative way - lead them gently into the concept of standard work for individual tasks, first.)
3.  "We'll start by giving everyone three days of training in statistical analysis - let's begin with the nursing staff."  (The most polite thing the nurses will do is roll their eyes - anything that takes them away from providing patient care will be suspect.)
4.  "Patient Registration is an area that's non-value-added."  (Don't tell the finance department, and the caregivers who depend on registration information such as emergency contact numbers, that putting accurate information into the computer system isn't a "vital x" for their functions!)
5.  "Doctors are not customers - they're only providers."  (Whoa!  Physicians need to be treated as co-customers with patients - since doctors order tests and treatments, and interpret them on behalf of their patients - and decide which hospital to admit their patients to!)
So - there's your short course for Lean Six Sigma in Healthcare!  Can you think of anything else that should NEVER be said, in healthcare or other industries???]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Tue, 08 Apr 2008 11:37:12 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Life After Black Belt?]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/life_after_black_belt.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Today's question comes from the realm of business etiquette.  Since I didn't think Miss Manners would have the answer, I'm asking in this forum.
Traditionally, when an organization begins deployment of Six Sigma, "Black Belts" are hired, trained, and certified by their company or an outside vendor.  After some years of service, some Black Belts rotate back out into the world of operations.
When this happens, are you a Black Belt (ret)?  Former Black Belt?  Still a Black Belt, even if it's not still your official title?  If you're certified, do you still put your credentials behind your name?  Or is that just a vanity, if you're not in a Black Belt position?
Inquiring minds want to know!  If you've made the transition from a full-time Black Belt role into a different position, or know someone who has managed this move, please share your opinions &amp; experiences!  
Thanks on behalf of future former Black Belts!]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 31 Mar 2008 07:35:46 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Magic Mirror On The Wall . . .]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/magic_mirror_on_the_wall___.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[

Magic Mirror on the Wall - Why did my deployment stall?
When companies deploy Six Sigma, most have a vision of what that will mean to the organization.  It might be improved customer satisfaction, or shorter cycle time or better quality products, cost reduction, revenue growth or maybe achieving an overall culture of excellence.  Whatever the vision, there is nothing more disappointing than finding out that after years of doing everything on the "deployment to-do list," the benefits did not materialize.  
Eventually the finger pointing will start.  Were the projects not the right ones? Were the black belts not working fast enough?  What about the metrics?   Why have other companies been successful?  Leaders will want to know the answer to these and numerous other questions all leading to them to the same ultimate question which is "What is the secret to success?"
The answer is not a secret at all but only requires that the leader take a long hard look in the mirror.  Yes, the mirror will show them who is ultimately responsible.   It is them.  Whether they like it not, the success of any Six Sigma deployment is a direct reflection of the leader’s passion and engagement.   Why have they not seen this before now?  Maybe they are vampires?  I think I’ll save that thought for a Halloween blog.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Gianna Clark]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Sat, 29 Mar 2008 14:32:28 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Cash: The Biggest “Y” of All]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/cash_the_biggest_y_of_all.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[
Every Six Sigma project is (or should be) built around improving a primary process metric: the Big Y. From there, we drill down into the critical factors, as measured by the “little y’s” – if we can improve the right factors, the primary metric will improve, and we can all declare victory and move on. 
 
One frequent frustration of green and black belts is that getting resources and priority on their improvement projects is difficult, leading to long project cycle times and a sense of disappointment and anti-climax when the control phase comes to an end. It doesn’t need to be this way.
 
Which brings me to the title of this piece: Cash. Recently I read a post on a Lean discussion board in response to a question about what metrics to use in valuing lean projects. An astute poster replied: cashflow. Reduced inventory and defects, more efficient use of materials and labor, and increased throughput will all find their way to the bottom line. The cash levels of the company are one of the best ways to measure health. Conversely, if the cash situation is not improving, that should prompt an evaluation of current projects, especially if expense reduction as an explicit or implicit goal of Lean Six Sigma at the company. 
 
The financial piece of Lean Six Sigma projects is often viewed as a necessary evil by Green and Black belts – for many, the language of accounting and finance is as engaging as the finer details of two-way ANOVA with replication and blocking. Many companies don’t have activity based costing for manufacturing processes, let alone transactional ones, and the process of establishing the financial opportunity for a Lean Six Sigma effort can seem like non-value-added activity.
 

Let me suggest that Black Belts and Master Black Belts would be wise to spend time with a CFO or Controller, to understand what the business leaders are looking at to run the business. Take the time to understand the difference between the Balance Sheet and the Income Statement, Net Present Value and Internal Rate of Return, EBITDA and Cashflow. Your business leaders may in fact be paying far closer attention to these metrics than process metrics. And the next time you have to explain how your projects affect the company, you can speak the language of business – cash.
]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[James Considine]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Thu, 27 Mar 2008 08:00:00 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: House, M.D.]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/house_md.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[While flipping around the channels a while ago, I happened to catch an episode of "House."  This show, for those unfamiliar with it, features a physician in a hospital setting.  He's faced with patients who have complex and puzzling disease conditions that he must diagnosis in order to save their lives.  I was intrigued, at first.
But after watching a few episodes, I found the plot of each episode to be similar.  House is confronted with a patient who has puzzling symptoms.  He guesses one diagnosis, and makes his residents do all kinds of diagnostic tests.  Sometimes he treats on the basis of his presumptive diagnosis, and this can lead to complications.  Then, when the first guess doesn't prove correct, he makes another guess and has his residents do lots more diagnostic testing, sometimes invasive.  Again, presumptive treatment may result in adverse effects.  When the puzzle still isn't solved, he tries a third time and (you guessed it) after further diagnostic tests, he hits on the correct solution and now can give the patient the treatment they've needed all along.
This may make for compelling medical drama, but I hope my own physician has a better diagnostic track record than House seems to have.
Upon reflection, I realized that it reminded me about how we improved our business processes before we started to use Lean and Six Sigma.  Often, the leader would guess at what was wrong with a process, come up with a solution, write the memo, and then be surprised when the expected improvement didn't appear.  Sometimes, the process became even less effective.  Then, it was "back to the drawing board" and another solution from the mind of the leader would get published as a memo.  And so on.
I am very happy to have learned a more  effective method for facilitating change in the business (in my case, healthcare) environment.  With leadership commitment, engagement of the front-line workers and stakeholders, setting targets according to the customer's CTQs, analyzing the process in order to create solutions, and using statistical process control to sustain the gains, we can produce positive change that gets the organization closer to where it needs to be to remain competitive.
Will anybody ever pitch a drama to the networks that uses a Lean / Six Sigma Black Belt as its protagonist?  But then, it's not very dramatic to show someone following a proven methodology to create streamlined, effective processes, is it???]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Thu, 20 Mar 2008 12:57:46 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Achieving Lean]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/achieving_lean.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[There's a great quote from Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" that I was thinking of today, in relation to how we teach lean.  The character Malvolio says, "Be not afraid of greatness.  Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em."
So, with apologies to Will...
"Some are born lean, some achieve lean, and some have lean thrust upon 'em."
When our organization started to explore lean methods, we were informed that we would learn by doing.  No classes!  (That sure felt like having lean "thrust upon us" at the time.)  The Toyota way is to teach lean as an integral part of the job, as the tasks are learned.  In our situation, since we weren't "born lean," our sensei taught us tools and concepts throughout the first Rapid Improvement Event.  When we asked how we could learn to lead events ourselves, we were told that we would have to do hundreds of events before we could consider ourselves to be senseis.
Well, I confess - we didn't listen.  We incorporated lean concepts and tools into our classes and taught our leaders lean right along with Six Sigma.  We even renamed our Green Belts as Lean Green Belts.  We started running our own events and had many successes - some failures, but with overall effectiveness.
So although we weren't born lean, we seem to have figured out how to work toward achieving lean.
The question that I'm pondering is, how do other organizations approach this issue?  Do you teach lean concepts and tools to your employees in a classroom setting?  Or do you espouse the "learn-by-doing" philosophy?  I'm interested to find out what has worked for you.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Wed, 12 Mar 2008 17:18:50 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Lean?  or Mean?]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/lean_or_mean.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I was privileged to speak at a conference in San Francisco last weekend, sponsored by the American Society for Clinical Pathology.  The topics focused on leadership in the clinical (medical) laboratory.  After giving a presentation on 6S, I served as a panel member for questions submitted from the audience.  One of the questions asked, "What can we do when our leadership tells us we have to do Lean Six Sigma so we can cut employees from the payroll?"
Our panel, in an unrehearsed answer, all chimed in:  "That's not Lean, that's Mean!!!"
Although some hospitals have been using Lean and Six Sigma for the past several years, it's still relatively new in healthcare.  With the threat of decreasing reimbursements from national and private healthcare insurers, and increasing demand for services, you might think lean was a natural fit for improving quality while decreasing costs.  However, there were many at the conference who had experience of consultants offering to prove that they could use Lean and/or Six Sigma to decrease "the payroll burden."  In those cases, quality seemed to take a back seat to so-called productivity.
Now, my lean training didn't come directly from a Toyota sensei, but I've been informed that, at Toyota, the Toyota Production System is not used to generate layoffs; that the employees who are no longer needed in a certain part of the organization are redeployed, with some becoming dedicated to full-time quality/process improvement.
Can I ask our expert readers to weigh in on this?  What should our response be, when confronted by consultants who sell Lean (and Six Sigma) as a way to cut the payroll?  Or am I hopelessly naive, in today's environment, to think that we can retain "respect for people" as an aspect of any process improvement methodology?]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Wed, 05 Mar 2008 14:02:50 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Speaking of Six Sigma]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/speaking_of_six_sigma.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[When I'm asked to do a presentation, for corporate training or national conferences, I always try to present in a style that reflects how we practice lean six sigma.
How do you gain buy-in in any change process?  By having the group participate in the discussion or decision!  So, I add interactive segments into my presentations wherever possible.
At one conference I was caught by surprise - I thought my presentation was scheduled for 40 minutes and made my slides accordingly, but when I arrived and checked the official schedule, my time slot said 75 minutes.  Oops!  I'd already submitted my slides months before, with timing that allowed for some interactive Q&amp;A during the talk, and the handouts were already published.  What could I to a) fill the time slot while b) using the 40-minute slides I'd prepared and c) looking as if it was planned that way all along?
I decided to add interactive segments in addition to the pre-planned Q&amp;A sections.  After each part of the presentation, which focused on using 6S in the clinical (hospital) laboratory setting, I asked participants to "buddy up" in twos or threes to discuss what issues they had in their labs related to each S.  It turned out that almost every lab had a "junk room" (the better to practice sorting), cabinets and drawers that weren't labeled (the better to practice straightening), etc.  After each buddy session, I would ask the group for examples of what had been discussed.  These worthwhile conversations had the effect of energizing the group, made the time fly (and I ended right on time), and as an added bonus, my talk received high scores on the evaluation form.  I was even invited to give the presentation again at this year's conference.
Do you use a similar tactic when giving a presentation or training?  I'd love to learn about more examples from our expert speakers and trainers out there!
 ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Wed, 27 Feb 2008 14:48:06 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Is a Wait Always a Waste???]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/is_a_wait_always_a_waste.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[In healthcare, we are definitely trying to speed things up for our patients.  Billboards around our area (and maybe, around the country) promise 30 minute door-to-doc time in their Emergency Departments (EDs).  One promises no waiting to be seen by a healthcare professional!  Mini-offices are springing up in chain pharmacies, promising no waiting for minor problems.  One health system promises a "money-back" guarantee if you have an "excessive wait time."
But there are still some things in healthcare that you have to wait for, with good reason.  When you receive a medication, sometimes you have to wait for it to take effect.  If you receive a breathing treatment, it may take awhile to breathe a little easier.  When you have surgery, you usually have to wait for some healing to occur before you are sent home - even if everything else is ready for the patient to be discharged and all other medical tasks have been completed.
In these cases, the waiting periods can't be made faster - they're processes, but not processes over which we have control.  When mapping these timeframes in a lean value stream map, are they automatically wastes?  Or something else?
In the automotive industry, it takes a certain amount of time for paint to dry, but you can work on faster-drying paint.  When you are working on a process that has a wait time required for a patient to heal up, should you just skip over that part and work on a different part of the value stream?I'd like to know your thoughts on that matter, and thanks in advance for helping to clarify my thinking!]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Tue, 19 Feb 2008 14:31:47 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Banking on Risk]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/banking_on_risk.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Reacting to the last several months of turmoil in the capital markets, I want to discuss an area where Lean Six Sigma professionals who work in banking and financial services should focus their attention, acquire new skills, and start having an impact – enterprise risk.
A couple of years ago, one of my former colleagues investigated the contribution of Lean Six Sigma to shareholder value at a small group of well-known banks.  He researched public statements by these companies to quantify their self-attributed savings.  He then developed a crude expected shareholder value multiplier based on price-to-earnings ratio.  Multiplying self-attributed savings, which he assumed flow to the bottom line, by the shareholder value multiplier led my former colleague to conclude that Lean and Six Sigma created at least $4-6 billion in shareholder value for these banks.
Conventional wisdom leads me to believe that recent turmoil in the credit markets wiped out these gains.  The stock prices of many investment banks, asset managers, commercial banks, mortgage finance companies, monolines, and other major participants in structured finance are trading new two-year lows.  While each firm and industry segment has its own unique issues, weak risk management is a common storyline.
Looking ahead to the trends for 2008 and 2009, strengthening risk management practices is an imperative and a mammoth challenge for banking and financial services companies and their executives.  The global interconnectedness, complexity and volatility of capital markets necessitate a holistic, innovative approach.  Conventional practices do not stand up to the challenges in 2008 and beyond.
Exogenous Pressure
Curing the current ills will depend on fortifying balance sheets, and regulatory intervention will increase the pressure on business and operating models.  Banking and financial services firms can look forward to:

Economic uncertainty: Recent economic data and interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve Bank in the U.S. indicate an economic slowdown has begun.  Its severity and duration cannot be predicted, but banks will feel the effects of a lingering mortgage-market crisis, rising consumer credit defaults, and disruptions affecting commercial lending, structured finance products, and securitization.  Some forecasters predict future shocks, such as a decline in commodity prices or downturn in commercial lending, that further threaten banks. 
Capital boosting and cost cutting: In response to economic pressures, banking and financial services executives will continue to seek capital to fortify their balance sheets, increase their safety and soundness, and weather the economic downturn.  Many banks will pursue cost savings as part of restructuring operations, becoming more efficient, or both.  Cost cutting may be mild or severe, if a bank is facing adverse circumstances like insolvency. 
Increasing regulatory scrutiny: Regulatory are reacting to the turn of events in the capital markets in 2007.  Scrutiny of capital adequacy, liquidity, credit risk, and management practices will pick up.  Supervisory actions and matters requiring board attention will grow in number.  Contingency planning and quality assurance for safety and soundness will receive new attention, as regulators push banks to find and adopt industry best practices that safeguard against future crises. 
Questions about information and systems for risk management: Over the last decade, many firms began initiatives to implement systems that address credit, financial, and operational risk, as well as compliance with laws and regulations.  Broadly speaking, these systems are designed to ensure compliance failures are prevented or detected and managed.  The capability of these systems – looking at risk through an integrative lens – may be called into question.  Banks may be required to rethink their information systems strategies and redesign their applications for managing risk.  Likewise, information asymmetries in the capital markets may receive new attention, leading firms to question what they thought they know about collateral underlying securities, concentration risk, economic and valuation models, and accounting practices. 
Investigations, lawsuits and jawboning in the town square: The effects of mortgage defaults, credit-card delinquencies, public outcries about banking practices, stock-price volatility, and growing losses foretell banks facing a new wave of investigations by state attorneys general, shareholder lawsuits, and pressure from consumer advocates.  Stories in the press bear this out.  The open question is how loud and deafening the trends will be over the next two years.
My own background has convinced me of the need to extend the disciplines of Lean Six Sigma to processes for creating governance structures, compliance monitoring, and managing operational risk.  Perhaps banks will benefit from a higher degree of knowledge integration (e.g., transplanting gauge methods to credit risk management). 
Endogenous Defense Starts with Dialogue and Knowledge
In many respects, the current state of banking and financial services is the product of thousands of decisions about risk taking.  Clearly, reward seeking won out, and we now face a period of living through the consequences of risks not being properly managed.  Lean and Six Sigma are proven tools for optimizing reward by eliminating waste, creating capacity, and reducing variation.  Resilience and reliability are a new frontier for Lean and Six Sigma, and the focus is squarely on transforming how risk is managed.
How Lean and Six Sigma contribute to the field of risk management is a story waiting to be told.  For starters, I encourage Lean Six Sigma professionals to build the relationships, internal networks, and critical mass necessary to transplant their best practices to the risk management and compliance functions at banks and financial services firms.  In conjunction, I recommend seeking new knowledge about relevant aspects of credit, financial and operational risk, as well as regulatory trends that will weigh heavily on operating models and expenses.
Lean and Six Sigma is a knowledge-based profession, and its value comes from connecting best practices to problems, so performance can be improved.  Clearly, for banks and financial services firms, enterprise risk is a huge problem to be solved in 2008.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Charles McKinney]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Buzz/Press&nbsp;,&nbsp;Change Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;Customer Satisfaction&nbsp;,&nbsp;General&nbsp;,&nbsp;History&nbsp;,&nbsp;Innovation&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;Research]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Sun, 17 Feb 2008 10:45:47 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Getting There From Here]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/getting_there_from_here.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[It is the aim of most Continuous Improvement programs to transform the organization. Six Sigma usually attempts to do this in one of two ways:

By taking top-down approach, wherein the end state of transformation is articulated and communicated by organizational leaders, and stages and activities of the transformation are painted only in very broad strokes;
By taking a bottom-up approach, wherein the end state of transformation is either not clearly articulated or not known, but incremental activities within the transformation are planned and managed in great detail.
Of course, neither of these approaches can succeed on its own. But that doesn’t stop most organizations from trying one to the exclusion of the other. The approach chosen is often driven by the personal style of the figurehead for the transformation, which in turn is dictated by the general culture of the organization. While there are exceptions, it is rare to find a senior leader whose personal style diverges significantly from overall the organizational culture. This is for the simple reason that senior leaders typically don’t become senior leaders unless and until they learn how to fit in.
Intellectually, most people leading continuous improvement programs have the mental horsepower to figure out that neither approach works on its own. But realizing that and being able to do something about it are two different things. In my experience, leaders who are capable of giving birth to great and clear vision and rallying others to that vision are seldom equally capable of doing the detailed work necessary to actually get there. These folks can state with great conviction and clarity where we need to be a year from now, but they have no ability to describe what has to happen tomorrow and the next day and the day after that…eventually leading to the goal. They understand the destination, but not the route.
On the other hand, those who revel in the detail and are capable of writing the detailed plan to arrive at the destination are seldom equally capable of conceiving of and articulating a vision that will rally the organization. They understand the route, but not the destination.
The solution to this dilemma is clear: both skill sets are required, both things need to be done. You can’t choose one approach or the other of the two listed above, you need elements of both to succeed. We all know this. But doing it is excruciatingly difficult. It is very tough for a single individual to function equally well on both ends of the spectrum, and even tougher to put together a pairing or small group that does so.
I suspect many of you reading this will disagree with me, perhaps point out that all you need is a well rounded team of individuals with compensating strengths and weaknesses. But I just don’t see that happening very often, if ever, in real life. What I want to know is…why. Given that the solution isn’t hard to comprehend, why is it so difficult to make it happen?]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Andrew Downard]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Change Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Sat, 26 Jan 2008 22:01:00 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: A Control Phase for Lean]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/a_control_phase_for_lean.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[My healthcare organization uses a version of Lean Six Sigma that may be familiar to some of you.
First, project definition through hoshin kanri (enterprise value stream mapping and value stream analysis).
Define - VOC, CTQs, and performance specifications.
Measure - Value Stream Mapping with analysis of data.
Analyze - Waste Walk, Spaghetti Mapping, and statistical analysis where appropriate.
Lean - Improvenent through Rapid Improvement or Kaizen events
Control/Sustain - Accountability for the WWW and weekly Process Owner meetings to ensure that the new process is stable and meeting targets.
The last phase is usually found to be the hardest.  We've gone through several evolutions trying to find the best way to follow up on projects, bearing in mind the resources needed to continually collect data and also the need to help Process Owners and Black Belts stay sane.
Early learning:  don't get carried away in the control phase with identifying data collection at every process step.  Select the 2 - 5 key variables to monitor; Process Owners are not going to be able to maintain a 25-point data collection plan in an environment where all data is manually collected from charts, paper records, or computer files.
Also:  use more than one method to track success.  We started with the dashboard approach - red, yellow, green - and found that some people tended to make snap judgments about the success or failure of a project.  We now combine the dashboard with a trend analysis to show ongoing improvement after the rapid improvement event.
Are there any more learnings that you would like to share from your own organization, to help your improved processes to sustain their gains?]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Sat, 26 Jan 2008 07:59:22 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Textron CEO on Six Sigma]]></title>
			<link>http://www.sixsigmacompanies.com/archive/textron_ceo_on_six_sigma.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[USA Today reporter Del Jones interviews Textron CEO Lewis Campbell. This is an outstanding Q&amp;A session with a CEO who knows Six Sigma.  Finally, a mainsteam media outlet that goes right to the source for information about the success of Six Sigma.
Nine tough questions, nine solid answers.  I especially liked the final question about QualPro’s S&amp;P 500 “study”.  Mr. Campbell hinted we should do a Six Sigma project on that study…I bet even if we did an MVT study on the Six Sigma study we’d find holes…but, I digress.
Textron is in its fifth year of a corporate-wide Six Sigma initiative, and yet, CEO Lewis Campbell still says they are “maybe 30 yards down a 100-yard football field. We’re going all the way.”
This interview is a powerful read and will give a company thinking about Six Sigma a few words to the wise:  

“A mistake companies make is they don’t aim projects at solving problems for the last time or create some bodacious way to satisfy customers better than anyone else.”
“You can also use it (Six Sigma) to help your customers eliminate waste, although I would caution not to do that when launching a program. We’re mature enough to do that now.”
“I believe everybody wants to do a better job tomorrow than they did yesterday.”
Textron gets Six Sigma right in word and deed.  Now go spread that word. 
Executive Suite: Textron CEO zeroes in on Six Sigma, USA Today, January 21, 2008]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Michael Marx]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Tue, 22 Jan 2008 10:06:55 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Lean on Me]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/lean_on_me.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[We graduated another Lean Six Sigma class last week.  Our version of Lean Six Sigma is based on the DMAIC structure and Lean tools that works well in our healthcare organization, and this was our 8th class since October 2006.
Just before we handed out the certificates for course completion, the hospital President who took the class said, "I have an activity that I'd like to do at this point."  Of course I said, sure!  I thought he wanted to give the class a little pep talk about completing the course or something similar.
It turned out that he modified the lyrics to the Bill Withers song, and sang them with the class of 45 providing the chorus.  Sample -
When - you get turned down - at a wedding for the Poke Yoke dance, LEAN ON ME
When - your spouse or significant other - drives you to your upper control limit, LEAN ON ME
If - you think the black belts have invited you to an Italian dinner - and you find it's spaghetti mapping, LEAN ON ME
If - you think you're going to meet Leonard Nimoy - and all you get is a SIPOC, LEAN ON ME
There were about 15 more verses.  Needless to say, the entire class went into hysterics of laughter.  The fact that one of our hospital Presidents had taken the time to put Lean Six Sigma lyrics to a song - and then sing it to the class - spoke volumes about his commitment, and engaged the entire group in a way that was meaningful to all.  And, a lot of fun as well!
President Joe Tasse of St. John Macomb-Oakland Hospital made our certificate ceremony one that will stay in our memories for a long time!]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 14 Jan 2008 15:38:47 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: A quality bubble?]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/a_quality_bubble.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Gianna Clark notes that several hundred companies began their Six Sigma journeys about seven years ago. 
Is Six Sigma the quality equivalent of a stock market bubble? Are we cheerleaders of an irrational exuberance where performance economics do not match the hype we create? Is Six Sigma on the verge of becoming the next TQM - run over by advances in technology and easier approaches to improving performance? ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Charles McKinney]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Buzz/Press&nbsp;,&nbsp;Change Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;Conferences&nbsp;,&nbsp;Customer Satisfaction&nbsp;,&nbsp;General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Government&nbsp;,&nbsp;Guest Blog&nbsp;,&nbsp;History&nbsp;,&nbsp;Innovation&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology&nbsp;,&nbsp;Podcasts&nbsp;,&nbsp;Research]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Sat, 12 Jan 2008 12:32:57 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Downgrading the applicability of Six Sigma]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/downgrading_the_applicability_of_six_sigma.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[In a recent blog at Harvard Business School Press Online, Tom Davenport challenges the applicability of Six Sigma. You can read his post at http://discussionleader.hbsp.com/davenport/. 
Coming from anyone else, a statement that Six Sigma "should only be used in product manufacturing, where the idea of reducing defects to one in six standard deviations really makes sense" might be dismissed out of hand. But Davenport has credibility as an expert on business process management and information technology.
Perhaps he’s right, and Six Sigma should be viewed as one among several toolkits to embed statistical methods and scientific thinking in managerial practices.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Charles McKinney]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Buzz/Press&nbsp;,&nbsp;General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology&nbsp;,&nbsp;Research]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Sat, 12 Jan 2008 12:21:54 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Verisimilitude]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/verisimilitude.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I can save you the trouble of reading the blog entry below. I realize you are very busy. Here’s a summary:

Communications in the business world rely heavily on PowerPoint-style summaries.
At best, summaries omit crucial information and context present in the work being summarized.

Without this context, conclusions have to be accepted on faith.
At worst, summaries attempt to mask the fact that there is no foundational work to summarize in the first place.

This is usually an indication that the topic being summarized has not been explored with much enthusiasm, rigor, or depth.
PowerPoint-style summaries should be treated with great caution.
You’re welcome.
Business communications these days rely heavily on PowerPoint-style summaries. I can’t speak to non-business oriented bureaucracies, but I suspect the same is true of many of these organizations as well. Other, greater thinkers than me have already eviscerated PowerPoint as a cognitive tool (get yourself a copy of Tutfe’s essay The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint here, or read a bit about it here if you don’t want to spent the $7)
I don’t have much to add on that subject. But I do want to weigh in on what I perceive (anecdotally) to be a growing trend towards "high level" summarization of complicated subjects. And even though I already said I didn’t want to talk about PowerPoint, it’s almost impossible not to. PowerPoint is chicken to the egg of high level summaries prepared as bulleted lists.
The good news about well-prepared summaries are that they can distill a lot of complicated information down into a few concise, statements. Done well, this can turn voluminous data into relevant information, and relevant information into good decisions. But even when this is the case, more data and information is lost than retained. That has to be the case, otherwise the summary is useless. And unless the author is also the audience for the summary (which, outside of studying, is seldom the case), the process of summarization requires a whole string of subjective decisions that are not being made by those who require the output of the summary.
There are two problems with this. First, the reasoning behind those subjective decisions is seldom captured. Indeed, there may not even be any reasoning behind what stays and what goes. Which may or may not be okay, but failing to make the subjective reasoning explicit surely isn’t. Second, in the business world, summaries are almost always presented "up", which means the author of the summary usually has a vested interest in presenting "good" information. Summaries provide an excellent opportunity to do this, since they demand leakage of information. If 90% of the news is rain, it is possible to create a wholly accurate summary that is exclusively sunshine. Sometimes that isn’t just possible, it is required.
With both problems, the foundational issues is that a summary usually presents information devoid of the context and reasoning used to create the summary in the first place. This works well when the presenter and the audience are very much aligned in their thinking, or the basic assumptions required to create the summary are well-understood and agreed-upon. But these conditions are almost never satisfied, and when they aren’t summaries have to be taken on faith. In hierarchical organizations where “good” conclusions are rewarded, that’s a mighty scary prospect.
An even bigger problem is the growing number of "summaries" that masquerade as concentrated distillate, but don’t actually summarize anything at all. These PowerPoint decks inevitably state conclusions that seem to be commonalities teased from many observations, or numbers that appear to be statistics describing vast, carefully sampled populations. But ask a single question, scratch just below the surface, and you quickly find out that the surface is all there is. There is nothing being summarized at all.
Infinitely worse than the problems described above, this means that there was no context to be lost in the first place, no additional information to be omitted. No study has been conducted, no report prepared, no decisions made about what does and does not belong in the summary. There is just a series of semi-connected bullet points which, having been typed in PowerPoint and dimmed with each mouse click, inexplicably acquire a patina of veracity. There is an old word for this: verisimilitude. There’s a new one, too: truthiness.
Summaries are not inherently bad. Indeed, with the volume of information available in the business world today, summaries are often required for survival. When thoughtfully prepared and well-explained, summaries are a gift from the heavens to those drowning in data. But they almost never are, and it’s worth taking a step back now and then to think about what isn’t being included. Many times, the information left out, and the reasons for it’s omission, are just as interesting and informative as the summary itself.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Andrew Downard]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Tue, 01 Jan 2008 22:01:00 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Six Sigma for Leadership Development]]></title>
			<link>http://www.sixsigmacompanies.com/archive/six_sigma_for_leadership_development.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Gail Farnsley is the CIO at Cummins. She is also a Green Belt using her Six Sigma skills tackle a leadership development project she dreamed up.  She is hoping to use Six Sigma to identify and develop employees with potential to move into IT management.  Specifically, management that reports directly to her. 






Farnsley has realized what too many IT managers haven’t: What makes a good IT manager has changed, and IT departments aren’t preparing people for the new demands. "It’s more than an execution job," she says. An IT manager today has to be a business partner and has to have international, compliance, and even Six Sigma experience. "We weren’t pushing our people to have those skills," she says.

Read more about her project in the article and Q&amp;A session on InformationWeek.com.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Michael Marx]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 17 Dec 2007 16:28:32 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Elevating strategic relevance: Understand and inform strategy implementation]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/elevating_strategic_relevance_understand_and_inform_strategy_implementation.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[My last blog discussed elevating the strategic relevance of Lean, Six Sigma and process excellence.  My view is that mature Process Excellence Organizations enjoy or achieve credibility and success by executing a flexible performance-improvement process—attacking the top priorities, employing the best tools, selecting the right projects and leveraging organizational momentum.  The first thing mature Process Excellence Organizations do well is informing strategy setting and implementation (beginning with their own understanding of their enterprise’s strategy).
The most successful process improvement professionals are proactive rather than reactive about understanding and discussing strategy.  Executive level process excellence leaders share in common an understanding of the competitive position of their companies, options to shape competitiveness, and critical factors for success.  Further, these individuals understand the mechanics of a strategic management process and dynamics of organizational behavior that affect managerial commitment to change, execution against a plan, and responsiveness to opportunities and threats.
Positioning of the Process Excellence Organization determines its access to inform strategy setting and implementation.  Commitment from the COO to deploy best practices, for example, is more likely to result in Lean and Six Sigma becoming strategic levers, embedded in an organization’s culture and practice, than localized, bottom-up advocacy by a business unit executive, shared services leader or plant manager.  Yet unless market pressure, a crisis or some other impetus motivates a senior executive team to broadly rely on Lean and Six Sigma, Process Excellence Organizations must demonstrate credibility through their recommendations to improve performance and their track record of delivering returns to their companies.
Lean and Six Sigma professionals may ask how they are to shape strategy setting and implementation, if they lack access to regularly advise and influence senior leaders at their companies—the CEO, COO, CFO and especially the senior vice presidents in charge of business units, operations and technology.  Starting from their current base of deployment, Process Excellence Organizations should position themselves to identify and focus on strategically aligned opportunities for Lean and Six Sigma.
My assertion may not be fruitful in bureaucratic organizations—such as government institutions where the pace of change is slow, and status quo prevails.  At other companies the Process Excellence Organization can influence strategy. There is the annual planning cycle, where Lean and Six Sigma can inform the definition of change initiatives and funding of these projects, as well as progressive reduction of sales, general and administrative expenses.  Second, Process Excellence Organizations can bring a unique perspective to dialogue about longer-term strategies and programs.
Process Excellence Organizations can influence strategy because the strategic decision-making is ambiguous, dynamic and often chaotic.  Academics frame strategic planning as a formal process of answering three questions: (1) What does the business do?  (2) Form whom does it do these things?  (3) How does the business excel?  And the process has stages: evaluating the current situation, defining goals, mapping a route to achieve these goals, and monitoring implementation.  In a formal sense, the stages of strategic planning are not unlike the Deming lifecycle of planning, doing, studying and acting.  In practice, though, strategic planning is a communicative process, and strategies emerge from the habits and behaviors of organizations and their managers.  Executive dialogue, shareholder concerns, customer interactions, supplier dynamics, labor relations, information technologies, managerial fads all interact to form the content of strategy and direction of execution.
As an aside, I encourage anyone interested in sociological and behavioral approaches to strategy to look into research focusing on strategy as practice.  Over the last three decades, strategy research has tended to focus increasingly on organizational strategies as opposed to the activities of people in organizations as they define, elaborate, and implement strategies.  In contrast, strategy as practice is concerned with issues of practice within organizational contexts.  Lancaster University’s Management School is a good source of information about strategy as practice.
Start with the basics
Much is written about Lean and Six Sigma as tools for cost reduction.  More recently, the exploits of Starwood, Procter and Gamble, Capital One, and others highlight their relevance to innovation.  In terms of basic strategies, companies have three options, according to Michael Porter and others: low-cost production, differentiation, or some combination of the two.
Low cost production is a familiar paradigm among Lean and Six Sigma professionals in manufacturing, consumer products, healthcare, retail and service, and financial services industries.  Every industry has its favorite measures of efficiency: funding costs as a percentage of portfolio size for a mutual fund, percent of seats sold per airline flight, gross margin for product categories, etc.  Lean and Six Sigma professionals are familiar with the notion that reducing defects or eliminating cycle time can improve operating metrics, and these metrics contribute to the enablers of low cost production (e.g., economies of scale).
Differentiation is less familiar, especially for those of us who have focused on reducing variance of a distribution instead of shifting a mean.  Innovation is one way to differentiate.  Apple Computer is the most interesting, popular case study of innovation in the business literature today.  Another example is Proctor and Gamble’s shared services business unit.  After four years of successful cost cutting, Proctor and Gamble is now focused on managing its shared services as a business—figuring that exploiting core competencies in brand management and aligning delivery with marketing strategies can create sources of differentiation.  Whereas efficient production and processes are appropriable, strategies of differentiation are hard to craft and implement.
Corporate strategies are never as simple as low cost production or differentiation.  Rather, they emerge from the structures, habits and power in industries and at companies.  A few companies do well at managing strategy.  Most other are stuck in the middle—including companies with a significant investment in Lean and Six Sigma training and deployment.
A process excellence paradox highlights why understanding strategy is important—starting with the basics to develop a perspective on an enterprise’s current competitive position and future outlook.  The paradox goes something like this: Lean and Six Sigma have potential to raise any company to industry leader status, but too often returns on investing in process excellence are measured in six and seven figures instead of payback multiples greater than 20:1.  Pulling process excellence out of a rut and companies ahead in their industry has to be an exercise in strategic execution.
Institute disciplines to understand strategy
Efforts to understand strategy need to be disciplined, more than informal or one-off conversations.  Depending on the potential of the process excellence organization, many tools are available to understand strategies and their implementation at companies.  If formalizing disciplines to understand strategy is new, my advice is to start with a brown-bag discussion of your company within the process excellence organization or among its professionals and key business partners.  Things to cover include the economics of your firm’s industry, the external environment in which your company operates, and the internal capabilities of your firm.
The discussion should focus on understanding current state and future direction of the company at three levels of strategy: enterprise, business units and functions.  Leverage of Lean and Six Sigma tools is most often part of functional strategies, such as a multiyear plan to transform the operations and technology of a company or expand plant infrastructure in an overseas location.  Finding opportunities to have strategic impact depends on plans for the company and its business units.
These discussions do not need to produce a specific deliverable, but should factor into deployment planning and performance measurement for process excellence.  A number of frameworks can assist strategy discussions and create segues to efforts to evangelize, measure and govern process excellence.  One of my favorites is McKinsey’s “Star” or “7S” framework because it offers a holistic context in which to examine strategy implementation.
Accumulate knowledge from staff and line functions
By signaling its interest in understanding strategy, process excellence organizations may accumulate sufficient knowledge of strategy from their own professionals, colleagues in business areas and executive sponsors.  In my experience, Lean and Six Sigma advocates are willing to share knowledge and generous with information.  Though it never hurts to cast a wide net for knowledge and reach out to unlikely sources.
 Here are a few places to look:

Strategic planning: Many large companies have a strategic planning function, and a Chief Strategy Officer is becoming fashionable.  Often staffed by ex-management consultants, strategic planning departments provide analysis and advice to senior management about competitive positioning of the company.  While these departments may guard their work, they can facilitate building mind share with senior executives.
Corporate development: If your company relies on mergers and acquisitions to grow and compete, the team in charge of corporate development may provide a forward-looking perspective on the company, and assist tactical positioning of the process excellence organization.  Post-acquisition integration is a driver of strategic risk, and this is an area where Lean and Six Sigma can add value.
Corporate planning, budgeting and finance: These functions manage the multiyear and annual process of budgeting for programs, initiatives and operations.  Corporate planning functions can provide information about the efficiency of the company and performance of internal firm capabilities (e.g., operating metrics and ratios).  Information from the corporate planning department can be instrumental and is often necessary to sell a deployment strategy and benefits tracking process to senior management.
Financial engineering and modeling: Not all companies employ financial engineers or utilize financial modeling outside the strategic planning department.  At banks, insurance companies and firms with complex balance sheets, financial engineering disciplines can provide knowledge about the esoteric aspects of corporate finance that impact financial health and shareholder value.  Expertise in corporate finance is a weakness for most process excellence organizations that plan to market Lean and Six Sigma to finance departments.
Market research: Market research departments review secondary data, conduct original studies, and use qualitative methods to understand market and customer requirements.  Their work is a sophisticated voice of customer process, so market research managers can provide unique information about how markets and customers perceive a company.  Obtaining input from the market research department can assist with framing your understanding of market-facing strategies and opportunities to improve customer-facing processes.
Information technology: In companies that rely on information (most organizations today), the information technology architecture, program management office and database administration functions can provide useful information about problems with technology that limit internal firm capabilities.  In my experience with Six Sigma, data quality is an overlooked area that holds real potential for having strategic impact on cost and customer satisfaction.
Internal audit: Internal audit departments have a deep understanding of internal capabilities gained from rotational audits of all parts of a company.  Reaching out to an internal audit director requires sensitivity to matters of professional independence.  An internal auditor’s perspective on planning and control systems can provide useful information about governance, risk and compliance constraints that will impact opportunity identification and project selection.
Human resources: Many human resources departments cover organizational development and performance management.  Human resources managers who specialize in these areas can provide useful information about how raising employee satisfaction, reducing turnover and generally improving human capital will boost company performance.
These are a few areas where conversations about strategy may yield unexpected insight.  When reaching out, it’s important to frame discussions with these areas.  Asking focused questions, gathering perspectives, and testing impressions of a company’s strategy are the right level for these discussions.  If opportunities for Lean and Six Sigma come up, capture them in a pipeline of future projects and carry forward the discussion to deployment when the time is right.
Inform strategy through ideas for process excellence
The most successful process excellence organizations guide themselves with a deployment plan and through a governance process.  Some companies charter a management committee to decide where to apply Lean and Six Sigma and monitor realization of benefits.  In addition to promoting rigorous project selection, formal governance offers a forum in which to discuss strategies and influence big decisions.  Process excellence organizations with a bottom-up or less formal structure may want to pitch senior executives on possibilities for the company – pilot projects that may lead to strategic initiatives or higher impact participation of Lean and Six Sigma in ongoing initiatives.
To prepare for these discussions, the process excellence organization needs to synthesize its understanding of the company’s strategy.  One approach is to prepare an aide memoir that documents the following:

Industry and company facts
Key financial and operating metrics
Industry facts and analysis
Assessment of internal firm capabilities
Overviews of key company strategies and initiatives
Opportunities for process excellence
Key success factors for deployment
An aide memoir can take on many forms, and it should guide marketing and governance of Lean and Six Sigma deployment within a company.  To prepare an aide memoir, opportunities for process excellence need to be defined and mapped to company strategies and initiatives.  In this respect, one purpose of an aide memoir is to serve as the foundation of a marketing plan.
Ideation of opportunities is perhaps the most critical and actionable part of understanding and informing strategy.  In my experience, the most successful process excellence organizations use tacit or explicit methods to define opportunities to further implementation of strategy through Lean, Six Sigma and other best practices.  One approach is to set aside time for brainstorming at key points after conversations about strategy with business partners in a company.  The purpose of these sessions is to creatively tackle problems facing the company where Lean and Six Sigma can add value.  Another is to use nominal group techniques to structure similar discussions and to conduct a concurrent review of project opportunities in the pipeline.
Informing strategy depends on ideas from the process excellence organization.  In fact, informing strategy is continuous, subconscious and played out through the marketing, selling, execution and measurement of Lean and Six Sigma projects.  Bringing opportunities to the project selection process that are informed by an understanding of corporate strategy will help the process excellence organization create mindshare with senior management and build credibility through its focus on solving the most relevant problems through Lean and Six Sigma.
The deployment plan is a cornerstone of execution by the process excellence organization.  My next blog will cover deployment, starting with the early activities of marketing and selling process excellence.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Charles McKinney]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Change Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;Customer Satisfaction&nbsp;,&nbsp;General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Government&nbsp;,&nbsp;Innovation&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Sun, 25 Nov 2007 18:18:21 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Team Excellence]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/team_excellence.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I have had the fortune to serve twice on the ASQ's International Team Excellence Awards judging panel.  It's not the entries that I want to talk about, but the experience of serving on the panel.
The details of the competition and the criteria are posted on the ASQ website, www.asq.org.  When I volunteered to serve as a judge, I was looking for a professional development opportunity - and to be honest, to try to understand the criteria fully in case we ever wanted to submit a team ourselves.
The criteria are very clearly spelled out - and during breaks in our judges' training session, I started to think about our own teams.  My organization has done quite a few Lean Rapid Improvement Events and Six Sigma projects.  And the very first criteria had me questioning whether we couldn't improve the quality of our own teams by using the criteria as guidelines - not rules to slavishly follow, but issues to check as we moved forward with our future teams.
1.  Explain the methods used to choose the project.
     a.  Describe the types of data and quality tools used to select the project, and why they were used.
     b.  Explain the reasons why the project was selected.
     c.  Describe the involvement of potential stakeholders in project selection.
In the past, we didn't involve our stakeholders in project selection.  Now, you may be laughing because you have ALWAYS involved your stakeholders, but when we started we just picked the topics that people complained about the most.  As we have moved from a project-based approach to a philosophy of Lean Six Sigma in operations, we have gotten better at this, but it was definitely something we had to learn to do!
So in addition to finding out how to use the criteria to judge the team entries, I took home a new appreciation for just how many areas we need to focus on to ensure a good team experience, as well as a good project outcome.
I encourage team leaders to check the criteria, if they haven't already, to see whether some of the items could be helpful in guiding your next project endeavor.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Thu, 15 Nov 2007 11:12:41 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Organizing Concepts]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/organizing_concepts.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[A conversation I regularly get into involves discussion of the difficulties encountered when deploying Six Sigma in an environment that is already saturated with other programs and toolsets. A majority percentage of the time the discussion is about deploying Six Sigma in an area where Lean is already well established, but there are many other variations out there.
Certainly it is possible to create conditions where Six Sigma plays nicely with other disciplines. First order combinations like Lean Sigma and its many variants are an example of this. So are higher order hybrids, like Design for Lean Six Sigma Using Triz. And from an intellectual perspective, there is a lot of appeal to this approach. If you think about it hard enough, there are significant synergies to be explored and interesting combinations to be leveraged.
But from a practical perspective, I’m not so sure. For my money, a significant amount of the value of a program like Six Sigma comes from its ability to function as an organizing concept. It gives the organization something to rally around. It crystallizes diverse thoughts and aligns what might otherwise be diverse efforts as improvement. Six Sigma has value simply as an excuse to get everyone thinking about problems in the same way. Diverse groups come together through training programs to have prolonged discussions about approaches to problem solving. Results (and lack thereof) start to get visibility. Executives take an interest. People on the shop floor get involved. Everyone goes on the journey together. Even if you don’t think that the content of Six Sigma is useful, the cohesion of thought and action it produces clearly has value.
The thing is, this is true of almost any program properly deployed. Lean will certainly do it. Numerous safety programs do it. Good business transformation initiatives do it. Implementation of major systems like SAP or Oracle do it. Assuming you can execute, the one thing you need to get this sort of benefit is a simple, compelling organizing concept. Or to put it more colloquially, you need an approach. The simpler and more persuasive, the better.
If you buy this line of thinking – that a large part of the value of any particular organizational program lies in the fact that it is a program at all, not in its content – then the question of how to deploy multiple overlapping programs becomes easy to answer. Don’t do it. If you already have an organization succeeding with Lean, don’t mess with it by deploying Six Sigma on top. You’ve got your organizing concept. Adding another program on top (or even worse, visibly switching to the new program from the old one) can do nothing but detract from that focus. Simpler is better in terms of rallying a group around a way of thinking, even if there really are synergies to be explored through more complicated approaches.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not suggesting that new toolsets and approaches shouldn’t be added in over time, and that new techniques shouldn’t constantly be considered. But I am suggesting that moving too far away from an organizing concept that is already working well is a mistake to be avoided.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Andrew Downard]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Thu, 08 Nov 2007 22:01:00 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Feedback, Schmeedback]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/feedback_schmeedback.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[When my fellow Black Belts and I facilitate, or teach, we ask the participants to give us feedback at the end of each session.  We use the plus-delta format that we inherited from our original consultants, by dividing a flip-chart page into two columns for the "plusses" (things that worked well, were meaningful, or strengths) and the "deltas" (things that didn't work well, could be improved, or were weaknesses.
By now, we've collected so many of these plus-delta flip charts that we can almost predict the outcomes on both sides.  Plusses are things like fast pace, kept to schedule, good exercises, good team interaction, the food.  Deltas are things like room too hot, room too cold, could have been done in a shorter time, needed more time, the food.
Initially, the plus-deltas were very informative and we learned a lot about what participants liked and disliked.  Many of us modified our style based on the feedback, and we made revisions to the structure of our classes and the presentations in our project meetings.
After all this time, it's tempting to say, "I know what will come up on the plus-delta so I'm not going to bother to do them any more."
There are still a couple of good reasons to keep doing the plus-deltas, though.
One is, that asking for feedback and comments is a team-building activity, especially when we return the favor in the next session and talk about the comments (without defending or excusing as a form of response!).
Another is, that even in the midst of the familiar feedback, there may be a grain or two of truth to be gleaned that no-one else has thought to mention.  If we didn't ask for the participants' thoughts, we might miss an insight into something that could have a major beneficial impact as a result.
Also, we as facilitators should practice what we preach.  "Don't assume that you know what your customers want without asking them!"  So we should model the behavior.
A last comment - now that we can, in most cases, guess what most of the comments will be, we are trying to improve our quality by asking for the comments "in real time."  For example, giving us a delta that there were too many sidebar conversations, at the end of the day, can't help us to correct that situation.  So now we may make a suggestion at the beginning of the session that if a team member has any feedback about the content, pace, or team interaction, that the comment or suggestion be shared right away.  In this way, we can get consensus from the team about the need to adapt, and we can solve any problem quickly before it distracts other people on the team.
We still plan to continue using the plus-deltas; looking on them as a source of VOC has helped us to realize their on-going value.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Thu, 08 Nov 2007 14:57:49 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: The Pause that Refreshes?]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/the_pause_that_refreshes.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Some of our Black Belts were talking the other day about how many projects they've got going, and (in spite of focusing our projects on specific value streams) how they sometimes feel pretty fragmented, getting pulled from project to project.
We discussed whether it would be reasonable to pause for a short while, to ensure that project follow-up is being completed and all the t's have been crossed and the i's dotted, within a particular value stream or project area.Our Black Belts are training our Process Owners as we go - project by project - and sometimes the POs need extra help to get the data collection and monitoring going.  In our healthcare organization, much of the data is collected manually by chart review or observation, so it's a little more cumbersome than pulling reports off of the computer (although, granted, that has its own MSA issues!).
We've been pushing the Black Belts to complete a certain number of projects each month, and sometimes it seems as if the goal of quantity is overshadowing that of quality.
I wonder whether this same feeling is familiar to Black Belts at other organizations, or are we unique?
I'd appreciate any comments you'd like to share!
 ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 08 Oct 2007 14:09:45 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: 12 Angry Men (1957)]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/12_angry_men_1957.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[
The first time I watched Sidney Lumet’s 12 Angry Men (1957) was four years back, at a Six Sigma leadership workshop. We were only 3 days into a two week long training, and some of us were already stretched to optimal stress levels. Being a bit more of an action buff, and being after a buffet lunch when training resumed I thought I’d grab extra coffee just in case. Little did I know a few years down the road I would have watched this movie a few more times.
Except for a bathroom break scene almost the entire movie takes place in the jury room. The film starts off in a relaxed manner- except for Henry Fonda most of the jurors are more than eager to vote and ‘get out of here....’. Tension and conflict increases as the story unfolds. I read in a web article Sidney Lumet used wide angle lens at the beginning of the movie but the cameras closes up as the movie progresses thus creating that claustrophobic feel. Rain and the sweat of the afternoon add to the effect too.
12 jurors- 12 totally different contrasting characters- the big arrogant bully, the thinker, the wise, the amiable, the persistent and persuasive, the follower, placed in conflict; read ‘corporate world’ please. No wonder this film is a favorite case study in corporate trainings. Straight and engrossing. No special effects, but plain tight intense acting. Tough guy Lee J. Cobb delivers the last jury vote in classic style. Henry Fonda’s character, Juror Number 8, reminds me of the Six Sigma guy- alone in opinion at the beginning, but having the facts separated from perception. Along the movie, he craftily tackles the different social styles of the competition and challenges their opinion. This character teaches a thing or two about staying focused on course and not buckling under pressure. The best scenes are the moments of buy-in as the camera zooms in on each character.
I would say, Results= Persistence + Buy-in!]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Vincent Chin]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Tue, 25 Sep 2007 10:45:49 -0800</pubDate>
		</item>

		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Hands of the Customer]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/hands_of_the_customer.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[We're used to seeking the Voice of the Customer in the Define phase of our projects.  Typically (at least at our organization) we haven't asked, "How much of this process can we pass on to you?"
This topic usually comes up when we teach a lean exercise in which the Voice of the Customer is supposed to rule.  We use a scenario where we prepare trays of beverages in cups for our customer.  The cups must be placed into the trays, a lid attached, and an unwrapped straw inserted.  The longest step (which we use to teach takt time and level loading) is always the straws - unwrapping them and placing them into the lids takes the greatest effort.  Someone usually says, "Why can't we make the customer do it - just like [insert favorite fast-food restaurant name here]?"
We have a great conversation about this - how pass-on-to-the customer has worked for beverages, because usually it's a win for us as customers.  We can mix-n-match our drinks, add just the right amount of ice, and even get a refill before going out the door.  And, it gives us something to do while we're waiting.  When wouldn't it work?  With a mobility-limited customer, maybe.  In any case, the question prompts a good discussion.
In healthcare, we're trying out some of these scenarios in a variety of ways - self-registration over the internet, for example.  We can also envision asking patients to select their dietary needs on a computer, self-schedule inpatient X-rays, or (given a medication schedule) check with their care-givers if they think they're missing a dose of their meds.
We haven't asked the specific question, "How much of the process do you want to do yourself?" - yet - but maybe we should add this to our usual VOC questionnaire.
What do you think?]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Customer Satisfaction&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Tue, 18 Sep 2007 07:08:32 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Lets be Pragmatic]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/lets_be_pragmatic.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I believe Deming may have said something in this area, but given I couldn’t find a famous quote I made one up.

80% of business issues come from the process and only 20% from the people who work at the business
If someone told me that, I’d say, No! Look at the things people do that cause no end of cost and impact on a business.

Not returning messages or only half-answering questions
Not investing time in communications
Not seeing a strategy through to completion
Not having a strategy in the first place
Not making decisions or making them too late
Not taking responsibility for the customer
Not taking ownership of the process
You get the idea……
The fact the process fails seems to be the end-result of poor leadership, planning, and execution. It seems wrong to blame the process when 5-whys can rapidly get back to the root-cause. Let me touch on one aspect of this people-dimension. 
You may have heard of business buzzword bingo, you may have even played it in meetings with words and phrases like “Absolutely”, “Mission Critical” and “On boarding”. But the phrase that fills me with dread is “Lets Be Pragmatic”. 
I have no problem with pragmatism and sign-up wholeheartedly to being pragmatic. As the dictionary says, “of or pertaining to a practical point of view or practical considerations”. You would be hard-pressed to find someone in business that claimed to be anything other than pragmatic. It’s the non-dictionary definitions that trouble me, the hidden meanings people have like:

I don’t like taking risks
Our focus should be on the next quarters results
My incentive plan is more important
Major improvements always fail
I do not support this solution
Of course in business it is good to have balance and sceptics drive-out holes in a solution. But get the balance wrong and you end-up with a business that can’t deliver change and can’t react to customer demands. The business becomes paralysed into inaction or makes seemingly random and half-hearted attempts to change.
I think there are times when we should dream, push the envelope, be radical, take risks, look beyond the here and now, see it from the customer’s point of view. Lean Six Sigma puts you at the vanguard of business change and it is our duty to be bold and square up to the fake pragmatists.
 ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Robin Barnwell]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Change Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 17 Sep 2007 07:36:25 -0800</pubDate>
		</item>

		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Voice of the Customer]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/voice_of_the_customer.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Like many organizations, ours began their Six Sigma deployment with a consultant-based training and project mentorship.  We were successful at internalizing the training, and we've used a value-stream approach to selecting improvement projects, but the process owners never seemed to be the ones to light the fire - most wait to be tapped on the shoulder and told there was a project planned in their area.  We realized that we were in danger of having a passive, Black-Belt-driven approach become our standard.
Through a lot of discussion by our Master Black Belt to bring that issue to our leaders' attention, we've redesigned our Green Belt coursework to focus on tools for improvements that process owners can do even outside of a formal project structure (although we teach that too!).  
To build on that, our CEO recently gave a new challenge to our leaders.  For their annual performance goals, each leader was asked to determine the "voice of the customer" for their area of responsibility and then to implement a change based on the customers' needs, where targets were not being met.
WOW!  All of a sudden, all those lectures on VOC and CTQs became important to remember - leaders didn't have the luxury of waiting for a Black Belt to appear with a project idea.  Most leaders began to get actively engaged in seeking out customer feedback.  Many had relied on customer-survey scores without delving deeper into the 5 why's, or had relied on occasional feedback rather than active communication.  Now the area of Operational Improvement looms a lot larger in their annual performance evaluation goal-setting.
As many surveys have shown, executive engagement and commitment is one of the make-or-breaks of successful deployment.  We are fortunate to be in the "plus column" in this area.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 10 Sep 2007 06:25:02 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Project Management Expertise]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/project_management_expertise.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[A fellow Black Belt and I were talking about project management skills.  She made a very perceptive comment, which I will paraphrase:
"Some people are really good at setting up a project - the ability to identify needed tasks, sources of benchmarking information, delegating, putting everything into a timeframe.  And others are really good about implementing change - they can work with people to visualize the future state, dissolve resistance and facilitate through the sometimes-chaotic change process to arrive at a successful new process.  Ideally of course, you would have both sets of skills."
I think that I can do the first part pretty well - but I most enjoy helping people to see that they can change their environment in a positive and productive way.
It reminded me of an interview question I once fielded about which DMAIC phase was my favorite.  Not which one was I best at - but which one I enjoyed the most.  My answer was "Define" - helping people see the customer expectations and opening up the possibility of changing to a future state in which both the customer and the employees were better off.
Of course, that doesn't mean I can slack off on the other phases!!!
What about you, dear reader - do you have a favorite phase or part of project management?]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Wed, 05 Sep 2007 13:56:54 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: I have been blind]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/i_have_been_blind.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Now I like to think I am quite an objective &amp; freethinking person and don’t always follow the herd when I think something is wrong. I’m not a complete contrarian but am willing to “go it alone” when I feel something is important. So it is a great disappointment to me to say I have only recently discovered DoE. Let me explain the circumstance of enlightenment first.
Over about a month, one of our processes fires two letters and an outbound telephone call to our customers to achieve a particular goal. The process is about 50% effective and we were discussing options for improvement. People talked about changing the wording on the letters or the call date. During the meeting, memories rushed-in of me in BB training, adjusting the settings on a catapult and measuring the distance the ball travelled and I slowly said, “we…could...design...an...Experiment”. I nearly pulled it off but didn’t quite have the confidence or conviction to convince people that DoE would fit the bill.
As I do, I dived into the DoE material, we had a classic 3-factor, 2-level, factorial experiment and I didn’t see it! How could I have got myself into a situation where I have ignored one of the fundamental tools of Lean Six Sigma? How could I have been so blind?
Since my earliest days on BB training when we covered DoE, the picture was painted of a tool used in manufacturing that really does not transfer into a transactional environment. The exercise was “manufacturing”, the examples were manufacturing. The books I have give manufacturing DoE examples; one of the more transactional books completely ignores it and most give a passing reference. My coaches have never really talked about using DoE and when they did they talked about it being difficult to apply in a transactional environment. 
I never really challenged the orthodoxy here and feel I have really missed out. Am making serious amends and it’s a strict study diet of confounding, blocking, attribute response, response surface design and loss function for me.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Robin Barnwell]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Change Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Wed, 05 Sep 2007 11:28:45 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Candy]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/candy.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Things that make you feel good in right away aren’t always beneficial in the long run. Some things, like candy, are actually harmful in the long term. While others, like getting the high score on Space Invaders, just don’t end up mattering very much. You feel good as they are happening, but beyond that they don’t improve your life too much. A lot of things that make us feel good fall into this category. Maybe even most things.
Now this is hardly news. It’s not a novel insight into the human condition. But it is remarkably tough to remember in the moment. Human nature makes it very difficult to pass up short term gratification in favor of long term rewards. Especially when those long term rewards might require not only missing out on short term pleasure, but perhaps even opening ourselves up to short term pain. It’s one thing to understand the equation on an intellectual level, but quite another to have the discipline to put it into practice. After all, who doesn’t like candy?
So what does this have to with Six Sigma? Well, even in the best intentioned organizations, people like candy. For deployment leaders, that means there is strong temptation to dispense instant gratification to the organization. Training programs that are short, snappy, and enjoyable. Projects that deliver immediate return on investment. Minimal disruption. Quick results. Excitement. Fun. Candy.
How powerful is this temptation? Very. And enablers abound. Consider, for example, the graphic below, which appears on the homepage of SBTI. What does it suggest? That within five months (roughly), return will exceed investment. That within twelve months, return will be more than three times greater than investment. In short, it suggests candy. Which I suppose might be okay, if that’s what you are looking for. And if you are a deployment leader, it probably is what your boss is looking for.

The trouble is, just because our kids want ice cream for breakfast every morning, feeding it to them doesn’t make us good parents. The entire point of an intensive methodology like Six Sigma is to go after difficult, thorny problems. The kind that have been around for a long time. The ones with solutions that are not obvious. The ones that require time, effort, expertise, creativity, deep thought, and hard work to solve. For goodness sake – if you have a list of projects that can be easily solved and deliver return on investment within five months, what on earth are you messing around with Black Belt training for? You don’t need Six Sigma, you just need focus.
Perhaps the most concrete manifestation of this phenomenon is Six Sigma training. Those of you who have lived through Six Sigma deployments, tell me if the following conversation sounds familiar: “Black Belt training? Way too long – we can’t spare our people for four months.” How about Green Belt training? “Two months is better – but how about we do the second week online so they don’t have to travel?” Well…I guess we could… . “In fact, can we do the whole thing online?” Um, not really… . “Perfect! And we can get champions through in a single day, right?” Curricula shrink to the point of becoming series of self-evident statements spread over PowerPoint slides. Any sense of challenge and achievement disappears. The chance to modify the behavior of a class over a significant time period evaporates. But, boy, do we ever get good a delivering a snappy one-day class.
If you think I’m exaggerating, I encourage you to troll the websites of major and minor providers of Six Sigma training today. You’ll find a lot of candy. Six day, online MBB certification, anyone?
You already know where I’m heading with this. Like I said in the beginning, it is something we all realize intellectually. It’s just tough to actually do it. Our job as Six Sigma professionals can’t be to dispense candy to the organization. No more ice cream for breakfast. Even though it’s no fun for anyone involved, we need to become the bringers of organizational All Bran. We all know what to do, we just need to have the courage to do it.
(One final note: Shortly after I wrote this entry I stumbled across this article by Mark Kiemele on the Air Academy website, which makes many of the same points I make here.)
 ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Andrew Downard]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Sat, 25 Aug 2007 22:01:00 -0800</pubDate>
		</item>

		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Will Medicare Force Hospitals to Go Six Sigma?]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/will_medicare_force_hospitals_to_go_six_sigma.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I was driving to pick up my daughter from school yesterday when a story on National Public Radio (NPR) caught my attention. I only heard the end of the segment on the radio, but from what I could tell Medicare was forcing hospitals to change the way they do business by not paying for certain medical procedures.
Here’s the full story:
Starting in October 2008, Medicare will cease to compensate hospitals for treating patients having at least eight conditions, including common hospital-acquired infections, blatant surgical errors, and injuries that result from a fall. The reasoning is that these are not the primary reasons patients came to the hospital in the first place. Instead, these are a result of coming to the hospital (yes, going to a hospital can be detrimental to your health) and Medicare is essentially saying: "Your hospital processes are broken. Fix them. We’re not paying for your errors any longer."
Why is this so significant? According to Julie Rovner of NPR, Medicare (which is a federal program) "…pays about 40 percent of the nation’s annual hospital bills." This is going to significantly cut in the funding of almost every hospital in the United States.
Within the news story Nancy Foster - who is in charge of quality and patient safety issues for the American Hospital Association - is quoted as saying, "People may wake up in the middle of the night, need to use the restroom, not remember that the nurse instructed them to call for help first - or think they were OK, go to stand up and find out that the surgery they had has weakened them so that they are unable to support their own weight and fall to the floor and be injured. No one wants that to happen. We just don’t have a perfect strategy to prevent it."
I beg to differ with Ms. Foster. The fact remains that falls can be proactively prevented in hospitals. Fortune 1000 companies have entire organizations devoted to worker safety (typically under the Environment Health and Safety umbrella), and employees in this function have the sole purpose to prevent worker injuries. What is measured can be improved. Why can’t the same thing be done for patients within hospitals? It can.
Searching iSixSigma Healthcare revealed at least one example speaking to this point. In "Strategies for Improving Patient Safety in the Hospital" Carolyn Pexton describes how Charleston Area Medical Center (CAMC) took their post-operative surgical infection process sigma from 0 (yes, that’s zero; defects per million opportunities of 660,828) to 2.86, thereby improving their process by 91 percent. This is cause for a celebration and the results shared with as many other healthcare organizations as possible.
Should all hospitals go Six Sigma? Lucian Leape of the Harvard School of Public Health comments: "It’s clear that progress in patient safety has relied on altruism. It’s been largely accomplished by good people trying to do the right thing. And what we’re seeing is that that hasn’t gotten as far enough, and now we’ll go to what really stings in our society - which is money."
To me, it’s clear that Six Sigma - tied to the hospitals operating budget - is the answer. What has been done until now has not worked. It’s time for a change.
The January/February 2008 issue of iSixSigma Magazine will feature 3 of the top ten healthcare organizations in the United States, and how implementing Six Sigma is improving patient safety and results. If you’re not signed up for a subscription, take $5 off and sign up today. It could be a matter of life and death. :
A quick search of NPR.org revealed the story in detail which, if you work for a healthcare provider or healthcare providers are your customers, is a great read:http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=13872687
The audio can be heard at by clicking the  icon at the top of the page. It’s worth a listen.
Press Release: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Announces Payment Reforms for Inpatient Hospital Services in 2008]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Michael Cyger]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Healthcare&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Thu, 23 Aug 2007 13:18:19 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Nail Down Your Project with PBL]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/nail_down_your_project_with_pbl.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[A good project gets you the facts, the data. Talk objectively with those facts and you have a water tight case for any ‘rhetoric’! 
In my Blog Man v. Machine I talked about PBL; ’Performance Based Leadership’, basically Behavioral Science that at Bechtel they use hand in hand with DMAICT. They have an acronym called NORMS that I use when stating a case or giving difficult feedback. This has dug me out of many tricky confrontations. When giving feedback ensure it’s:

Not an Interpretation – an unbiased statement about an event or behaviour
Observable – Based on specific behaviours or events that are actually seen or heard
Reliable – 2 or more people can independently agree on events that are seen or heard
Measurable – a number can be used to describe behaviour
Specific – who, what, where, when, context, sequence
I find it especially useful for Black Belts who often have the facts and the data and it’s especially useful in providing feedback to colleagues / individuals. 
Do you have any other methods of delivering effective feedback?]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[J P Spencer]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Change Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 20 Aug 2007 09:25:55 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Nardelli Back On Top]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/nardelli_back_on_top.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[It didn't take long for Robert (Bob) Nardelli to land on his feet...You've all probably heard by now, Bob Nardelli has been picked to run Chrysler.
For those of you that may have forgotten or were not aware of all the details:

Bob Nardelli came from GE, where he started in 1971. In 1995 he was promoted to president and CEO of Power Systems when yours truly was there. Under his leadership, GE Power Systems grew from $6 billion to $15 billion, and earnings grew 60-70%. 
In 2000 when Jack Welch named Jeffrey Immelt as CEO of GE, Bob Nardelli left (as did the other three-way competitor for the top-GE job, Jim McNerney) to head up Home Depot, succeeding co-founder Arthur Blank.
Bob Nardelli's intentions were to use his GE-learned management style and systems to turn around Home Depot. But Home Depot was a 20 year old company with falling sales and stock performance. It ran out of growth in the U.S., and lacked an automated purchasing system. It was a 1980s company in the 2000s. 
Under pressure of shareholders at annual meetings and elsewhere, and complaints about Nardelli's pay package (which the company agreed to and was in his employment contract), Bob Nardelli resigned on Jan. 3, 2007.
Many people questioned whether Nardelli's failure to turn around Home Depot was a death knell for Six Sigma, a process improvement program (probably one of many GE management programs implemented while at Home Depot) Nardelli championed. In my opinion, anyone who has been in business understands that one program does not make or break a great company. It can, however -- as in the case of Six Sigma, help people use a structured methodology to solve real-world problems and fix them so they don't happen again.
But on to the big news: Cerberus Capital Management LP, who bought an 80.1% stake from DaimlerChrysler AG in exchange for investing $5 billion in Chrysler and $1 billion in its financing unit, has named Nardelli as chairman and CEO of its Chrysler unit.
Nardelli has to deal with sweeping changes in the auto industry, tough negotiations with the United Auto Workers union, and to close a $30-an-hour labor-cost gap with the U.S. operations of competitor Toyota. But the move to the top position of Chrysler, unlike Home Depot, puts him in a private company without the pressure of public shareholders. Nardelli's pay -- $1 per year base salary -- is tied to equity and performance of the company. What matters most to Cerberus are the results.
It's rumored that Nardelli's experience at GE is one of the main reasons Cerberus wanted him. Many of Cerberus's advisors are ex-GE, and according to the Wall Street Journal it's also rumored that Cerberus is a strong believer in Six Sigma (that would make at least two private equity firms reaping big rewards by implementing Six Sigma at acquired companies).
So, will Bob Nardelli be successful in turning around Chrysler and part of the U.S. automotive industry? Time will tell. What's clear to me at Cerberus is that running a company more efficiently can be accomplished with Six Sigma. What remains to be seen is how it will be used at Chrysler. That's the exciting part.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Michael Cyger]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Buzz/Press&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Tue, 07 Aug 2007 11:27:45 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Black Belt Ranks]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/black_belt_ranks.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[In the martial arts, you may know that once a person obtains a black belt there are usually levels of progression upwards.  Each of these levels is called a "dan" and there can be 3 or more progressive levels, sometimes designated with a stripe or tape around the end of the black belt.
We've taken that concept as a beginning for a career development plan for Black Belts.  We ask for a 2 - 3 year commitment as part of our hiring process, and hire new Black Belts at a "novice" level if they have not previously been certified as a Black Belt elsewhere.  After training and internal certification, and meeting other organizational requirements, they are promoted to "practitioner" level.
At this point, we start discussing possible future paths:  Continued learning in project management and expanding the focus of the projects; or possibly going back into operations and a Green Belt level of participation; or possibly upwards to incorporate more teaching and mentoring.  In the last case, the level is called "sensei" and can be obtained through a number of ways, demonstrating effectiveness in project management, teaching of our Operational Excellence courses, and formal mentoring programs.
Each of these levels has a salary band within the Black Belt wage range, and the promotion process includes preparation of a portfolio to be presented to a group of executives who will consider the appropriateness of the promotion.
We've put this structure together in the last several months, and will be setting up the first portfolio reviews this fall.
I'm working whether there are any other Black Belt level concepts, like this one, being used "out there?"  If so, please share!
 
 ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Change Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 06 Aug 2007 07:44:32 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Green Around the Gills]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/green_around_the_gills.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[While reading Gianna Clark's blog below, "Green Belt Sonic Boom," my first reaction was:  Great minds think alike!  We are in the starting phase of a boom of training, and all of Gianna's caveats are valuable.
Last year in October, our healthcare system started our internal training of Green Belts with a class of 40.  We planned to start courses in the fall, winter, and summer of each year.  The course includes 8 days of training, usually scheduled as 2 days each month, followed by a training project which is a requirement for certification.
The first and second classes went well.  Then the flywheel started to catch, and we were asked to start an additional class in April of this year.  By the end of this class, we had 100 Green Belts who had completed the training!  But, only 3 had become certified so far.  We had a discussion about what we would do if the number of Green Belts exceeded our ability to place them in training projects.  Our support structure includes an Executive Sponsor at each of our hospital sites and a few other Operating Units; 13 Six Sigma Black Belts deployed around the system, and our Master Black Belt who coordinates the deployment.  We have developed a schedule for projects using a Value Stream approach, and each Operating unit is active in 1 - 3 Value Streams at this time.
This June, our CEO announced that it would be an expectation for all leaders in the organization to become Green Belts.  The summer and fall classes quickly filled up.  One of our site Presidents asked for 2 additional sessions, in the summer and fall, so that all of her leaders could complete this requirement by December 2007.
Then another site Manager asked to have a session at her site in the fall.  At this rate, as of December 2007, we will have "graduated" 250 Green Belts, of whom 3 (so far) have completed certification.  (We also have about 50 Green Belts who completed DMAIC projects during the time that GE was providing our deployment training.)
So what can we do with all of these Green Belts, if we don't have enough projects for them after they complete the training? 
As of this summer, we have broadened our training, and renamed the course as Lean Management.  In addition to learning the DMAIC tools and structure, plus lean tools and approach, we are teaching about how to use these concepts to become Lean Six Sigma Managers as well as facilitators of improvement projects.  We give assignments during the course, to ensure that they use the basic tools, and there is a final (open book) exam at the end that we use as an educational capstone to the coursework.  We think that the move to Lean Six Sigma management of daily processes is something that will keep them engaged, whether or not they are involved in projects.
In parallel with these developments, we are working with our WorkLife Services department (human resources) to add language to our leadership performance expectations about using the tools and concepts in their daily operations, and about expectations for facilitation of improvement projects.  There is also some discussion about whether Green Belt certification should be a factor (or requirement) for internal promotions.
So:  Should we continue to offer Green Belt classes, until we have trained all of our 1000 leaders?  Should we call a halt until more of the Green Belts obtain their formal certification?  If all leaders are using Lean Six Sigma tools and concepts in their daily operations, is that more important - or less important - or equally important - when compared to formal certification and assignment to facilitate projects?
We're talking about all of those issues at our organization.  Thanks Gianna for your very pertinent comments on this topic!
How about the rest of you?  How have you dealt with the growth in your Green Belt ranks?]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Change Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Wed, 01 Aug 2007 08:44:09 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: A Study of Female Executives: A Scorecard Approach]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/a_study_of_female_executives_a_scorecard_approach.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Anyone who knows me knows I am one of the largest fans of the modified balanced scorecard/business scorecard approach. I came across the following study results comparing gender differences at the executive level within organizations. There are those who claim men are more left-brained, thus, women = right dominance. Yet, there is a rise in female engineers, mathematicians and statisticians alike. So, it seems to be a case of reality or VOP not being measured accurately. Looking at the following, I was interested to see women coming into view in every bucket scorecard:
 

Sources: Business Week @ http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_47/b3708147.htm
and @  http://www.mhhe.com/business/management/obonline/   
 
 ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Laura Gibbons]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Sun, 24 Jun 2007 18:50:18 -0800</pubDate>
		</item>

		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: A Little Motivation]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/a_little_motivation.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[When our organization started its Six Sigma deployment back in 2004, we designed a small round pin that was given to certified Change Agents, Yellow Belts, Green Belts, and Black Belts.  The pins are gold-backed and have the appropriate color (blue for Change Agents) around the outer rim, with the appropriate certification title, and our health system logo in the middle.  At first people thought they were cute and some people wore them while others didn't.
Now, a couple of years later, "the pin" has become highly valued.  Associates who are awarded certification must complete training and a project for all levels; and I am receiving many inquiries about whether people are eligible for a pin.  Those who receive pins tend to wear them - not only their highest certification, but all the others too!  
I'm not down-hearted about people focusing on the pin, because I know they have had to demonstrate their competence in order to get one.  I'm happy to tell them which classes to take and inform them of the required project.  Most are eager to complete the requirements.  The pins and certificate are awarded at operating unit leadership meetings for a very public recognition ceremony.
It's a small thing, but very meaningful.
Another small thing that means a lot is our badge pulls.  These are handy little devices that clip onto your collar or pocket, and have a retractable string that attaches to your ID badge.  You can pull the badge away from the holder in order to swipe into a card-reader to gain access to an office or parking lot, without having to unclip the badge holder from your clothing.  We ordered black pulls for our BBs and green pulls for our GBs.  The shipment came in a couple of weeks ago, and we handed out the first pulls yesterday as we concluded a two-day Define session.
Today I received a lot of requests from the GBs who had formerly taken the class - "Hey I saw those green badge pulls, how come we didn't get them and when can I get mine?!?!?"  The badge pulls generated a lot of interest from everyone.
Certification pins - about $25 each.  Colored badge pulls - about $1.20 each.  Motivation, excitement, enthusiasm, feeling of being part of a special group...
Priceless.
 ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Wed, 20 Jun 2007 15:45:48 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Documentation Dilemma]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/documentation_dilemma.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[“Dilemma” is term properly reserved to describe a situation in which we must choose between two more-or-less equally unpleasant alternatives. This pretty much sums up how most organizations feel about documentation for Six Sigma projects.
On the one hand, there is always an organizational craving (note that I am specifically avoiding the term “need” here) for templates, documents, forms, and metrics that can feed the dreaded “roll-up” of information. These roll-ups often result in dashboards or scorecards that are supposed to be used to make decisions and steer a program.
On the other hand, there are Black Belts and their teams who are probably already working 16 hour days and still not finding enough hours to get everything done. They are digging deeply into problems and opportunities using techniques and tools they have been trained to use at great expense to the organization. They see documentation mostly as a distraction (“non-value-added work,” they will knowingly mutter) and something that takes away from their more important tasks.
A dilemma indeed. On the surface of it, the organization has to choose between having limited visibility and little information on which to base decisions, or saddling the “best and brightest” with a lot of busy work filling out incredibly repetitive templates and forms. Neither alternative is palatable.
In a sense, the answer is simple: strike a balance. But from what I’ve seen, finding that balance is very tricky, and organizations rarely get it right.
Part of the problem is that often the higher one goes in a company, the more simple and summarized information becomes. This phenomenon drives a pyramid of information collection in which many people at the bottom scramble to produce information and reports in a pre-determined format at whatever frequency is seen as “necessary” to a small audience at the top. The “roll-ups” thus produced containing a surprisingly small amount of information which may or may not accurately reflect what is actually going on. This is almost certainly not what the folks at the top want to have happen, but it’s usually what does happen.
At the other end, Black Belts and template designers often prefer to provide information that is easy to provide, rather than what is useful. Automated software “solutions” are terrible for this, enabling the tendency rather than reversing it. For example, many electronic dashboards ask users to enter project phases so they can show a roll-up of, for example, what percentage of projects are currently in the “improve phase.” This is what I like to call a “feel good” metric; it doesn’t really mean anything, so the presenter can spin it any way they want to make the audience feel good. Number of projects in the improve phase going up this month? Great! We love improvements! Number of projects in the improve phase going down this month? Great! More project proceeding towards completion! I can’t imagine a scenario in which we could make a decision based on a metric like this, but it makes us feel good to see it displayed (in color) on a dashboard. Trouble is, it takes a huge number of people building and maintaining projects plans, then doing data entry on a repeated basis, to generate the dashboard. It’s a huge investment of time just to make a few people feel good.
And no small part of the problem are the template-and-form crowd (which includes me, by the way). Buy a few drinks for your table at any Six Sigma conference and you’ll soon hear a litany of complaints about being forced to re-format templates so they are in the “right” font, or fit on two pages instead of three, or meet any number of other arbitrary requirements. Black Belts hate doing all this, and the people who have to provide the roll-ups hate it when Black Belts don’t do it.
So what to do about all the dilemma? Like I said above, the answer is simple: find the right balance. Design project tracking processes to be minimal in terms of the work required. Ask only for information that will inform decisions at some level. Provide a mechanism to flag problems and exceptions when they arise rather than monitoring whatever is convenient to monitor. Roll-up where you need to roll-up, but don’t assume the recipients of that rolled-up  information are incapable of understanding complicated relationships between variables and non-intuitive conclusions. In short, treat documentation like a process, strive to manage the inputs and outputs, and keep your Lean and Six Sigma hats on when you do so. Easy to say, very hard to do it right. ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Andrew Downard]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 28 May 2007 22:01:00 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Black Belt Humor]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/black_belt_humor.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I’m sure I’m not the only Black Belt who has conversations like these:
Someone coming to a meeting in the BB office/cubicle area for the first time: "Wow, I’ve never been to your office before.  It’s not very... 6S’d, is it? Ha ha!"
Team member, at a meeting:  "Boy, I thought you Black Belts were always supposed to be on time... 100% yield rate, ha ha!"
Team member, during brainstorming:  "Well, let’s hear from the Black Belt now, you’re supposed to have all the answers, aren’t you?  Ha ha!"
Significant other:  "Honey, where are the car keys?  Aren’t you supposed to have standard work or something for where you put them?  Ha ha!"
Now, none of these jokes would play very well at your local Comedy Castle, but people sure seem to think they’re the soul of wit when they come up with these gems.
It reminds me of when I was working in a bookstore for a while, while I was laid off from a previous organization.  The first time the books didn’t scan, I heard, "Well that means I get them for free, doesn’t it?" - Which was moderately humorous.  The second, third, and thousandth time, it didn’t seem so funny.
So, it looks like the only thing we BBs can do, other than become Supermen and Superwomen, is to come up with our own brand of Black Belt Humor.  Gary Cox does a great job helping us see the lighter side of our improvement efforts.  Now, all we need is our own Rodney Dangerfield to give the rest of us some good lines!  Any volunteers???]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 21 May 2007 06:53:55 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Courage in the Face of Fire]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/courage_in_the_face_of_fire.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Tollgate reviews can be a real source of anxiety for belts of all colors and levels. For the Army, a tollgate is like a phase-line on the Battlefield. It allows leaders to know where you are in relation to everything else. Go past it without permission or authority and there may be some repercussions. With projects, the same exists. A belt is attacking a leaders enemy of success. 
The paradigm shift that will enable future success with LSS is in allowing belts to explore and discover what exists in the process and what could be the process. Currently, projects are threatened by scope creep but limited by the inability to follow the "inch wide, mile deep", philosophy of analysis. 
As we journey down this path of improvement,  key success factor will be the opening up of data to the internal customers who are trying to make a difference for their fellow soldiers and their country. 
 ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Capt. Harris]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Fri, 18 May 2007 06:45:35 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: The Next Generation]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/the_next_generation.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[From Gauss defining the normal distribution to Galton designing his theories on correlation to Onho developing the Toyota Production system, we are proud of our rich heritage and the number &amp; variety of sources that have come together to create the Lean Six Sigma model.
So it is encouraging to see what may be an example of the next generation of methodology. I was doing a bit of research on Business Process Management and found the BPMG web site. This covered the 8 Omega framework which included:

The 8-step DADVIICI approach
Six defined roles, and the skills and responsibilities assigned to each of these roles
Four dimensions (Strategy, People, Process, Systems) of organizational alignment that must be addressed to achieve excellence
Education, training and skill building spanning the entire 8 Omega performance model

Sounds an exciting break-through innovation and I wondered if anyone had any experience in its use?
 ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Robin Barnwell]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Thu, 17 May 2007 06:59:58 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Pieces of the Puzzle]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/pieces_of_the_puzzle.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Our organization's Black Belts recently participated in a two-day retreat in which we did some team-building and strategy work for the upcoming fiscal year.  We did a leadership profile that diagnoses each person's preferred approach.  The four main styles are generalized as Driver, Conscientious, Steady, and Interactive.  I'm sure that the profile is similar to many others out there!
The interesting thing is that, among our 16 Black Belts, the preferences came out as follows:  4 Drivers, 5 Conscientious, 6 Interactive, 1 Steady.  We had fun dividing into our main groups (we included our one S with our 5 C's for this purpose).  Each group came up with a theme:  The D's chose "Get 'er Done," the I's (a fun-loving group to be sure) came up with "I Candy," and the combined C/S group selected "A person with a problem and no data is just another person with an opinion."  Our education coordinator is a D, our "data guru" is a C, and our Master Black Belt is an I.
We then re-divided into our site-based teams.  We had a few "aha" moments in this part of the exercise.  We didn't use leadership preferences, or any kind of a personality profile, when selecting our Black Belt candidates.  Yet, there was a very healthy diversity among our site teams.  Almost all had a blend of personality preferences, as well as a pretty even split between male/female, healthcare/process engineer, younger/older (or you may prefer "seasoned), inexperienced/experienced.  We also thought about our different site organizational cultures in terms of trying to bring about change.
It's easy to view personality tests as having the same entertainment value as horoscopes - but in our case, the process led to some solid team building and a helpful introspection on how we approach our Black Belt roles.  We found a new appreciation in each other's strengths and contributions to the team, and were reminded that individually, we're pieces of the puzzle and we need to work together to get the whole picture!]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Thu, 10 May 2007 19:27:13 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: A Leader to Follow]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/a_leader_to_follow.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[The following is the Open Mike column from the May/June 2007 issue of iSixSigma Magazine, entitled "Getting Ahead in Business with Six Sigma."
Attending the IQPC Six Sigma Summit in January, I was excited to hear the keynote speaker, and I wondered what Gen. Colin Powell could teach Six Sigma professionals about leadership. He had a lot to offer.
As both soldier and statesman, Powell was a leader in the highest echelons – a four-star Army general, National Security Advisor, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, U.S. Secretary of State. He is an imposing figure.
Yet the more I heard from this impressive leader, the more I realized that in many ways Powell is just like any one of us. Of course, in his position what was at stake was often a life-or-death issue – a point made painfully clear to him early in his military career by a superior officer.
Powell was running off to “guard an atomic canon,” he said, when he realized he had lost his pistol. He radioed to his company commander and turned himself in. The commander instructed him to complete the mission and report back. Later, the officer told Powell the pistol had been found by some kids. “They managed to get it off safety and fired it,” the commander said. “Here’s your pistol. Be more careful and never let that happen again.”
Powell still remembers how devastated he was. Upon inspecting his pistol, however, he realized that it was, in fact, not fired. His commanding officer had concocted a story to scare Powell and ingrain – not just explain – the importance of monitoring his weapon.
Can you imagine what your business equivalent might be? Could you offer a lesson to your direct reports that was so effective they would recount it years later? Leaders need to make the lessons they impart powerful and personal so team members can internalize them and not repeat mistakes.
Powell told the audience that in some cases the purpose of lessons is to set the tone, to send messages that are proactive. He described his preparation – soon after becoming secretary of state – for a meeting that was to include the president, the vice president and the chiefs of staff. One of the topics was a report-out of activities in a certain part of the world. Powell made a point to select an “action officer” to make the report rather than the commanding officer. Asking the person in the lowest position opens up the lines of communication, he explained. 
Powell knew the action officer would tell everyone in his barracks about the assignment, and everyone would help him gather the appropriate data, create the report and rehearse the presentation. He would be bringing his team together.
Powell also knew that as soon as the action officer had given the report, he would go back to his office and exclaim to everyone, “Boy, did I tell him!” It would be clear that Powell considers all the data, not just the data that filters up from his direct reports. That one story about his leadership style lived on until the end of his days in office and was a vivid example of how he wanted his staff to act.
“My goal as a leader is to set the goal, set the mission, but then to empower the follower to achieve it,” he said. “Six Sigma must empower followers to do a good job.”
So the next time you need to rally your troops – to get your employees to follow your direction and achieve the strategic goals you set forth – think about the leadership example of Colin Powell. Even without four stars on your shoulders, you can promote greatness in your team. ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Michael Cyger]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 07 May 2007 03:13:24 -0800</pubDate>
		</item>

		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: The Next Next Big Thing]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/the_next_next_big_thing.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Six Sigma critics are right about one of their chief complaints: the program is a re-packaging of a lot of tools and ideas that have been around for a long time. Personally I don’t think that’s a bad thing, since many of the ideas that have been re-packaged were languishing before. Regardless of where the tools and ideas originally came from, the hype of Six Sigma has driven a lot of useful activity in areas where it wasn’t happening before.
Trouble is, the same thing is happening in a lot of different areas. Six Sigma as a program has several analogs, some competing and some in areas that Six Sigma hasn’t reached yet (like software design). You could argue that each program is different, but I would counter that even if that’s true, all of them have a similar aim. You could also argue about which of them is best; indeed, a great amount of energy seems to go into this argument every day.
But back to the aim. Beyond the specific project-level objectives of each program, what they all seek to provide is a conceptual framework. They collect different tools and ideas and put them together in a way that tries to be easily comprehensible. Lean does this. Six Sigma does this. 5S does this. SMED does this. 23 other continuous improvement programs do this. All of which leads to another question: what do you do in an organization that has Lean, Six Sigma, 5S, SMED, and all 23 of those other programs?
This is not hyperbole. In more and more organizations with good programs in individual discipline, it is a real problem. Just as Six Sigma provided and organizing framework for of a lot of disparate ideas and tools, we now need something to organize the various organizing frameworks. Failure to do this results in lack of alignment and missed synergies at best, and utterly disconnected silos working in opposition at worst. And it tends to be very difficult to address, because everyone involved is already genuinely working towards continuous improvement to the best of their ability. Change management experts will tell us we need a burning platform to make change happen – that’s unlikely to be the case in this scenario.
So what to do? How do we move up the next level in the hierarchy of organization? Once the Six Sigma program is running on all cylinders, the SMED team is in a groove, and the 5S group is having wild success, how do you tie them all together without killing the individual components? The obvious answer is not to let it happen in the first place. But in organizations of any size, it has almost certainly already happened. And it happens precisely because people on the ground want to do the right thing.
I don’t have the answers yet, but I think I’m coming closer to asking the right questions.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Andrew Downard]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Thu, 26 Apr 2007 22:01:00 -0800</pubDate>
		</item>

		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Standard Work in LSS]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/standard_work_in_lss.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Reading Robin Barnwell's lastest post, I was reminded of a conversation I had recently regarding standard work in our own projects.  When our Black Belts share their experiences, it's really interesting to see how parts of the project structure are valued differently by each individual.  
Let me give you an example.  We have a guideline for rapid improvement (kaizen) events that says we should be doing a risk assessment of the new (future state) process on Day 4 of the 5-day event.  Some BBs are doing this and say it works fine at that point.  Other BBs say that's too late - you should do a risk assessment on Day 2 when you're creating the solution - so you can foresee problems and address them as you're creating your new standard work.  Also, the guideline says we should do an FMEA - Failure Mode Effects Analysis - but some BBs say that's too complicated for most teams when you're dealing with over 100 process steps.  One team in a past project spent almost 8 hours trying faithfully to complete the FMEA as directed, for every process step, since they thought that's what they needed to do.  So some BBs are using a simplified risk assessment form or other contingency planning tool that worked for them in a previous life.
I'd be very interested in anyone's opinion on  how far is too far, when "adapting" project methodology standards or guidelines to a particular situation.  Should a strict standard be enforced - we're supposed to be modeling standard work, after all - or would this result in such an inflexible approach that we might jeopardize the result of a particular project?  Would we be hampering the BB's ability to use his/her own judgment in a situation that calls for compromise?
I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 23 Apr 2007 07:22:17 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Belt Mania]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/belt_mania.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I've been having some conversations about belts with my colleagues.  Officially, we have "Lean Green Belts" (learn Lean Six Sigma basics, facilitate Lean Kaizen events) and "Six Sigma Black Belts" (know both Lean &amp; Six Sigma, facilitate Lean &amp; Six Sigma projects, coach &amp; mentor Green Belts).
We had "Yellow Belts" for a while - Six Sigma team members who received basic training to make them more effective in their team roles.  We haven't been using this designation for our Lean team members; they don't receive any classroom instruction - only "on the gemba" training!
We're throwing around some ideas about whether we should change our approach.  The discussion so far:
Adding color belts:  Boy, it seems like everyone wants a belt so they will have a special designation of their own.  We could add White Belt designation for team participants and then give them a Yellow Belt when they've completed 5 - or 10 - or whatever.  We could add a Brown Belt designation for leaders who have passed a Lean Management course but don't actually lead projects.  Plenty of other colors left in the rainbow - we can even make up one of those neat laminated badges to wear behind our IDs to remind us of what color belt does what!
Changing criteria:  Oh man, do we REALLY have to do projects in order to get Green Belt certification?  Can't I be a Black Belt while staying in my job role?  There is a pretty constant push to revise our philosophy around these points.  So far, we have stayed firm - Yes, and No.
Doing away with belts:  What about guides, facilitators, change agents, change leaders, lean leaders, navigators, senseis, masters, etc.?  We would keep the criteria - just rename everyone.  My suggestion:  Green Belts become Padawan Learners and Black Belts become Jedi Knights.
Sticking to just Green Belt and Black Belt:  Well, it's tried and true.  Although we should always be open to new ideas, we've only been at this for three years, so maybe it's too soon to be changing everything around?  Let's stay the course for a while longer.
Our organization hasn't made any decisions to change - yet - but I thought I would write about this moment in our Lean Six Sigma journey to see if anyone else has had, or is having, similar discussions!
Would anyone like to share?]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Tue, 17 Apr 2007 12:15:35 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: More on Six Sigma and Data Quality]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/more_on_six_sigma_and_data_quality.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[In two previous blogs, I wrote about intersections between Six Sigma, internal control and data quality. By way of background information, my department performs compliance functions, where we monitor information delivered by third parties and created through internal operations. 
For example, we receive property-address information and derive new information like geospatial position through "geocoding" processes. Since we monitor data for compliance, our process inputs are hundreds of data elements, and our output is systematic, timely determination of whether data quality is acceptable or needs improvement. Anyone who works in the "governance, risk and compliance" arenas will appreciate the unique challenges associated with designing and optimizing monitoring processes. Characterizing measurement error is a constant challenge. 
In a future blog, I will share our experiences with assessing measurement precision (Gage R&amp;R) and understanding stability and bias. Here I want to focus on an immediate challenge, and request insight on best practices. Our compliance monitoring is very new. We are designing processes that will move compliance to the front end of our value chain, so we measure data quality at the "point of truth" and reconcile these data to points of consumption by risk, control and compliance functions. Our focus right now is on designing, piloting and calibrating our compliance monitoring. 
Our approach is highlighted in my earlier blog on Six Sigma and data quality. We are beginning to produce expected-versus-actual defect rate observations for our critical data elements. These statistics are generating lots of interest and questions about how we define an expected defect rate (voice of customer) and determine the importance of a lower-than-expected defect rate (the focus of my writing). Two questions perenially come up: 
First, does a lower-than-expected defect rate indicate a high, medium or low level of risk? Some critical data elements are more important than others and more sensitive to variance. Second, how do we come up with a risk rating? 
We are now beginning to explore these questions. One approach would determine the financial risk associated with an unfavorable variance in data quality. Our enterprise risk management processes have not matured to the point, where a reliable methodology is available to us. A broader perspective would consider the reputational risk associated with an unfavorable variance in data quality. Other than benchmarking internal data quality against our industry, judgment prevails because methodological scoring for reputational risk is not feasible. In practice, risk assessment frameworks seem to offer broad criteria or rules of thumb, whereby we can draw conclusions about risk exposure. 
Another challenge is connecting these criteria to defect-rate observations. We are exploring alternative tools, including FMEA. Your insight about the following will be appreciated:

Are there best practices for assessing risk or cost of poor data quality? Are these best practices applicable to measurement observations?
Are there lessons to be learned from manufacturing settings (e.g., techniques to estimate risk of product liability or cost of poor quality from raw-material defect rate observations)?
How are companies using FMEA to assess process risks, based on process metrics? After all, data quality is a type of process metric.
Your comments are encouraged, or please email me at charles@charlescmckinney.com.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Charles McKinney]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Wed, 11 Apr 2007 12:30:00 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Questions about Six Sigma in outsourced functions]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/questions_about_six_sigma_in_outsourced_functions.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[KPMG, the public accounting firm, recently published a survey of outsourcing. Nearly three out of four companies in the survey do not measure the value of their outsourcing arrangements. Yet paradoxically, KPMG concludes outsourcing is working because 89% of their survey participants plan to maintain or increase their use of outsourcing.
The survey leads me to ask a few questions:

Is satisfaction with outsourcing based on notions of comparative efficiency, or do organizations have performance metrics?
How do companies apply business process management and integrate control plans into their outsourcing arrangements? 
Not all outsourcing arrangements are created equal. Do companies use Quality Function Deployment or other techniques to (re)design their outsourced processes? 
Are any organizations using Six Sigma in an inter-enterprise fashion to improve overall performance of outsourced processes? 
Do contract terms and conditions create high barriers to leveraging Six Sigma within an outsourced process?
Any insights would be appreciated.  ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Charles McKinney]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Buzz/Press&nbsp;,&nbsp;General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Sat, 24 Mar 2007 05:55:47 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Global Process? No Such Thing.]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/global_process_no_such_thing.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[The first business process I ever put together was heavily indebted to Kevin Costner. If I build it, I figured, they will come.
And I did build it. A perfect process, polished in every detail. A global process, that everyone involved would adopt. A useful process, that would solve many disparate problems in a foul swoop. The documentation gleamed. The diagrams leapt off the page. The prose flowed like a swift mountain stream. It was a thing of beauty. Everyone was going to do everything the same way, and life would be perfect. But no one came.
In fact, my first process was a complete and utter flop. Despite being well thought out (all the right people were involved), well designed (people smarter than me worked on it), and otherwise pretty solid on paper, we ended up building a road that led precisely nowhere. Why? Because we set out to design the fabled “global process.” And it’s taken me a long time to learn why that almost never works.
The idea of global process is enchanting. Left alone, most organizations will develop several variants of even the simplest common processes. Over time, this leads to variation in output, inability to communicate between areas, and eventually a move away from the very idea of process as “a repeated set of actions.” The endpoint of this progression can be chaos, and chaos is mighty hard to manage.
Faced with this possibility, global process seems like a very good idea. The higher you go in an organization, the more fervent the desire to have everyone doing things the same way. And as the experience I described above illustrates, it’s not hard to put a team together to develop a good single process that maximizes benefit to everyone involved.
But once you have that global process in hand, a thorny questions arises. What do you do with it? A good process that exists only on paper is useless. Change management and similar methodologies can help us a lot here, but whatever the new process is and whatever methodology we use to deploy it, we have teach individuals to interact with the process. And it’s generally right around this point that global anything goes out the window.
It has to. Process lives in individuals. As any line manager can tell you, even if you have only 10 individuals to worry about, you can easily spend your entire day trying to get folks to operate a simple process in a consistent manner. You might accomplish it in a technical environment through rigorous, ongoing training and techniques like poka-yoke. But in a transactional or business process environment you wouldn’t have a prayer. Now what about 100 people? Or 10,000? Or 100,000? You get the idea. Unless you intend to hover over every one of them every moment of the day, you can toss the notion of global process out the window.
I suspect the halls of most corporations are littered with the skeletons of global processes that fell prey to this failure mode. It’s incredibly common. Teams are chartered every day to design processes that never achieve the intended result, or even see the light of day. So what do we do about it? How do we get around the paradox that even global process must necessarily be customized to the environment of every single user?
For me, the answer can be summed up in a word: robustness. The best place to start is not by asking “how can we make everybody do the same thing?”, but rather by asking “how can we accommodate the differences that we know are going to exist anyway.” Or by asking “what do we absolutely have to make consistent?” rather than “what can we make consistent?” This subtle difference in thinking can have a profound effect on the outcome of process design.
Take project tracking. Most Six Sigma programs tend towards forcing all projects into a global tracking system; everyone is asked to do it the same way, with the same templates, forms, deadlines, etc. This is a logical response to the question of “what can we make consistent?” The answer is “just about everything.” But if you scratch below the surface of this supposedly global process, you’ll either find a team of people running hard (and probably failing) to try and make everyone do everything the same way every time, or a lot of practitioners simply ignoring the global process. If you don’t see one of these things, you’ll almost certainly see the other. Which is why global process usually doesn’t exist in practice, although it’s alive an well in theory.
But what if we design our system by asking a different question: what is the smallest number of things we can get away with making consistent? The answer is usually a tiny subset of the things that we could make consistent. Maybe we need a few pieces of crucial information on each project at a particular time to feed our roll-ups. Maybe we need a consistent way to view progress towards goals. As for the rest…who cares? So what if everyone does it differently? Does it really matter if a Black Belt working on widgets in Wichita uses the same PowerPoint template as a Green Belt working on new hire provisioning in New Hampshire? Does it matter if their team meetings have the same agenda? Does it matter if they follow the same roadmap? Not to me, and I suspect not to anyone. And furthermore, the chances that I can optimize the process for every environment better than the person actually doing the work are vanishingly small.
Armed with this realization, I figured I would work towards an 80/20 rule. That is, I’d build in robustness by leaving 80% of the process local in nature, while doing my best to maintain global consistency around the remaining 20%. In other words, for every 1 thing I was prepared to insist folks do my way, I tried to leave 4 things that they could do however they wanted. This made a tremendous difference in my day-to-day activities (wow – I have time to eat lunch again!) and an even bigger difference in the reception I got. Managing change became a whole lot easier, because the magnitude of change at the individual level was minimal. But the process still looked global from above, much more than when I was trying to make every single thing consistent. It really was paradoxical. It felt like I was doing a lot less work and catalyzing a lot less change, but the outcomes were far more successful that when I had tried to make everything global.
Think of this as the YouTube approach. To get something on YouTube you need meet only a tiny number of consistent criteria. Your content needs to be video, and you need to be able to upload it via the YouTube interface. What device captures the video? Doesn’t matter. What kind of computer do you use? Doesn’t matter. How do you describe it? Doesn’t matter. When should you upload it? Doesn’t matter. I could go on, but you get the idea. The very little bit of global process that YouTube employs meshing with the massive amount of customization done by the user, which has the effect of democratizing the process as a whole. And paradoxically, this makes the process seem globally consistent, even though it’s almost entirely different for every single person. This is intelligent use of robustness in process design. And it works beautifully.
If those initial efforts taught me one thing, it was that I hadn’t gone far enough. I now tend towards a 90/10 rule, and I’m toying with a 95/5 rule. It works for YouTube, and it’s been working for me.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Andrew Downard]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Fri, 23 Mar 2007 00:01:00 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: In a Vacuum]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/in_a_vacuum.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I was facilitating a process-mapping session recently, and one of the team members came up to me during a break.  She said, "I think it's really interesting that you are leading us in the process mapping in a way that's much different than I've seen before."  I said, "What do you mean?"  She explained that she's seen 3 or 4 Black Belts lead process-mapping sessions at various times, and we all have a very different approach.  She wondered why we didn't all do it the same way.
I answered, "Well in fact, I've never seen another Black Belt do mapping.  I've only ever done it on my own, so I don't know how anyone else does it."
That made me stop and think.  I realized that I've never seen another Black Belt lead a team meeting for a Six Sigma project.  As soon as we all became Black Belts and attended training, we went our individual ways to lead our own projects.  When we get together to talk about our work, it's apparent that we all have different approaches, and we accept that while continuing to run our projects in our own ways.
Now, I'm all for individuality, in that we each bring our own experiences, skills, and strengths to our work.  And in truth, I don't have a lot of free time to sit in on other Black Belts' projects.  But this exchange made me wonder:  Could I learn to be a better Black Belt if I sat in on other project meetings once in a while?  Or is rugged individualism the way of the Black Belt?
I'd love to know your thoughts and experiences with this.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Fri, 16 Mar 2007 10:47:18 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Comments on organizational design]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/comments_on_organizational_design.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[A few comments on organizational design and Six Sigma ... 
Organizational structure is one consideration. The decision to centralize or functionally embed black belts has to consider an organization’s business model, culture and past experience with process improvement. Likewise, compensation, career track, professional development and human capital management practices are important. 
In some organizations, Six Sigma deployment hinges on consensus -- building momentum through repeated success and visibility through demonstrated benefits. In others, strong leadership and sensible organization design can force adoption. 
Everyone likes stories about Six Sigma taking hold and becoming a part of company DNA. Sometimes this comes about by giving managers a stark choice -- requiring managers to use Six Sigma as a portfolio of cost savings tools and show benefits, for example, or work through mandated G&amp;A expense reduction. Key to organizational design is the deployment strategy and critical success factors for scale and sustainability.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Charles McKinney]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Wed, 14 Mar 2007 18:59:33 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: The Need for Change]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/the_need_for_change.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Recently the Under Secretary for Business Transformation (DUSA-BT), "the Honorable" Mike Kirby spoke with our Command and BB/GB trainees on the need for change. He presented an hour long slide show on why we must change the way we do business. Most compelling was his analysis of the evolution of the capability of the war fighter but the waning of the administrator. In essence, a disparity has been created in how the Army conducts business and how it supports those who conduct military operations. 
Most will question the relevance of process improvement in the Army. However the Army is involved in every industry that exists in the private sector: supply chain, aviation, engineering, maintenance, accounting, IT, security, information management. 
The Military and the Private Sector have exchanged management philosophies many times. The use of Standard Operating Procedures or SOP’s came from the military. The translation of Lean Six Sigma to benefit the way the Army conducts business is further evolution of this exchange. 
The US Navy and the US Army Materiel Command have been the first in the military to utilize Lean Six Sigma. They have seen tremendous benefits in its adoption. As the largest deployment in the world, our biggest challenge will be changing mindsets and attitudes. ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Capt. Harris]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Thu, 08 Mar 2007 10:38:27 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Contemplating Six Sigma and Internal Control]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/contemplating_six_sigma_and_internal_control.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[For my first blog at iSixSigma, I would like to contemplate disciplines that are slow to embrace Six Sigma but need it most: internal control and enterprise risk management. Passage of the Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002 thrust these domains into the limelight. The Committee of Sponsoring Organizations (COSO) defines enterprise risk management as follows: 

"Enterprise risk management is a process, effected by an entity’s board of directors, management and other personnel, applied in strategy setting and across the enterprise, designed to identify potential events that may affect the entity, and manage risk to be within its risk appetite, to provide reasonable assurance regarding the achievement of entity objectives." 
COSO’s definition and several internal control concepts evoke quality: risk management is quality management; risk appetite sounds like fault tolerance; reasonable assurance regarding achievement of objectives depends on satisfying expectations of customers and regulators. 
Language is a barrier to Six Sigma penetrating internal control disciplines. Ask a focus group of CPAs to explain the link between defects per unit and risk of misstatement, and many will scratch their heads. Risk of misstatement -- inherent or residual risk of events giving rise to a significant or material misstatement of financial results -- becomes heady as soon as discussion turns to assertions, materiality, control objectives, fraud considerations and methods of reaching conclusions (e.g., probability, belief-function theory, fuzzy logic). Translated into practice, Six Sigma can be a powerful tool for internal control practices: business process management and DMAIC are a systematic way to baseline and improve internal controls over financial reporting, compliance and operations. Co-evolution of these disciplines needs to occur, as managers strive for systematic thinking, discipline and cost savings in their Sarbanes Oxley programs. 
Integration of Six Sigma, internal control and enterprise risk management disciplines will progress over time. Six Sigma deployment in finance, accounting and compliance functions is young relative to manufacturing and operations. Internal control disciplines are just passing through the first two years of Sarbanes Oxley compliance. Using voice of the customer to drive compliance monitoring, measurement of control effects and testing of key controls will become mainstream.Your thoughts, experiences and knowledge sharing are encouraged.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Charles McKinney]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Thu, 01 Mar 2007 18:12:33 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Hearing Voices]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/hearing_voices.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I was raised to believe that in Six Sigma, the "Voice of the Customer" is the source of process specifications.  While training, we spent quite a bit of time learning Customer Needs Mapping, developing the Critical to Quality characteristics, and filling out the CTQ tree.  We defined a customer as the end-user, or beneficiary, of the process or service.
Then, it was revealed to us that sometimes the customer is not the only source of process specifications!  We were introduced to the "Voice of Quality" and the "Voice of the Business" as well.
Turns out there is also the "Voice of Federal Regulations" and "Voice of the Partner Organization" and "Voice of the Corporation That Owns You."
Now, it seems as if I'm hearing so many voices in my head, I'm not sure which way to turn sometimes!  (Especially when the customer is always right!)
Does anyone else have a variety of customer inputs?  Do find them to be conflicting or confusing at times?  Please share your experiences!
 
 ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 26 Feb 2007 07:52:09 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Every Which Way]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/every_which_way.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Recently, I was part of a group Black Belts who were discussing the pressure on leaders to improve, not just in one direction, but in as many ways as possible, seemingly all at once.
Here's a possible scenario, from a hypothetical healthcare organization in the beginning stages of deploying Lean Six Sigma.  A Vice President is speaking to Director:

The organization's customer satisfaction scores are down, so we'll implement a series of projects to bring those scores up.  These aren't "big" enough to be Lean Six Sigma projects, and in any case service improvement is different than operational improvement so we'll use something everyone is comfortable with - PDCA.  We'll need people from your department to work on these teams.
Oh and by the way, we're implementing a new computer system to replace paper charting, and this new electronic medical record will be rolled out over the next year or so.  We'll be using the IT Project Management Structure for this.  We'll need people from your department to work on these teams.
And there's a series of clinical quality projects coming up, thanks to the new "pay for performance" reimbursement plan from our third-party payors (insurance companies), so we'll be kicking off a few projects using CQI.  We'll need people from your department to work on these teams.
While we're at it, the facilities team is working on a plan for renovating a major part of the building, and we certainly want your input, so we'll need a few people from your department at these meetings.  We don't have a structure or methodology, we just want people to come and share ideas and the planning team will make the decisions.
By the way, how come you don't have more active Lean Six Sigma projects in your area of responsibility???
No wonder we Black Belts sometimes hear the cry, "Stop the Madness!"
In an ideal deployment, all strategic planning and project selection would flow from prioritized goals, with agreed-upon targets and metrics.  What I find, in talking with other Black Belts, is that each part of our organizational culture has its own favorite method of selecting projects and choosing project methodology, because that's what has worked best for that area in the past.  Granted, anyone working in process / operational improvement should be conversant with multiple methodologies - but it was a revelation to me that we may have silos of "improvement methodologies" even as we're trying to break down the barriers between functional areas!
If you have experience in moving your organization toward a common methodology and language, please share your experiences!]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Wed, 21 Feb 2007 14:49:32 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: On Averages]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/on_averages.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[(Or “On Arithmetic Means”, if you prefer.)
I hardly need mention in this forum that as a standalone descriptive statistic, the average can be a dangerous piece of information. Averages quoted in the absence of other descriptive statistics are generally insufficient at best, and downright misleading at worst. I’ll skip the lecture on the importance of variation and related topics (Wheeler already has it nailed in this book anyway), but I do want to focus on one particular aspect of averages that I find a lot of people forget. Including me.
A lot of the time, the average never occurs.
For example, the average weight of the four residents in my household is 31 pounds. No, we aren’t long lost Lilliputians – in fact, no one in the house (me, my wife, the cat, the dog, 6 fish) weighs anything close to 31 pounds. Or to paraphrase the old joke about statisticians, on average they feel like the temperature is just fine if they are sleeping with their head in the freezer and their feet in the fire.
To a statistician or Black Belt or anyone else suitably well versed on the topic, this is hardly earth-shattering news. But to some people, the fact that a statistical average isn’t synonymous with a “usual” or “typical” value within the population is surprising. And even to those of us who know better, this fact can be a slippery one to hold on to.
Mathematically, the fact that the average might never occur in a population is not hard to understand or explain. And I don’t have trouble remembering it mathematically. The mistake I tend to make is conceptual.
Suppose, for example, you are designing a project tracking process. You might be using Excel spreadsheets and creating a home-grown solution for a dozen projects, or working with a vendor to roll out something much bigger and more complex for hundreds of projects. Either way, in my experience the tendency is to design the system for a project with “average needs” and “average complexity”. The problem is that the "average project" isn’t in your portfolio – it’s an entirely hypothetical entity. Design for it, and you’ll have a solution that perfectly fits a need that doesn’t exist.
Another example is assigning pre-work before Black Belt training. Sure, we might know what the “average person” needs to do – we’ve almost certainly designed our class for the “average participant” who has an “average background”, right? But our classes don’t fill with average people. They fill with some people who know a lot and don’t need much pre-work, or with people who don’t know much and need a lot, or for people somewhere in between. Assigning the same pre-work to every person will serve none of them adequately. We’d be far better off assessing each individual and offering a range of options based on specific needs. But for whatever reason, that's almost never done. We get stuck on the "average need" and cater to it exclusively.
In both of these cases, the problem is that we use summary statistics like the average even though probably we shouldn’t be summarizing at all. If we are interested in accommodating every member of the population, what business do we have basing anything on summary statistics anyway? The entire point of many summary statistics is that they hide variation and complexity – they hide the mess, if you will. But sometimes the mess is exactly what we need to see and deal with. Which is counter-intuitive, and counter to a lot of the training we Six Sigma folks give and receive. 
(For some related thoughts on this topic, see Holly Hawkins last blog entry. Standardization is not always the answer!)]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Andrew Downard]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Wed, 21 Feb 2007 00:01:00 -0800</pubDate>
		</item>

		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Man v. Machine]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/man_v_machine.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[We must be data driven!  We must manage by fact!  What happens when we don’t have any data? What happens when we can’t tweak a bit of machinery to improve our primary metric? What happens when one of our critical Xs is a behavioural problem?  Or, one of our action items in the Improve stage is something a person has to do, who for the last 10 years has been working that process in a different way, their way?
This is when behavioural science can help RDMAICT and some techniques are summarised as follows: 
Recognise Stage: For greatest behaviour change pick the projects where people are feeling the pain NOW and a defect causes almost immediate problems not problems that MAY be felt in two years time. 

Lesson 1 in behavioural science (At Bechtel they call it Performance Based Leadership) was peoples’ behaviour changes the quickest when consequences are immediate and certain. When consequences are in the future and are uncertain the motivation to change is negligible.  
Measure Stage: When going through tools like the fishbone, be conscious that where there are behavioural Xs they may be a lack of one or more of the following;

Direction: Have people been told clearly what to do, and the strategic reason behind why they have to do the task a certain way.
Competence: Simply do they have the skills to do what they have been told.
Opportunity: Have they the time and tools (amongst other things) to do the job
Motivation: Have the factors that motivate that individual and his team to do the job right first time been considered. This analysis is subjective. The table below shows what happens when you have full DCOM and when you have a stage missing.

Figure 1: DCOM Model (Bechtel)
Improve Stage: Actions not being completed in your implementation Plan? Chances are that particular task has not got a consequence attached to it. 
Again, these consequences must be immediate and certain. They can be positive (preferable) or negative. An effective consequence is booking team members in to ‘present out’ their part of the project to the executive on a specific date. If that doesn’t get the action done the person is either near retirement, a masochist who loves being shown up and reprimanded in public or plain mad. 

Lesson 2 in behavioral science was telling people to do something is often not enough; a consequence has to be in place to ensure the task is done.
Control Stage: Your team members have all spent time and effort in your workshops. When the project is complete and you’re sipping tea with the boss, the cash saving projected on the wall behind you, don’t forget them, don’t take all the credit. This will lead to “extinction”; basically they have made the effort and want some recognition but have had little or no reward. When the call comes for project 2 I lay a penny to a pound that they won’t be volunteering. Team members need plenty of Positive Reinforcement. They are our customers at the end of the day.
These are just some of the techniques you can use. The main thing is to use these tools not ad hoc, but everyday, until they become “business as usual”. 
What behavioral techniques do you use within the RDMAICT process?]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[J P Spencer]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 12 Feb 2007 08:50:39 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Black Belt Image]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/black_belt_image.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Recently, I had an interesting conversation with the editor of our facility newsletter.  She was looking for short articles for the next edition, and I asked if she thought people would be interested in some tips for email organization.  Simple stuff, like sorting your inbox by sender so you can take care of your boss's communication first.
She thought it was a great idea, and I sent her a few tips.  A few minutes later, she sent me back a question.
"Looks good to me, although do you think it will be odd for a Black Belt to be talking about minor administrative issues like these?  We wouldn't want to undermine your position/image."
Well, I thought that it was very nice of her to care about my image, but, I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry at the question.
It did make me ask myself, what's the image of Black Belt that she was concerned about?  That we only use Lean and Six Sigma for big team-based problem-solving projects?  I think it's also perfectly appropriate to look for efficient ways to handle even minor administrative details!  
As it turned out, she ran the article crediting me (which was perfectly ok as far as I'm concerned).
Have any of you run into image issues of this nature?  It would be interesting if you would share your stories!]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Wed, 07 Feb 2007 15:14:37 -0800</pubDate>
		</item>

		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Off The Map]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/off_the_map.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[If you’ve read some of my previous blog entries, you’ll know I’m no fan of roadmaps. I used to think this was a radical proposition in the Six Sigma community. But more and more, when I talk to practitioners – the people on the ground who do the hands-on work of process improvement – I am finding that this opinion is perhaps not a minority view after all.
Yes, this is even true of DMAIC, the Lord’s Prayer of Six Sigma that is etched into Black Belt brains around the globe. And to be perfectly clear, I realize that in many places DMAIC is considered past its prime, having been supplanted by various Lean-Six Sigma hybrid roadmaps, or design roadmaps like IDOV and DMADV. To be fair to acronyms of all stripe, I’ll go on record and confess that it’s not any one specific roadmap I have an aversion to, it’s the use of roadmaps in general.
To be sure, roadmaps do have several advantages. They’re easy to teach. They lend themselves well to dashboard displays. They provide and easy point of reference for senior executives and other stakeholders. They make projects seem like they are progressing. And they’re a crutch, especially for beginners. But beyond this last point (which I’ll get to in a minute) I don’t think they’re especially useful for the people actually doing the work. In fact, in my experience, they lead to a lot of waste as folks “check off the box” on various tools in each stage of the roadmap as opposed to doing strictly what is necessary to advance the project. And on the flipside, they let people get away without thinking through the best approach for themselves. Think of it this way: the roadmap is an a priori answer to the question of “how should this project be done” that utterly ignores variation in circumstances. For the life of me, I can’t understand why we as a community believe it’s going to be the right answer in more than a few lucky cases.
Then again, maybe we don’t believe it. When I’ve asked around, I’ve found that projects that truly follow a roadmap are far and few between. This is puzzling, given the standard Six Sigma dogma. But it has been my experience that the vast majority of good work going on out there involved subverting whatever roadmap it’s supposed to be following. Experienced Black Belts regularly skip stages, do them out of order, repeat them, and add new ones of their own invention. Master Black Belts speak in hushed tones about projects that succeeded after a simple visual display of data showed what changes needed to be made. Green Belts sometimes find that they need to work on the measurement system again after doing some “improve” work. Gasp!
My point is that disregard for roadmaps is an open secret. Turns out my views are probably within the distribution after all. Given this is the case, what I can’t figure out is why roadmaps are still peddled so aggressively in the Six Sigma community. If every project is an exception to the process, why are we still teaching the process? Why not embrace the freedom of a non-roadmap approach?
Don’t get me wrong: I love organizing concepts for continuous improvement work, and understand the necessity of having something more than a random collection of tools. I’m especially enamored of iterative models like the scientific method and PDCA. (Even DMAIC becomes a lot more palatable to me if we admit MAI are likely to iterate along parallel paths between D and C, but that’s a pretty messy acronym.) But beyond that, I think what we ought to be doing is encouraging folks to understand data: collection, display, analysis, uses and abuses of data. We ought to be encouraging them to think for themselves what sequence of steps are necessary to get through a project, what data are required, and how those data should be collected and analyzed. And if we want folks to truly get good at this, I contend that handing them roadmaps when they start out hinders rather than helps the journey.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Andrew Downard]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Thu, 01 Feb 2007 04:01:00 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Tellin' It To The CEO]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/tellin_it_to_the_ceo.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Yesterday, our organization graduated its first class of Lean Green Belts that was taught on our own, without our consultant.  We’re using the term "Lean Green Belt" because we’re teaching them primarily Lean so they can facilitate Rapid Improvement Events, although we’re using the DMAIC structure as an organizing principle.  (Our BBs are called Six Sigma Black Belts, to reflect the additional statistical knowledge they need to run both Lean and Six Sigma projects.)
During the graduation ceremony, we had a wonderful "aha" moment.  Our CEO was just wrapping up his warm congratulatory speech, and he ended it by saying "... and let’s keep pushing our improvement efforts forward!"
As one, the entire Lean Green Belt class responded:  "PULL! NOT PUSH, PULL!"
Needless to say we all erupted in laughter.  This is a class that "gets it" and we’re very excited to see them go out into the workplace and share their learnings.
Our Lean Green Belt certification requirements include 9 days of coursework over 4 months, an exam, and facilitation or co-facilitation of two projects within 12 months of completing the classes.  Having graduated these 40 LGBs, we’re really looking forward to seeing what the "Fall Class of 2006" will be doing next!
(And, we’re already starting our prep work for our Winter 2007 LGB class which will begin next month!)]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Tue, 23 Jan 2007 06:11:56 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: North American International Auto Show]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/north_american_international_auto_show.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Greetings from Detroit, where the North American International Auto Show is in its first full week.  I had the opportunity to visit over the weekend, and was mightily impressed with what I saw.
This time, I have to say I looked with different eyes. The last time I attended, a few years ago, my perspective was that of a potential customer.  I mostly looked for performance, amenities, and appearances.
Now, I'm still as concerned as anyone with important items such as cup-holder placement, lumbar support, and MP3 player connections.  This year, though, my thoughts also concerned quality issues.  Not coming from the automotive world, or even the engineering world, I'm sure I'm not appreciative enough about all the hours of effort that my fellow quality-improvers have put in.  And, I know it's the culmination of everyone's efforts - designers, prototypers, suppliers, factory workers, all the support departments like purchasing and HR, and - yes - Lean Six Sigma practitioners - that drives the product that appears on the showroom floor.
But I'd like to send out  kudos - and thanks - to our fellow quality-improvers in the auto business, wherever they may be.  I had a great time at the Auto Show, and if your initials could appear everywhere you had an impact, I'm sure the cars would be covered, inside and out!
 
For a peek at the Auto Show - go to www.naias.com.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;History&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 15 Jan 2007 06:44:40 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: I Should Write a Book]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/i_should_write_a_book.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Many organizational leaders are inspired by management books, and quite a few have gone to the extremes of ordering the books for their leadership teams.  Some even start book clubs or go through each book chapter by chapter in their meetings.
I'm an avid reader and have gone through a lot of management books in my time.  Books on principles of leadership, leading without authority, team management, creativity, reward and recognition, communication, accountability, you name it, it's out there.
Which brings me to a bright idea that I've been kicking around for a while.  I should write a book.  I can write inspirational stories that highlight Lean Six Sigma as the way to go... oh wait, that's been done.  OK, I can write a technically awe-inspiring tome chock full of statistical methods and applications... oh wait, that's been done.  Well, then I can write about Lean Six Sigma in a way that's accessible to the general public... oh wait, that's been done.  Still, I think I could write a book.  What might be the recipe for success?
I'd have to start with a great title.  Now, many of the books that have caught the eye of leaders have numbers in them.  For example, the one minute leader.  Level three leadership.  The four obsessions of leaders.  The five obsessions of leaders.  Six thinking hats.  Seven habits.  Eight essential steps.  Nine strategies.  Ten principles.  Twelve pillars.  Twenty-two ways to develop leadership.  101 Management tips.
Another word in the title that catches the eye is the leader-oriented noun, as demonstrated in the titles above.  Strategy, precept, pillar, principle, step, action, theory, law, science, practice, experience, philosophy, trait.
Then, it's essential to have "leader" somewhere in the title; and preferably, a sub-title that explains what the book is really about.
And, the name of an inspirational leader or group is very popular.  Jesus, Sun Tzu, Lao Tzu, Colin Powell, the Marines, the Navy, Captain Kirk, Ghengis Kahn, Wooden, Churchill, Patton.
So, here's my proposal for a great book title.
"The 27 Lean Six Sigma Leadership Secrets of Abraham Lincoln:  Uniting your organization to a common purpose."
That sounds pretty great to me.  Now, all I have to do is... write the book!]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Fri, 12 Jan 2007 05:35:50 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: You are better than Toyota]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/you_are_better_than_toyota.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[People only jump when they are pushed. Kotter in his book Leading Change (1994) talks about creating the "Burning Platform". My mental image of this burning platform is a team of guys and / or gals on a burning oil rig knowing the oil rig is going to sink but only jumping into the murky depths of the sea when they feel the heat of the flames. 
The car industry is permanently on the burning oil rig platform or in the sea. There is no greater burning platform than the competitiveness of the car manufacturing sector where complacency, will lead to huge financial losses and even Bankruptcy. ‘Rover’, can you believe was the third biggest car manufacturer in the world in the late 1960s. That’s like Ford going bust today! 
Until you have these market forces or artificially create the illusion of them, your Six Sigma deployment will never be priority within your business. 
The real art is for your deployment to flourish even when you have very little competition (or even a virtual monopoly like I have on the railways), when it takes all your powers of persuasion especially when your team members do not work for you to drive through change and when you do not always have the data or even the processes in place. If you can get projects to completion and save money in this environment then you can argue that in many ways you are better than Toyota.
In my next blog I will talk about PBL Performance Based Leadership (based on behavioural science) which our deployment have driven as a philosophy alongside the DMAIC methodology to help create an illusion of "The Burning Platform".]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[J P Spencer]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 08 Jan 2007 02:15:28 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Happy New Year]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/happy_new_year.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I don't usually make too many New Year's resolutions, but here are a few that I'll be attempting this year.
1.  To be less judgmental of people, and more judgmental about processes.
2.  To look more closely at the "story behind the headlines" when confronted with a problem.
3.  To clarify when I'm giving advice as a Black Belt, and when I'm letting my personal opinion sneak in.
I think if I can work on those three things, I'll become more effective as a process-improver-facilitator.
How about you - did you make any work-related resolutions this year?]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Fri, 05 Jan 2007 15:24:01 -0800</pubDate>
		</item>

		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Another way of looking at things...]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/another_way_of_looking_at_things.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[From a building in the centre of Glasgow a team continues to grow, spread and populate one of the world’s largest financial institutions. The team is ours, the mission (which we duly accepted) was to change the way things were done, to build and prepare for growth and to change an embedded culture of ‘that’s the way it’s always been’. 
Now, 2 years since inception, the comforting arms of Six Sigma change are morphing the team into a machine of financially prioritised change work which, although valid in today’s dog eat dog world, I personally have to ask the question – “how long can it last?” 
I mean, is Six Sigma change a large scale cost cutting exercise hidden under a veil of due process or is it a vehicle of full scale change in corporate culture? The question is one I, personally, believe is tending towards the former…and that is not a good thing! 
I believe the children are the future…oops, sorry wrong blog…ahem… 
I will admit, I am not a capitalist and have a tendency to show attributes that are sometimes described as idealistic or even ‘hippy’ but I know I’m not the only one that is beginning to believe that many Six Sigma deployments (for reasons of diplomacy I will not mention if our deployment is included in this statement) are missing their opportunity to change a business not from the account book but from the heads of the people contributing to the account book. 
A guy called Robert Dilts produced a model of change called the Neuro-Logical levels (based on earlier work by Gregory Bateson). This model explained how to produce the most profound change in individuals and groups of individuals. Now, the more I study this model and the more I hear about Six Sigma deployments, the fewer I realise are doing anything that is going to create the easily maintainable, long term change in an organisation that our jobs as BBs are initially created for. 
The model itself is structured as a hierarchy and I have reproduced it in its most basic format below:  
Spirituality Identity  Beliefs  Capabilities Behaviour Environment 
In summary of the model, to generate change in any given individual or group of individuals you can change their environment and it will work. For example, I know as BBs we have probably all been involved in producing trackers, posters, dashboards, team positioning etc. and it will work for a while...but eventually the old behaviours will start again because you’ve not changed them. So you can change the behaviour, change processes, remove steps, build systems and you will see the team themselves begin to change their environment to fit their new behaviours…excellent stuff, but it doesn’t change the fact if a group or individual is not capable to do a task then they will not perform. And so we can change the capabilities of a team/organisation through training and hiring new staff…I’m sure you’re getting the idea now - the higher up the hierarchy you go the longer lasting and more pervasive the change. 
Now we get into the tough stuff and where I believe the Six Sigma that I have witnessed lacks its real punch. How do we go about changing the beliefs of an organisation or even the identity of an organisation when all our targets, leadership and drive are coming from affecting the bottom line of the hierarchy – the financial environment. If we, as change professionals, want to create change in our organisations we have to start affecting the belief systems and corporate and team identities that hold our businesses back only then can we claim to be purveyors of long term change to an organisation. 
This is easier said than done. To make this type of change we need time, training, and strong leadership. We need the skills to inspire as well as manage. We cannot run a Chi-Square on a lack of belief or a confused corporate identity! I’ve got my ideas on some of the approaches we can take and I’ll stick up a post in a couple of weeks time as I’m hoping that this post may spark some debate. As a side note - if you have a way to bring Spirituality to your organisation through Six Sigma then go ahead however that may be taking it a step too far!! 
I believe Six Sigma is a great model for change. However, I also believe, if Six Sigma wants to survive, it has to evolve and I don’t know if it has the will or the want to do that. Therefore, as I said at the beginning, my questions remains ‘How long can it last?’ 
Happy New Year.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Brian Costello]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Wed, 03 Jan 2007 02:57:16 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Mainstream]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/mainstream.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Middle manager of a mid-sized business with an average market share makes a New Year’s resolution, “I must improve our performance!”. Hits the Internet to discover what’s out there and is absolutely bombarded with the latest thinking and best practise in how to improve their business.
KISS…4P…5P…Burning platform…Blue Ocean…7S…PRINCE2…MBWA….Seven Habits…CMMi…Governance…Scenario Planning…Six Sigma….Innovation…Kotler…Activity Based Costing…Balanced Scorecard…Six Hats…ITIL….Results 1 - 10 of about 9,340,000
Given the number of options, it should come as no surprise that without clear executive sponsorship, managers looking for “home-grown” solutions could be reluctant to invest any time in Lean Six Sigma. There are any number of good reasons not to get involved. Gianna is currently on reason number 37 and still counting!
Even if they focussed on continuous improvement there is a lot to choose from e.g. Lean, Six Sigma, ISO, MBNQA, TRIZ, TPS, EFQM, TOC, TQM ….no, this is all too complex, not today thank you, I’ve got some fire-fighting to do!
Name a soft drink, quality automobile, or MP3-player and it brings to mind an immediate response. I think we have achieved a high degree of customer mind share. But in what categories should Lean Six Sigma hold mind share? Product Launch; Business Strategy; Performance Management, Innovation, Profit? 
Our technology is proven and the tools work. It seems a question of marketing. I’m reminded of the early works of Geoffrey Moore like Crossing the Chasm. How do you cross the chasm from being a product used by selected niches and specialist areas into a de facto business tool?

Product Adoption Curve
The move into mainstream is about making Lean Six Sigma easy to do business with. One aspect of this is standardisation. I will draw on a couple of examples from the IT industry. 


During the nineties there were a series of competing approaches to software engineering. Adoption of modelling techniques was slow as customers were not sure which methodology to back. The resolution was the creation of a single industry standard Universal Modelling Language (UML).

Again in the nineties there were a series of competing approaches to networking. Customers could base their networks on technology such as token-ring, IPX/SPX, DECNet, NetBEUI, SNA or TCP/IP. Now the industry has settled on TCP/IP.
This relentless standardisation has continued in spreadsheets, word processors, operating systems, databases, and ERP systems. Mainstream customers like a dominant player (800lb gorilla) with a second choice in case they fall-out with the gorilla.
Another aspect is simplification (I discovered there is a Six Sigma for Dummies). Mainstream customers like simple messages and easy to follow processes. What would constitute the core of Lean Six Sigma without affecting integrity? Would it be suitable for a mainstream audience?
I believe an industry designed “Sigma Lite” that is ratified by say ISO would be a step in the right direction for customer adoption. This would draw on all best practice (including ISO 9004) to produce a cut-down version for the mainstream. 
Of course every consultancy will challenge this to describe how they are better than the average. Not sure if the Six Sigma Green Belt is already the lowest level of abstraction to support continuous improvement? ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Robin Barnwell]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Tue, 02 Jan 2007 03:23:24 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Heads or Tails?]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/heads_or_tails.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[When I'm looking at a process, it often seems like there's more than one way to approach a problem - without a clear-cut "right" or "best" solution.  One of the issues that seems to be a frequent "let's-flip-a-coin issue" is centralization vs decentralization, specifically related to decision-making.
In some projects, a particular process has been decentralized - the rationale is remaining close to the customer, using just-in-time deliveries, allowing for the uniqueness of a variety of environments (geographic, cultural, or what have you).  Local sites may come up with different solutions for the same problem.  When we go in to facilitate a project, often we hear the project team and/or leaders call for "standardization across sites," "accountability," and "reduction in over-processing waste" meaning centralization of authority for processes and changes.
In other projects, a particular project has been subject to a central authority - the rationale is to maintain standard work and accountability.  Local sites may not have the flexibility to address unique customer issues.  When we go in to facilitate a project, often we hear the project team and/or leaders call for "delivering on CTQs that vary with our customer base," "reducing hand-offs and unnecessary approvals" and "agility" meaning decentralization of decision-making.
It seems that both sides have good arguments.  I've tried to get teams to consider the "think globally, act locally" concept but have run into opposition from both sides.
Would anyone care to share his or her experiences on either side of this coin?]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 04 Dec 2006 13:39:28 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: The Finish Line]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/the_finish_line.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I have been wrestling lately with the question of when a Six Sigma project should be considered “done”. From the perspective of the organization, it’s common to say that done means finished through the control phase or it’s equivalent, including process changes or other implemented solutions. From the financial perspective it’s tempting to say that done means solutions have been implemented, controls put in place, and savings documented for some pre-defined period of time.
But from the perspective of the Black Belt (or whomever is leading the project to begin with), these answers often don’t make sense. Rarely will the Black Belt have the knowledge, authority, or resources to implement and monitor process changes, or the bandwidth to stick around for a year to make sure that the dollars flow as expected. One could argue that perhaps the world would be a better place if Black Belts were truly accountable for these things, but in practice it is usually a process owner and/or finance rep who are responsible for ensuring that changes stick and dollars flow. And given what they are trained to do, we probably want Black Belts moving on to new projects anyway. Instead, we seem to be moving the finish line farther and farther away, and keeping Black Belts involved in more and more things.
For example, consider a classic Six Sigma project aimed at reducing scrap and increasing throughput on a high-volume manufacturing line. Any competent Black Belt ought to be able to do the basic work of defining and measuring, then using statistical techniques to sample and understand the process, and finally running the experiments necessary to arrive at a proposed solution. But if that solution involves re-training the operators, installing new measurement equipment, and reducing changeover times, then the Black Belt is probably the last person I’d want handling the implementation. Give me the process owner, a good trainer, a capital engineer, and an experienced SMED expert to do that. If that Black Belt is all of those things, fine. But in the other 99% of cases, I think a hand-off is by far the best path forward. Even if the Black Belt is accountable for these things on paper (as is often the case), in reality it seldom works out that way for successful projects.
In fact, once a Black Belt arrives at a proposed solution, I’d argue that there’s usually little “Six Sigma work” left to be done. More often that not the change to be implemented involves other tools and skill sets like SMED, Lean, kaizen blitzes, cellularization, training or re-training, capital installations, etc, etc, etc. And given that’s the case, there’s almost always a better person or group than the Black Belt to get it done. Let the Black Belt move on to another opportunity where Six Sigma skills are needed. Why train people up on one thing and then devote them to another?
One answer to this problem is to try to make Black Belts experts at, well, everything. Hence the proliferation of various hyphenated and hybrid techniques (DFLSS with an extra week for change management, anyone?). And as a result, we get what seems like a never-ending curriculum creep: 40 hours online plus five weeks in class for Black Belt isn’t uncommon anymore, and both the online and in class parts seem only to be growing.
But maybe a better answer is to move the finish line forward. Perhaps the job of a Black Belt ought to be to deliver one thing and one thing only: the knowledge necessary to make the improvement. Maybe past that point there are others who will always be better at executing.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Andrew Downard]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Sun, 03 Dec 2006 22:01:00 -0800</pubDate>
		</item>

		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Maintaining Momentum]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/maintaining_momentum.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[It’s the holiday season and that means one thing: shopping! This is the one time of year where I will seriously shop, making my seasonal impulsive buys and spending money on items such as clothing, candy, electronics, etc. that I rarely buy throughout any other time of the year. Evidently, I am not alone in my yearly ritual. I saw on the news where many retail businesses accrue 40%-60% of their sales from the period known as “Black Friday” to Christmas. But what if every month was like Christmas for retailers? Imagine an environment with driven customers continuously buying month after month with enthusiasm.
For some companies, Six Sigma is much like the holiday shopping season. There is a period in the company where everyone is attentive, motivated and excited. However some companies inevitably face the equivalent of a retailer’s January. So how does this loss of momentum occur? There are many reasons depending on the type of company and it’s culture. Rather than focusing on the root cause, which may be something that can not be controlled, I’d like to focus on some ideas that can help you maintain Six Sigma momentum in your organization.

PR goes a long way. The extroverted functions of your Six Sigma role shouldn’t be limited to a cheerleader or coach. In order to maintain momentum, you must become a communications and public relations expert. Does your company have a newsletter? An intranet? An annual report? These are all good examples of media tools you can use to promote Six Sigma.  A former employer published a daily newsletter called "Table Talk" which was placed on tables in the break rooms. Every issue would have either a Lean or Six Sigma definition, along with periodic updates on projects.
Take a "field trip".  And you thought field trips were only for kids! Seriously, if you can, corral your Six Sigma troops, along with key management players and arrange a tour of an organization that practices Six Sigma.  This allows management to see how other companies are successful through Six Sigma and innovates the Six Sigma practitioners by showing them new applications for tools they are familiar with (Many professional societies arrange these tours as part of their meeting agendas).
Make friends with investor relations.  If you work for a publicly traded company, your investor relations department could be one of your best friends.  Large corporations routinely speak at investor conferences. Helping the presenter(s) of these conferences prepare presentations with a Six Sigma flavor helps to maintain momentum not only internally but externally as well. Adding information to the company’s annual report such as project savings, commitment to quality initiatives, etc. will further spark interest among shareholders.
Numbers, Numbers, Numbers.  If you’re practicing Six Sigma then your company surely has some form of metrics, dashboards, balanced scorecards, etc.  These are great pieces of information to let the company know where it’s going,  but does it tell you why or how the company is improving? Adding a descriptive caption to a metric’s  graph where a major Six Sigma project was begun, implemented, and sustained reminds others of the importance (and effectiveness) of these projects. ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Holly Hawkins]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Thu, 30 Nov 2006 09:17:24 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Acronyms and Anachronisms]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/acronyms_and_anachronisms.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Reading Gianna Clark's latest blog made me thing about all the "sayisms" that I've developed over the past three years of my Lean-Six Sigma journey.  I have added lots of acronyms, sayings, and jargon in my daily speech - and I keep forgetting that not everybody is familiar with these terms (yet) - including my husband during our dinner table conversations!  Have you had this same experience?
Here are some examples of what I find myself saying - in each case, someone has said - "Whoa - slow down - I don't know what you mean by that!"

Radio station WIIFM (thanks Gina, that's what kicked me off on this blog! "What's in it for me?")
CTQs (Critical to Quality [characteristics])
VOC (Voice of the Customer)
ARMI (Approvers, Resources, Members, Interested Parties)
Big Y (Process Outcome)
WWW (What-Who-When)
DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control)
FMEA (Failure Modes Effects Analysis)
DOE (Design of Experiments) 
SOP (Standard Operating Procedure)
DPMO (Defects per Million Opportunities)
SIPOC (Suppliers, Inputs, Process, Outputs, Customers)
VSM (Value Stream Map)
COPQ (Cost of Poor Quality)
GR&amp;R (Gage Reproducibility &amp; Repeatability)
QFD (Quality Function Deployment)
Surely there must be many more out there that you get caught on as well.  Care to share?
 ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Wed, 29 Nov 2006 10:46:05 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Reward &amp; Recognition]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/reward_amp_recognition.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Our organization is starting to have a very constructive discussion about rewards and recognition for Black Belts.  (Green Belts, hold on, you're next.)  We canvassed our current Black Belts and - as you might guess - the variation was wider than the mean!
Ideas started from certificates, pins, and belts... through public recognition at organization-wide events... through project bonuses... and ended up at preferential promotion after specified criteria were met and the person had been in the Black Belt role for a certain amount of time.
One individual felt that reporting to the hospital President was the most satisfying aspect of the job, while another said, essentially, "forget the trinkets, just give me project bonuses."
Related to this discussion is the appropriate reward/recognition structure for Green Belts, other team participants, Process Owners, and Project Sponsors.  We wonder whether there should be a series of certificates and pins, or should we use the belt structure (white, yellow, orange, etc.), or should we give gift certificates / tote bags / padfolios, and/or public recognition?
While we work to get to organizational consensus on these issues, I wonder whether any of you would like to share your thoughts on successful (or unsuccessful!) recognition programs for Lean Six Sigma project team members.  Do we need to reward differently than we recognize?  Or are these just two different aspects of the same issue?]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Tue, 21 Nov 2006 10:22:01 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Lean Madness]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/lean_madness.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I recently took a long train journey to Wales to attend a user group for a software package that defines Enterprise Architecture (Zachman et al). More details in a future IT blog. But what caught my eye was an article in The Times newspaper:

Tax staff told to clear their deskBeing told to clear your desk used to be synonymous with dismissal. But civil servants have been asked to remove photographs, food and mobile phones in an attempt to improve efficiency.
Under an edict sent to Revenue &amp; Customs staff in tax offices, desks have to be tidy, clean and free from clutter to promote “efficient business processing”. The so-called Lean programme, designed to improve productivity in government offices, has provoked a work-to-rule among 14,000 civil servants.  An internal memo from a senior manager in North Wales outlining the process evoked claims from the Public and Commercial Services Union that the organisation was trying to “dehumanise” working conditions.
Revenue &amp; Customs said that staff had been invited to work with managers, and that unions had been consulted.
Its not often you see Lean in the national press and this didn’t seem to be the right message. 
My immediate thoughts were around the benefits of implementing 5S to keep desks clear. Revenue &amp; Customs is a colossal government agency with a budget in the billions. Even a few percent in savings translates into considerable sums. So I expect the data showed a clean desk policy will have a realisable impact. I also wondered if 5S would extend into the virtual world of information stored on-line, documents on file servers, plans in Excel, messages stored in e-mails?
I suspected what I was reading was just the tip of the iceberg so I did a little more research.
PA Consulting was engaged to drive the Lean programme and they provide a good write-up of the programme. Equally the Public and Commercial Services Union provide a good counter-argument to this Lean madness. I must say I found this viewpoint rather alien to me. I have never worked in the public sector and was surprised with the resistance to change.
But overall it put into perspective the issues I have in getting stakeholder agreement, process owners on board and cross-functional teams working together. Central government is in a different league.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Robin Barnwell]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Thu, 16 Nov 2006 04:19:50 -0800</pubDate>
		</item>

		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Deployment Music, Part 3]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/deployment_music_part_3.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[In my previous two posts, I talked about the fugue and the symphony as metaphors for Six Sigma deployment.
A fugue is a  musical form in which a single theme is repeated or imitated successively by different instruments until eventually the entire orchestra is involved. This strategy isn’t a bad one for Six Sigma deployment, especially in cases where human resources are tight but time is not. By contrast, symphonies start with some multiple themes deployed differently in different areas. The program doesn’t have to be the same everywhere, as long the themes and their relationships and well planned. The key for a symphonic deployment is that it requires excellent planning and coordination throughout.
Of all my previous blog posts, these alone garnered no comments whatsoever. But what is blogging for, if not to air thoughts that might be interesting to me and no one else? With that in mind, it’s time for the third (and possibly most esoteric) topic in this series: the tone poem as a model for deployment.
With respect to the amount of structure involved, tone poems are at the other end of the spectrum from fugues. In short, there are no rules. There might be one movement, there might be many. Tone poems can have one single theme, a few, or many. Some of these themes can exist in isolation and may be played only by one instrument group. Other themes interact, overlap, and play off one another. Some tone poems are completely original, while others quote freely from other sources in whole or in part. Some are harmonious and pleasing to the ear, while others are random and cacophonous.
The problem with this method of deployment is the same as the problem with tone poems: the outcome is different every time. Actually, that’s not a problem in the world of music at all; creating and driving that variety is the point of the form, and the fact that I might hate the outcome while you might love it is one of the joys of musical expression. But in the world of Six Sigma deployment, we’re faced with the reality that to some extent, our target audience has to love it.
This isn’t to say that any one of these three strategies is inherently good or bad. Rather that one is generally more appropriate than others based on circumstances. The problem is when the wrong choice is made, or worse, no choice is made at all and we default to some version of the tone poem.
Although it’s probably not intentional, most Six Sigma deployments share a lot of characteristics with tone poems. In my experience, it’s easily the most common of the three strategies discussed here. Part of this has to do with the inability of large organizations to formulate complicated plans and then keep the faith long enough to focus and execute those plans over years. Part of it has to do with our desire to emulate the deployments of others, quote from other sources, even though our organizations are different in every respect. And part of it certainly has to do with the fact that most deployments are designed by large groups rather than individuals.
Faced with these real-world difficulties, a lot of deployment champions choose the unstructured tone poem rather than something more structured like a fugue or symphony. And for a composer that is both brilliant and empowered, the tone poem can be a beautiful this. But say what you want about the limited creativity allowed in a fugue, if you follow the basic rules you end up with something that is a recognizable fugue even if you make some major blunders along the way. Ditto for a symphony. In contrast, tone poems and deployments based on the form can end up being a jumble of noise if the composer isn’t careful or talented. To put it another way, the structure and framework actually adds robustness to the deployment, just like it does to the musical form. Unless we’re brilliant, we ought to go for the structure.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Andrew Downard]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Sun, 12 Nov 2006 22:01:00 -0800</pubDate>
		</item>

		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Teaching Six Sigma]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/teaching_six_sigma.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[My organization is embarking on a new frontier:  teaching our own version of DMAIC to new Green Belts and Black Belts.  For our first three waves, we used the material provided by our consultant. Now we're ready (we think) to customize it with our own organization's goals and culture.
The original training focused on the DMAIC process and included 17 days over six months - the same training for both Green Belts and Black Belts.  Each Black Belt was assigned a training project with 1 - 3 Green Belts on the team.  In this model, the BB was responsible as team leader and project facilitator, with GBs assisting.
We have made two major changes for this next wave of training.  We now wish to include more elements of Lean throughout the training, and we are preparing Green Belts to be team leaders with a Black Belt mentor/coach helping several Green Belts on their various teams.
In order to do this, we've split the classes so that Green Belts get the essentials of the project structure and emphasis on what they need to know to lead an effective project team.  This training will take 9 days total, with both GBs and BBs in attendance.  We've included tools for scoping the project and preparing the charter; Customer and Process CTQs; Value Stream Mapping; data collection; descriptive statistics and lean metrics such as Process Cycle Efficiency; classic Lean tools such as 5S, Takt time, and pull; planning for Rapid Improvement Events; use of Failure Mode Effects Analysis; facilitating the Control phase; and measurements needed for the sustaining the improvement.
In addition, we have planned some additional days of "Black Belt technical training" to include more of the technical and statistical knowledge that the BBs will need to effectively coach the Green Belts - MSA, sample size calculations, process capability, statistical analysis, design of experiments, etc.
This feels risky to me, because I'm concerned about (a) taking too much out of the Green Belt/Black Belt combined courses, so that the material becomes watered down; and (b) leaving too much in that doesn't pertain to the type of projects the Green Belts will be leading, so the educational material isn't value-added.
If any of you have made this transition, to teaching your own versions of the DMAIC/Lean material, I'd welcome your insights and suggestions.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 16 Oct 2006 10:33:06 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Who’s doing who the favour?]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/whos_doing_who_the_favour.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[When you help your neighbour to paint his fence, is he doing you the favour? NO
When you lend your friend 50 dollars, is he doing you the favour? NO
When you help a colleague fix his process, is he doing you the favour? NO

 
Make sure your colleagues understand this. If they think they are doing you a favour, you’re starting off on the wrong foot straight away.
OK, I know we get paid to do this, but I don’t know about you, but I can work with numerous departments on numerous ‘problems’. That’s one of the good things about being a Black Belt.
A new colleague spoke to me the other day saying “if you really want, I have a problem in my department that you can fix”. 
This attitude is wrong. It might not be his fault. The last Black Belt probably went round with his begging bowl asking “please let me help you, ohhhh please….” 
How do we change this attitude?
1. Get a good project pipeline flowing.
The more projects you have, the easier it is to ditch the project team with the wrong attitude. Sounds harsh, but a team with poor motivation is slowing you down, wasting your time and wasting the company money. A BB with a large pipeline, I argue, transmits an air of confidence. The BB has the attitude; I’m here to help if you want my help.
2. ‘Create a Burning Platform’ Kotter J ‘Leading Change’ 
Make sure you communicate the problem statement especially in terms of cash to the right people. People will soon shift once they know (or more importantly the bosses know) the gravity of the situation.
3. Create short term goals / milestones and 4. Communicate your success.
Keep your Six Sigma projects short and sweet. Projects that drag on for six months need to be carved up into key milestones to keep motivation at a maximum
5. Celebrate Success;
with plenty of beer, champagne, donuts or whatever your Six Sigma team deem to be a celebration. Remember, celebration is subjective to the individual.
I would be very interested in how you have established a culture of ‘pull’ (Colleagues at work coming to you for help) in your Six Sigma deployment.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[J P Spencer]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 16 Oct 2006 02:17:59 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: The Ultimate Accolade]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/the_ultimate_accolade.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Yesterday (9th October 2006) I heard that Edmund Phelps was awarded the 2006 Nobel Prize for Economics for his theories developed in the 1960’s on the interplay between inflation expectations and unemployment. This showed that there is a "natural" rate of unemployment, a level below which inflation pressures are likely to intensify. His theories led to increased vigilance against inflation at the Federal Reserve and the world’s other major central banks. What an achievement.
From my days at Siebel, I felt a significant reason I worked for a world-class business was because Michael Spence, winner of 2001 Nobel Prize for Economics, was on the board of directors. To pick-up on Michael Cyger’s blog, From Good to Great Six Sigma, these are great people. The quality hall of fame shows industry greats, Deming, Shewhart, Juran &amp; Ishikawa to name a few. 
But the Six Sigma community celebrates projects, teamwork and delivering best practise as shown in the Six Sigma Excellence Awards. Should we recognise and celebrate those individuals who demonstrate greatness in our industry? There are many potential candidates, Peters, Welch, Smith, Leahy and Womack &amp; Jones. I think we should have an individual award for outstanding contribution to quality.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Robin Barnwell]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Wed, 11 Oct 2006 12:50:53 -0800</pubDate>
		</item>

		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: ASQ to iSixSigma: Cease and Desist]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/asq_to_isixsigma_cease_and_desist.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[The American Society for Quality had an attorney send iSixSigma a cease and desist letter the other day for an article iSixSigma published back in 2001.
In the article, Charles Waxer wrote, "ASQ only started offering certification a year or so ago." This was in fact true in 2001, but since we don't include a dateline in our articles (because most of our content is "evergreen," in other words, not effected by time),  it appeared as though we were saying that was the current situation. Obviously, I was disappointed with the error and the article was quickly corrected.
This isn't the first time that iSixSigma has been asked to modify some information we've published and it probably won't be the last. Our editorial team works hard to investigate, determine and publish correct information. And, because we know that from time to time data does become outdated, links become broken and content requires updating, we are always reviewing our content.
So why am I writing this blog entry? It's not as much the notification of the problem as it is the manner in which we were notified. ASQ involved their legal representative when a simple, friendly contact would have served the same purpose. Couldn't find my phone number or email address? Try searching the ASQ  membership directory. I've been there since 1999.
As a member of ASQ, the letter from their attorney bothered me on another level. I pay dues to ASQ for access to membership benefits like resources and information, to drive continued professional development, and to improve the resources ASQ provides to the quality community.
I do not pay dues to ASQ so that they can be wasted on trivial issues, such as paying an attorney to handle a matter that could have been resolved by a simple phone call.
One can only imagine how many emails, meetings and telephone calls culminated in that letter to iSixSigma from ASQ's attorney? If another issue like this should ever occur, I would invite ASQ to try reaching out - business professional to business professional - with a simple, friendly request. If they do, I'll appreciate them for helping improve our site and for not wasting my dues.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Michael Cyger]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Tue, 10 Oct 2006 03:29:32 -0800</pubDate>
		</item>

		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: IQPC Day Two: Richard Teerlink, Harley-Davidson]]></title>
			<link>http://www.sixsigmacompanies.com/archive/iqpc_day_two_richard_teerlink_harley_davidson.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Richard Teerlink, Former Chairman of Harley-Davidson, taught us that we need to embrace change if we are to be successful.  He opened with a quote from Eric Hoffer:

“In the times of change the learners will inherit the earth while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world than no longer exists.”
In this context he rode through the history of Harley-Davidson up to the 1981 and then talked about the changes they made from ‘81 to ‘85 that brought the company in to profitability again.  He presented the case that people are the only sustainable competitive advantage a company can have.  Below are a few quotes that stood out in my mind on various topics:
Culture:  “Culture begins with employee engagement in and understanding of the values, direction and purpose of the organization”
Change:  “Change is continuous and accelerating.. If you don’t like it, tough.”  
Communication:  “It’s not the words you write the words you say, it’s what you do.”
Organization chart:  “The right people getting together at the right time to do the right thing right.”  
Harley-Davidson Mission Statement: “We fulfill dreams through the experience of motorcycling…”
At the close of his presentation, a conference attendee asked Richard if he has a Harley tattoo…  He responded, “My Harley tattoo in on my heart and soul.”  
Related Conference Blog Entries
IQPC: Day One: Main Conference SessionIQPC Day One: William A. Steenburgh, Senior Vice President of Xerox Services
IQPC: Day One: Brad Dalton, Senior Vice President of Bank of America
IQPC Day One: Breakout Session: Michael Cyger, iSixSigma
IQPC Day One: Breakout Session, Liam Palmer, HSBC
IQPC Day One: Panel Session: Gaining Buy-in
IQPC Day One: Breakout Session, Raj Gohil, BP
IQPC Day One: Photos
IQPC Day Two: Richard Goldberg, Cisco
IQPC Day Two: Photos]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Michael Marx]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Conferences&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 02 Oct 2006 11:30:05 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Historical Perspective of Lean]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/historical_perspective_of_lean.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[This note from Jim Womack at the Lean Institute provides an excellent historical perspective of lean manufacturing. It is reprinted here with permission.
 
Stephen
 
 ----------------------------------------------------------------
 
I’ve been reflecting on today’s remarkable headlines about the latest retreat by the Ford Motor Company as part of its “Way Forward” campaign. While reflecting, I have found it useful to think about the history of lean thinking at Ford, going back nearly 100 years. I believe it offers many useful lessons for our current-day lean journey and Ford’s immediate choices.
The historical record is clear. Henry Ford was the world’s first systematic lean thinker. His mind naturally focused on the value creation process rather than assets or organizations. And he was the first to see in his mind’s eye the flow of value from start to finish, from concept to launch and from raw material to customer. In addition, Ford was history’s most ferocious enemy of waste. (Except, possibly, Taiichi Ohno at Toyota who claimed that he learned what to do from reading Henry Ford’s books.)
Ford relentlessly emphasized the need to analyze every step in every process to see if it created value before finding a way to do it better. Otherwise the step should be eliminated. (This was Ford’s greatest criticism of Fredrick Taylor and Scientific Management. Why, asked Ford, was Taylor obsessed with getting people to work harder and more efficiently to do things that actually didn’t need to be done if the work was organized in the right sequence and location?) Then, when the wasteful steps had been eliminated, it was time to put the rest in continuous flow.
By 1914 at his Highland Park plant Ford had located most of the manufacturing steps for his product – the Model T – in one building and had created very nearly continuous flow in many parts of the operation, using single-piece-flow fabrication cells for components in addition to the moving final assembly line. He had even devised a very primitive pull system by using “shortage chasers” on timed routes along the assembly line to check inventories at every assembly point and convey the information back to the fabrication areas. This speeded up upstream processes that had fallen behind and slowed down those that were getting ahead.
Equally remarkable, Ford had designed his Model T in only three months in one large room with a small group of engineers under his direct oversight. This surely was a high point in lean practice for decades to come.
Then it gradually fell apart. Ford’s span of management control at Highland Park had been remarkably broad because he could easily take a walk to see the condition of every process, in design, assembly, and fabrication. And he could train a cohort of managers to see what he was seeing and remove more waste. No abstract measures of performance were needed.
However, as the company grew Ford’s personal management method became impractical. But what to replace it with? Ford himself seems not to have had an answer except to link every step by conveyors – as he attempted to do at the massive Rouge complex completed in the late 1920s. By the 1930s the whole Ford Motor Company was in a sense one linked process. (Ohno, of course, realized that lengthy conveyors governed by a central schedule are a push not a pull system, but this was much later.) Did this mean that in the founder’s mind that the company needed only one manager -- Ford himself -- even as it became the world’s largest industrial enterprise?
In any case, the system came crashing down in the 1930s as Ford tried to produce multiple products with multiple options in wildly gyrating markets. Only the staggering cash reserves from retained profits during the Model T era kept the company going until Henry Ford II was able to take over in 1945.
But what management system should he impose on the chaos? Henry Ford II read Peter Drucker’s 1946 classic, The Concept of the Corporation, praising the General Motors management system and quickly remade Ford in the image of GM.
What a different system it was! Henry Ford had managed by going to the gemba to inspect the value creation process. General Motors executives managed by analyzing financial abstractions. For example, asset utilization (normalized for sales volume), days of inventory, cost of scrap, etc. in the factory. Available engineering hours utilized in product design. Managers were then rewarded for making numerical targets using methods developed by staff experts that managers rarely understood. A good way to make many of these numbers was to make products in large batches in order to achieve high asset utilization and low cost per individual step. The total value creation process from end to end -- which had been so clear to Henry Ford -- was gradually lost from view.
Soon Ford executives using the financial measures developed by finance czar J. Edward Lundy were even more rigorous in analyzing the performance of their area of control than GM executives. Robert McNamara and the Whiz Kids were the exemplars. And Ford did regain competitiveness as a GM clone, claiming a stable second place in the auto industry.
In addition, by the late 1940s Ford was one of three U.S. auto companies using the same management system in the same town with the same union. With high investment barriers to entry, a remarkable era of stability was put place, lasting nearly forty years until the transplant Japanese factories succeeded in the U.S. in the later 1980s.
When it suddenly became apparent at that point that the leading Japanese companies -- Toyota followed by Honda -- were using a different management system, it was very hard for Ford to respond.
In the late 1980s, as Dan Jones, Dan Roos, and I wrote The Machine That Changed the World, we were able to document that Ford had applied a number of lean techniques in its assembly operations and was making dramatic progress in manufacturing productivity. We took this to mean that at least one American company was applying lean principles and with good results.
What we couldn’t report, because we had no way to measure it, was the status of the management system. And this was largely unchanged. Ford managers were still manipulating abstractions because the gemba consciousness of the early Ford Motor Company had been lost. Even worse, in the product development and supplier management processes, no change had occurred at all.
But Ford could still be successful in its home market for another 20 years by developing large pickups and SUVs. These were essentially America-only vehicles, suited to wide roads and low energy prices. They could only be challenged by Toyota and its Japanese emulators if they were willing to design vehicles specifically for the U.S. market and to locate production in  North America.
In 1997 I got a call from Jac Nasser, who had just taken over Ford’s North American Automotive Operations on his way to becoming CEO of Ford. He matter-of-factly told me that Ford’s Explorer and F100 pickup series were the only Ford products that made serious money and that he calculated that he had four years to become as efficient and effective as Toyota. Otherwise, the large pickups and SUVs would be copied by foreign firms at lower cost with higher quality and Ford would be in terminal decline. “So,” he asked, “how can Ford become Toyota in four years?”
We sat down to talk over just what this would mean -- dramatically changing the supplier management system, dramatically changing the product development system, dramatically changing the production management system, dramatically changing what managers do -- and he quickly concluded that it was just too hard. So he changed the management metrics, purged the poorest managers according to the metrics, and experimented with selling cars on the web! I was not asked back and had no desire to go back.
Ford actually survived for five years beyond Nasser’s projected meltdown date – although Nasser didn’t as CEO -- to arrive at its current crisis. But my prescription for new Ford CEO Alan Mulally is the same: Fundamentally rethink the supplier management system. Fundamentally rethink the product development system. And fundamentally rethink the production system from order to raw materials and from raw materials to delivery, with special attention to the information management system. (Much can still be learned from Ford’s Mazda subsidiary, which became an able pupil of Toyota after a crisis in 1973.) Above all, fundamentally rethink what mangers do and how they do it in order to regain the gemba consciousness that originally took Ford to world dominance. In brief, Ford needs to remake itself once more, this time in the image of the company that copied Ford’s original system: Toyota.
In addition, finish rethinking the social contract as Ford becomes a normal company (not an oligopolist) in a normal town (where labor doesn’t come from one supplier) that must live in a global market. Finally, rethink brand strategy to get rid of hopeless makes that can never make money – Mercury, Jaguar, Lincoln too? -- while refocusing the remaining brands on what customers really want -- sophisticated, hassle-free transportation in every price range. (A hint: Rethink the vast gap between the company and the customer to provide hassle-free mobility on a continuing basis to user-partners rather than selling cars to strangers in one-time transactions.)
Who knows whether this is doable in the time still available but it is the lean way forward. It will be tragic if the originator of lean thinking is crushed in the end by failing to learn lean lessons from its most earnest pupil.
 
 
 
 ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Stephen C. Crate]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[History&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Lean&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 18 Sep 2006 07:43:05 -0800</pubDate>
		</item>

		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Good Process, Bad Process]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/good_process_bad_process.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I was in New York City on a busy summer weekend not too long ago. Me and a whole lot of other tourists. In fact, it was the busiest I have ever seen the city in terms of tourists.
Saturday night found me and my companions at one end of Times Square, fighting the crowds to enjoy one of my favorite treats: a smoothie. Sunday night was the same, except that we were at the other end of Times Square fighting the crowds to enjoy another one of my favorite treats: ice cream. You’d think the two experiences would have been similar, but in fact they couldn’t have been more different.
First, a little background. For those unlucky folks who have never had a smoothie, they’re a blended mix of roughly 5-6 fresh ingredients like yogurt, sherbet, fruit of various types, juice, ice, etc. Each ingredient type can be customized according to what the customer wants; one order might mix bananas, strawberries, vanilla yogurt, orange sherbet, and ice, while the next might have blueberries, raspberries, oranges, grape juice, plain yogurt, and ice. On top of that, various additives are available, supposedly for extra fiber, extra energy, extra protein, etc. The ingredients are all combined and then blended before being poured into a cup and presented to the customer.
On the surface, the particular ice cream process I experienced was very much the same. Customers select a base ice cream which is then combined 3-4 additives like fruit, chocolate, nuts, various syrups, whipped cream, etc. These ingredients are all mixed and then transferred to a cup or cone and presented to the customer.
In both cases I very much enjoyed the taste of what I got, and in both cases the total price was in the region of $5. But that’s where the similarities ended. My experience as a customer was sharply different.
When I ordered the smoothie, I entered the building and had to wait about 20s to reach a cashier. The cashier asked me my name, and then took my order, which took another 20s. The physical layout then guided me to a small waiting area where additional products and other information were displayed alongside large windows and other diversions. Meanwhile, my custom order was electronically transmitted to a second worker who put the ingredients in a blender cup. This was fast and easy because all the scoops were sized to deliver single portions of solids, while liquids were automatically dispensed in the correct proportion according to the information the cashier had entered. Approximately 120s later, another worker finished blending the smoothie, poured it into a cup, and called me to the counter by name to deliver it. The place was crowded, but the process was designed to handle it and get folks through quickly. They were serving a new customer every 30s or so with almost no lineups. Another entire cell remained empty and un-manned; presumably to accommodate periods of peak demand. Fantastic.
By contrast, ordering the ice cream was nightmare. We had to line up outside just to join the line up inside. No less than three workers were dedicated to managing the flow of people from the outside line to the inside line – and even then, we watched frustrated as several people simply skipped ahead of us to the inside line. Total time in the outside line was about 15min. As we got inside, it became apparent that the physical layout of the store was incredibly bad from flow standpoint. A single, large station took up so much space that the folks who had received their order had to wedge past those still waiting to get out. Menus on the wall were unreadable from a few feet away, necessitating long conversations once the first cashier was reached. That was difficult, because of very loud music and, bizarrely, singing by the staff that seemed to be mandated every couple of minutes. Worse, the cashiers didn’t know the menu at all – ours argued with us about an item that she didn’t believe was on the menu. (We checked, it was.) Total time in the inner lineup was approximately 30min. Once we actually placed our order, a bizarre dance of inefficiency began. The person making the order was apparently supposed to keep in her head the details of four custom orders. She failed at each, having to ask information to be repeated four times. Again, this was very difficult due to the music and singing, to the point where we left with incorrect products because we gave up. She had to run to several different places for the ingredients, causing more than one physical collision with others doing the same. Labels and scoops were unusable in some cases and absent in others. She apologized that at least one of the things we had ordered “tasted really bad.” When it came time to actually pay (why didn’t we pay the first cashier?), we faced a new person who had no idea what we had ordered. So, we had to explain it again…sixth time in the process…did I mention the loud music and singing? The whole experience took just under and hour. The place was crowded but they were only serving a new customer every 5-7 minute. And if those other customers were anything like me, they left not only vowing that they would never come back, but also determined to warn others to avoid the place at all costs as a public service. It was awful.
The smoothie process was, in my opinion, a thing of beauty. They had obviously borrowed heavily from a certain well-known coffee chain, more than one fast-food chain, and probably some others. And they had innovated where necessary. In short, they had done their homework and thought about it. The beautiful details were too numerous to mention…the consistent way they unwrapped the straws without touching anything but the wrapper…the physical flow of material…it all brought a tear to my eye.
The ice cream process made me cry for different reasons. And what bothered me the most about the experience was that so many potential improvements were obvious and easy. It wouldn’t take a process improvement expert to make things much better, it wouldn’t even take money, it would just take someone with some interest, initiative, and a three digit IQ. With a small budget and little bit of knowledge, I bet even the greenest process improvement effort could turn the customer experience around 180 degrees and cut the time down by 80% in a month. The work wouldn’t be hard. Indeed, if they walked a few blocks across Times Square they could learn everything they need to know for free from the smoothie folks.
My question is this: why don’t they do it? Why is the horrid process allowed to persist? The improvements are so easy, so obvious, and so within-reach. The best practices are so well-reported and well-known. Sure, it would take a bit of work and dedication to make the changes, but if they can hire three people to manage two lines, surely they can afford one to get rid of the need for  two lines in the first place. Why, oh why, does the bad process continue to exist?]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Andrew Downard]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Fri, 15 Sep 2006 22:01:00 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: What do YOU say to the ‘non-believers’?]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/what_do_you_say_to_the_non_believers.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Much is said about how Six Sigma will radically change your company, how it will save millions of pounds / dollars, and how it will change your company’s culture. Little is said about on of the major problems most Six Sigma deployments even the mature ones face; the "non believers." 
They are a splinter group with pockets in every area of your company, from the executive down to lower management. 
Their tactics for undermining Six Sigma is often one of passive resistance; not turning up for workshops, not contributing in meetings and / or reneging on actions in your Implementation Plan. 
They make no open statements of dissent, just the odd snide comment about Karate (referring to the belts) or how they’ve seen similar process improvement concepts come and go; or even crazier still, how they have no time to improve their processes as they are all soooo busy. 
You may not even know they are undermining you; hell, they may not even know they are undermining you. 
They send their ‘least capable’ staff (the staff that they can afford to loose for a few days) on the yellow belt / green belt training courses. They give you ‘boil the ocean’ projects or withhold data that would make them look bad. 
The fact is, over the short to medium term they are going to erode your Six Sigma deployment, but long term they could destroy your deployment or even destroy the whole concept globally, which is a shame because IT WORKS.
I would be interested in what you say or have said to these people (the ‘non-believers’) and what you do in your company to ‘sell’ the Six Sigma methodology.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[J P Spencer]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Wed, 13 Sep 2006 07:39:17 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: The Productivity Paradox]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/the_productivity_paradox.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[As our organization implements lean, we are running into fears that our employees won't be as productive after a lean project.  There's a theory that we'll be "paying people to wait around" for patients / customers to show up.
I'm pretty fascinated by this fear, since lean concepts of value are supposed to be be employed for the workers as well as for the customers.  While there may be people to want to be paid for waiting around, I've seen studies that indicate that most healthcare folks want to be valued for the good work they produce in an efficient and pleasant environment.
It's always been clear to me that as process productivity goes up, in a service environment, service productivity goes down - and vice versa.  Think of it this way - if you have someone behind a registration counter, who is already busy, and someone walks up - that someone will have to wait.  And we do this in healthcare all the time - because we're afraid that we won't be getting our money's worth out of an employee, we make sure they have more than enough to do.  An idle employee costs money, in this paradigm; a waiting customer doesn't.
The lean concept of takt time is a great help here - measuring how many "units" or "customers" need to be served in a given time, and staffing accordingly (assuming an efficient process!).  But as expense accountants know, we would rather have workers 100% busy and patients waiting, than workers 85% busy and no patients waiting.
I was struck by a similar concept in the recent book, "Fast Innovation" (George, Works, Watson-Hemphill, 2005).  Creative engineers were found to be less efficient when working at 100% productivity.  It seems that the engineers were most efficient when they were working at 85% productivity - because this allowed them to adapt to sudden demands for design changes during the testing phases, and they didn't have to prioritize among many projects (robbing Peter to pay Paul) in order to adjust to a critical need.
I wonder whether we should pay more attention to this aspect of process design, when moving through our projects?
 ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Tue, 12 Sep 2006 07:10:15 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Too Busy]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/too_busy.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I continue to be amazed at the creativity some people have.  I’ve even heard some staff boast that they were "The Kings and Queens of Workarounds" because they knew how to get things done through back channels, crisis management, and personal connections that were never listed in any procedure manual. They are too busy to follow the established procedure, which "may look good in some book but doesn’t work in real life!"
I believe that one reason for this is that people lose sight of the reason they are providing the care.  In handling patient issues on a daily basis, the issues become "routine" for the healthcare providers, and patients become "workload."  That’s why you may hear staff complaining that a certain patient pushes the call light too frequently, for example.  Most people will seek the "least effort method" - whatever causes them the least effort is their own most efficient process - and they don’t stop to think about the impact of their personal changes on the rest of the process flow.
I was involved in a Rapid Improvement Event recently where we queried the Human Resources folks about the customer of their nurse hiring process.  The voting tallied pretty evenly at 50% for nurse candidates; and 50% for nurse managers.  We had to dig a little deeper to get the "aha" moment of the true customer:  our patients, who need nurses to provide appropriate clinical care; and the faster we fill vacancies, the better staffed our hospital units are, and presumably the better care we can provide to our patients.
Why did this take 15 minutes of discussion?  Because the group was focused on the workload of hiring a nurse, and not the outcome.  The re-focusing exercise helped the group to break some log-jams during the RIE when we looked at a few sacred cows.
Part of our work, as J P Spencer wrote in his August 25 blog, is to be change agents as well as statisticians.  Helping our improvement teams to remember the difference between their calling and their workload is an essential part of that job.
 
 ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 28 Aug 2006 08:23:40 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: What is your destiny?]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/what_is_your_destiny.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[In my last blog I asked readers to comment on the core reasons for project failure. Well having waded through the flood of 10 responses (thank you all) here is what you said. Projects were split 50:50 between manufacturing and transactional with improving satisfaction levels and reducing costs the main objectives. But what I was principally after were the reasons for project failure. These I have classified into three groups. 
The first two reasons were project issues (scope, time-frame, resources) and external events. But the main reason offered for project failure was buy-in from your management and colleagues. I was left thinking, “this is not enough”, I was looking for a root-cause. Why did they no have management buy-in? Could it be poor communications, lack of alignment to strategic objectives, insufficient benefits, manager moving job?
I was reminded of a story from one of the Star Trek films, can’t remember which one. When Captain Kirk was in star academy training there was a practical exercise all students had to do. The exercise was designed so you always failed no matter what strategy you applied. So when it was Captain Kirk’s turn he flew his spaceship hundreds of parsecs in the opposite direction and so completely avoided the exercise and certain failure. Could the same be applied? Could you predict project failure in the first place? Well possibly.
I researched the Internet only to produce no clear answer. It was my MBB who hit the spot with an article from the Harvard Business Review. A recent study of a few hundred change projects had identified the key dimensions that describe project success &amp; failure. The dimensions being:

D - Duration between formal project reviews (toll-gates?)
I - Integrity and skills of the project team
C1 - Commitment and support of senior management
C2 - Commitment and support of people affected in the process
E - Effort required beyond the normal day-to-day work
Score your project from 1 (Best) to 4 (Worst) in each dimension and use the formulae:
DICE Score = D + 2 * I + 2 * C1 + C2 + E
A score between 7 and 14 means you are likely to succeed, anything over 14 should ring the alarm bells. The original research came out of Boston Consulting Group. So if past experience can be used as a predictor for future performance it may be worth a look. I have started to score my project initiatives to see if it works. 
Still no nearer the true underlying root-causes for lack of commitment and support. Good luck with all your projects!]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Robin Barnwell]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Thu, 24 Aug 2006 08:08:21 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Part-time Help Wanted]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/part_time_help_wanted.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[In my opinion, one of the key questions to answer when planning a deployment is whether the Black Belt role should be full-time.
While this sounds like a reasonable question to some, many experienced Six Sigma folks find it strange to even ask, because in the majority of programs the Black Belt role is automatically assumed to be full-time. Candidates are identified from within the organization (or hired externally) and trained in the usual way, after which time their job title becomes some version of “Black Belt” and they leave their previous role. In a separate but related process, projects are identified and prioritized. Projects are then matched to Black Belts, who move through the organization as necessary to complete the projects they are assigned.
There are innumerable variations on this theme, but in general it’s a pretty common model for continuous improvement. I think there are two reasons for this. First, it works well, especially at the start of a deployment. If you pick the right projects, provide a serviceable tool set, and 100% focus the right people, good things happen. You get project results and you get them fast. The second reason is that most Six Sigma consultants push this model, which is of course because of the first reason.
I worry about this deployment strategy in the long run though, especially as a path to culture change. This is partly because when I think of culture change, I think of work that should be targeted to address the holistic, system level in an organization. Not any one specific thing, but rather a collection of many aspects that must all be addressed with reasonable simultaneity. In my own mind, I call this “common cause work”.
In contrast, I view deploying specifically trained individuals to work on individual projects as “special cause work”. Here we are thinking less about working on the system as a whole, but rather about a very specific set of activities associated with a specific improvement objective.
(Before I get jumped on for my use of “special cause” and “common cause” terminology in this context, let me freely admit that I am using them conceptually rather than literally. And that I am taking liberties. And that I do understand the formal and correct usage. And that yes, I have read “Out of the Crisis”.)
I don’t mean to suggest that one type of work is better or more necessary than the other, only that they are different in nature and serve different purposes. I have seen successful Six Sigma programs based on both strategies. The problem comes when we address common cause work with special cause responses, or vice versa. As any Black Belt should know, the only exacerbates the problem we are trying to solve.
What this means in practice is that if culture change is the goal of a Six Sigma deployment, deploying full-time Black Belts, which is a special cause response (or at least much more special cause than part-time Black Belts) may not be the right strategy. In fact, as anyone who has done any special cause/common cause simulations can tell you, deploying Black Belts in a special cause fashion may in fact make the common cause cultural issues worse. It’s true that projects will be completed quickly and successfully, but it wreaks havoc on the culture.
Part-time Black Belts, on the other hand, can be deployed against common cause cultural variation as well as specific projects. For example, suppose there is a project that needs to be done in a specific facility which does not have a resident Black Belt. The special cause option would be to bring a full-time Black Belt in; import one from the outside, or take someone from the facility and put them in a new role. This would get the project done. But another – maybe better – option would be to find a subject matter expert from the facility and ask for 50% of their time for training and project work. The downside is that it will likely take that person more time to complete each project. And there will be battles to fight about focus and time balance. But the upside is tremendous. That person will know more than any outsider about the process. They will know the people involved. They will have natural social connections. They are far more likely to spread the philosophy and methodology of Six Sigma than an outsider would be. And when the project is done, they will still be there to for the next iteration, and the one after that. In short, they will be embedded and able to work in a common cause fashion on the culture, as well as being able to work special cause on specific projects in a special cause fashion.
As I said, the downside to all this is that it takes longer to get projects done. And part-time Black Belts are typically not very mobile in the organization, and thus can’t be easily deployed against projects outside their area. There are plusses and minuses to every approach. But the part-time Black Belt strategy is always worthy of consideration, especially when cultural change is a stated goal of deployment, and even when full-time Black Belts are an option. While undoubtedly messier in the short term, it’s a shorter path to culture change in the medium-long term.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Andrew Downard]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Tue, 22 Aug 2006 22:01:00 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Startup Projects]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/startup_projects.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[As the academic year begins our Six Sigma team has met, created a new team charter, and began accumulating a list of projects that we would like to try this year. Our team named "Gravy" (gravy, or Six Sigma, being the goal of the team) fits in our planning objective: "More Six Sigma projects to measure the quality of customer service." 
The team champion, myself, and master black belt will have three returning members and one new member. They bring areas of expertise with them ranging from quality assurance experience to a jack of all trades to an organizational guru. Our first project will be to measure the types, numbers and time-to-completion of our help desk tickets during our new student days (days on campus before classes begin) and our first week of classes. These are two times when our support numbers are extremely high and they are good gauges of our internal training of staff and our marketing efforts to inform students of changes and how to connect to the residential network at our University.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Lisa Moore]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Fri, 18 Aug 2006 07:16:24 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: The Anti-Hawthorne Effect]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/the_anti_hawthorne_effect.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I recently participated in a great discussion with a group of Black Belts in my SSBB exam review class.  We were talking about the importance of "walking the process" to understand it.  Several BBs had the experience of managers trying to create a process map in a back room somewhere - these managers swore that their map represented reality, until they actually were forced to go out onto the "shop floor" (however that translates to a particular environment) and had their "aha" moment.
One of the things we discussed was the so-called "Hawthorne" effect, which is generally used these days to describe the way workers will do their best, or the expected, while being observed for time studies.  This abnormal performance may skew observational data when only a few workers are being observed over a short period of time.
However, one of the BBs pointed out that they had seen the reverse - workers slowing down or doing things inefficiently while they were being watched.  Why would that happen?
It turns out that it hinged on the workers' perceptions of why they were being watched.  If they felt that their own performance was being rated, they tended to do their best to appear worthy of a possible raise, promotion, or other reward.
If, however, they felt that the management was doing time studies to try to increase productivity, or justify fewer employees, the workers tended to slow down so they wouldn't be responsible for layoffs of themselves or others.  In these cases, the workers assumed that the ultimate goal of the Six Sigma project was being done to reduce the number of employees, so why should they jeopardize their own jobs?
I'd never run into the second scenario before, in my experience in healthcare.  I wondered whether other Belts had seen different scenarios while making time studies or observations for their projects, and how it affected their "Measure" phase.  I also wonder how to be sensitive to either effect when measuring for my next project.
Would any of you like to share related experiences from projects that you have been involved in?]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Tue, 15 Aug 2006 08:44:46 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Triple Threat]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/triple_threat.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[In my last post, about a recent Rapid Improvement Event (RIE, sometimes called a kaizen event), I mentioned that there were three Black Belts involved.  I’d like to expand on that a little further and see what you may think of our arrangement.
When a Rapid Improvement Event is chartered, a lead Black Belt is assigned to meet with the Process Owner to scope the boundaries of the event and hold pre-event team meetings.  During the RIE week, the lead BB is the primary facilitator of the group.
A second Black Belt is assigned as co-facilitator, who helps with data collection and process-mapping.  During the RIE week, the second Black Belt facilitates any subgroups that break off for special issues; calls out for ancillary department support (such as telecom or maintenance); and acts as a process-checker during the event.
The third Black Belt acts as a resource primarily during the RIE week.  As we are creating standard work, developing forms, revising procedures, etc. there is usually a need to create drafts that can come before the team quickly, so decisions can be made on the second and third days.
Now, this is a lot of "Black Belt resource" to use in a single event week.  Do we really need three BBs to run a lean event?
First of all, we’re fortunate to have enough Black Belts in our health system to be able to help out across sites.  So we have the resources available to do this for the majority of our RIEs.
Second, we’d rather have the team members focus on using their ideas to identify waste and come up with solutions - not typing for hours on a computer.  By having a Black Belt do these tasks, team members are free to be subject matter experts or general knowledge resources.
Third, we’ve found that we need relatively large teams to solve issues in healthcare.  There aren’t typical "work cells" where a select group focuses on one routine task.  No patient-related function is done in isolation, and representation from each stakeholder group is needed so we can have "the right people in the room."  These larger groups benefit from having at least 2 co-facilitators during the event week.
Should everybody use this model?  No.  But for our situation, and in our culture, this seems to work well.  We do vary the number of BBs according to the project scope, size of the team, and situation.  And we hope that as our number of Green Belts grows, we can start utilizing them on RIE teams in place of the second and third Black Belts.  I thought it might be interesting to share our approach, and even more interesting to get your comments on it.  What do you think about having multiple Black Belts on a Rapid Improvement/Kaizen team?  Please let me know.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Thu, 10 Aug 2006 12:20:15 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Shazam!]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/shazam.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Having spent the last week in a healthcare Rapid Improvement Event (i.e. Kaizen), I continue to marvel at the power and resourcefulness of a dedicated team of people.  Our topic was "Patient Access" - in other words, how to get patients into beds more rapidly in a hospital that is typically at (or beyond) stated capacity.  The large team of 20 stakeholders and first-line associates was lead by two of my partners in crime - experienced Black Belts who facilitated the team discussions, kept the group on track, and ensured that we met our deliverable targets.  My role was "helper Black Belt" - leading subgroups, assisting with forms and procedure designs, and generally being the utility outfielder.  [Using three Black Belts for a Kaizen???  I’ll address this in my next post.]
Those of you familiar with Kaizen events know that Monday is the problem definition and waste identification day.  Wow, did we ever come up with problems and wastes!  So many, in fact, that the group was a little discouraged.  "We’ll never be able to do anything about all this!"
Tuesday, being solution day, was even tougher.  The group at first shied away from tackling "the elephant in the room" - physician behaviors and even some nursing or other associate behaviors.  One of our Black Belts quickly got the group back on track - challenging the team to work on the real issues wherever they might fall.  We developed a list of physician issues to discuss with our Vice President of Medical Affairs (VPMA) and he met with us to review the perceptions and barriers relating to physician rounding, writing discharge orders, and other issues.  For the process issues, the team broke up into two groups to work on "scheduled" admissions (OR, Cardiac Cath Lab, Chemo patients) and "unplanned" admissions (ER, Direct Admits).  We also worked on decreasing nursing dissatisfiers - primarily improving communication paths and decreasing delays in bed assignments. The team said, "This is too complicated - too many people affected - this will never work!"
On Wednesday we implemented our solutions - improved communications, an emailed "bed snapshot" report, and streamlined bed request pathways.  Almost immediately we started getting positive feedback - fewer phone calls, an easier process, more of a feeling that the process was controllable (as opposed to the former crisis mode).  The team said, "I can’t believe it, it’s working!"
By Thursday the process data was looking pretty good - a few tweaks were needed here and there.  The team said, "Wow!  What happened?"
The Friday Report-Out was very positive and enthusiastic.  The team said, "We never thought we could do this!  This is great!  When can we do another?"
The leadership who came to the Report-Out said, "We don’t understand how you got from Monday’s day of confusion to Friday’s success!  This Rapid Improvement Stuff is great!"  So, we’ll be inviting them to participate in future events so that each leader can understand how we go from confusion to efficiency - it’s not by saying "Shazam!" and out of the blue a magic lightning bolt of Lean efficiency strikes the hospital - but by the intensive and structured work of the Rapid Improvement Event team.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 07 Aug 2006 06:46:14 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Greetings Earthlings]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/greetings_earthlings.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Coming from an IT background I am fluent in Techie. I feel right at home talking about NAT, BIOS, ERD, PERL, API, DHCP, IMAP, SMTP, SNMP and so on. With the right audience I can have rapid conversations in what may well sound like utter nonsense. But equally when working with a non-IT person I know I need to slow-down and actively think about how to put points across. Admittedly I still make mistakes.
I am now quite confident in Sigma. I got a feel for the lingo e.g. VOC, DOE, ANOVA, COPQ, and MSA. I may still wonder about some of the depths of statistical analysis but I can bluff my way through a conversation.
However Techie is an arcane language like Medical &amp; Legal. Sigma is a business language. It should be a lingua franca. Take a look at the moniker, Six Sigma, being six standard deviations from the centreline. Take a look at Six Sigma overviews that start with a wonderful diagram of a bell-curve and talk about 3.4 defects per million items. It might make people think it’s a complex statistical something or other?
However, Six Sigma has become a global phenomenon directly focussed on business and achieving business excellence. So something must be going right. I just wish we could be better at conversing in a language that our audience understands and can act on first time without having to have a second explanation.
So as the little green men say, “Greetings Earthlings I am from the planet Sigma take me to your sponsor”.
 ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Robin Barnwell]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Fri, 28 Jul 2006 06:41:36 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Six Sigma By Any Other Name...]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/six_sigma_by_any_other_name.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Here's a synopsis of a recent conversation I overheard:
"We do Six Sigma, but we don't call it that."
"Why not?"
"It would scare people off."
"Huh?"
"If we called it Six Sigma, that gets interpreted by people as this strange, large, project "thing" with lots of data and statistics and change and being monitored and a lot of other negative things.  So we don't call it Six Sigma."
"What do you call it?"
"Oh, whatever we want.  Streamlining project or waste reduction project or fix-it project.  It really doesn't matter; once we get the team involved, we follow the DMAIC methodology.  We just don't get hung up on titles or special jargon."
"Does it work?"
"Oh yes, it's very effective.  Just don't call up our company and ask whether we're doing Six Sigma!"
 
 
Question of the day:  Does Six Sigma by any other name smell as sweet?]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Wed, 26 Jul 2006 10:46:23 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Which Comes First: Process or Behavior?]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/which_comes_first_process_or_behavior.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Fixing or otherwise improving a process usually involves changing it in some way. For this reason, Six Sigma projects almost always involve some element of process engineering or re-engineering. On top of that, folks in deployment leader roles or similar are often tasked with developing brand new processes like project selection, candidate identification, certification, and a range of others. And of course there are a myriad of situations outside the Six Sigma world that involve creating or altering processes.
One failing I see in myself (and in many new Black Belts) is a tendency to develop ideal processes on paper, without addressing elements of human behavior. I suspect it’s a by-product of being trained in a highly data-driven methodology. We expect that if we can use good data to demonstrate that a process change will result in an improvement, then people will automatically change their behavior. Put another way, if we ourselves are convinced by data, we assume everyone else will be as well.
In my experience there are a few problems with this view. One is that it does not hold for everyone: some folks are not, in fact, convinced by data. Another is that complicated statistical data are difficult to communicate effectively across large organizations. And finally, even those who are intellectually convinced will almost certainly need to be provided with additional motivation to change their behavior.
I’m not going to give a lecture on change management here. What I want to talk about instead is the relative difficulty of changing human process behavior versus standard Six Sigma process work. And more particularly, the order in which we address the two related areas.
I have been in many situations when, in response to a genuine gap or need, a new process is designed or purchased. Software implementations are a great example of this. The perfect process is laid out on paper, the process tools procured, and the process rolled out in the organization with the best of intentions. But I have seldom seen it work well, or even have any lasting effect, unless considerable work is done to change human behavior first.
Take, for example, project tracking systems. In more than one case I have been in organizations where there is basically no project tracking prior to Six Sigma deployment. It is identified as a need as part of the deployment plan, and software is purchased. But once the system is set up, no one uses it even though it is a great system.
It has taken me a long time to learn that in this situation, the most effective first step is to focus on behavior and implement something simple. A one-page template that is collected manually each month and rolled up into an offline project spreadsheet is a great first step. Work hard to get folks doing that and see what happens. Learn from the experience and iron out the kinks in the rudimentary process. Once you get good at that and folks are used to it, then take the next step; maybe a simple online database that everyone can access directly to enter their information. Take the time to tweak that database and figure out what reports are useful, as well as what functionality you really don’t need. The take the next step, and the next one, and the next one. Before you know it there will be a robust process that people are used to following. And even if the “home-made” process is clunky and hard to manage, it’s an amazingly short step from here to a beautiful, gleaming, streamlined process. If you grow the process yourself you’ll know what you need from a software vendor when the time comes, and you’ll know what to expect from the folks who interact with the system. In short, you’ll be automating something that already works, rather than trying to go from nothing to perfection in one step. And crucially, you’ll already have established the necessary patterns of behavior among the people interacting with the process. In my experience it’s a lot easier to map the process/software to existing behavior than vice versa. So it’s worth taking the time to get the behavior right before you decide on the software, even though it’s a very messy process.
Project tracking is just one example, but in my experience the general conclusion holds in most situations. “Process or behavior?” is not a “which comes first, the chicken or the egg?” question like I’ve often heard suggested. And designing or purchasing a new process won’t automatically create behavior, the claims of vendors notwithstanding. These days I find it most efficient to crawl before I walk, before I jog, before I run, etc. I live through the messy home-made solutions before I automate or even finalize process in the organization. I work on building the process behavior before I build the process itself.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Andrew Downard]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Tue, 25 Jul 2006 22:01:00 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Speaking Up]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/speaking_up.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Recently, I was asked to participate in an evaluation of presentation skills for one of our senior leaders.  The questionnaire included questions that I expected - "speaks concisely" - but also some that I didn't.  After I completed the survey, I started to think about my own presentation strengths and weaknesses.  Here are some of my thoughts.
"Proves key points."  This took me aback.  What does that mean, "prove?"  I shouldn't have to prove anything - when I'm teaching Lean or Six Sigma concepts, the audience should accept whatever I tell them, because obviously, I'm an expert!  And when I'm presenting projects, I'm the Black Belt so you should accept whatever I say.  But -- in thinking about this, I need to remember my own response to so-called experts.  I'm usually open-minded at the beginning of any presentation, but I do wait for key indicators that the speaker has enough knowledge and experience to back up their talk.  For example, I've attended presentations where the speaker was just reading the slides - including the typographical errors.  Now that's poor.  To strengthen my own presentations, I'll try to blend in experiences and stories that make the point (concisely!).
"Uses a pleasant speaking tone."  Do I tend to drone on and on?  Should any lecture-type presentation last longer than 10 - 15 minutes without some kind of a break?  To strengthen my own presentations, I'll try to stop frequently to ask for members of the audience to share experiences; and I'll be alert to signs of "listeners' fatigue" - restlessness, excessive Blackberrying, and side conversations.
"Talks without using spacers such as 'um.' or 'er.' "  Uh-oh.  How many times do I, like, not pay attention to, um, all those little, mmm, habits that are invisible to me, but, like, so annoying to my, umm, audience?  Time for a process check by a fellow Black Belt the next time I teach or present.  If I'm really brave, I'll tape myself.
"Uses appropriate hand gestures."  OK, now I'm in real trouble.  I don't talk without using my arms and hands.  Am I being expressive, or just silly?  Am I distracting from the content?  Guess I'll ask my fellow Black Belt to take notes on this for me, too.
The survey, although intended to benefit an associate, turned out to be my own "aha" moment for the week.  Anyone having tips for more effective presentations, be sure to share with the rest of us!]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Wed, 19 Jul 2006 10:34:36 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: The Fundamental Questions]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/the_fundamental_questions.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[As I was scanning news this week, a couple of articles caught my eye. The first was a piece by Damon Darling in the New York Times about Farecast, an airfare search engine that aims to predict how much the price of an airline ticket will rise or fall before the flight actually occurs. Says Hugh Crean, Farecast’s chief executive, "This is predictive technology — we won’t achieve clairvoyance. We repredict and resimulate against our database to get better and better at what we are doing."
The second article that got my attention concerned the use of InnoCentive, an online portal that aims to connect organizations having scientific problems with researchers who can solve them. In the piece, Ann M. Thayer of Chemical and Engineering News spoke with Dan Kittle, Vice-president of Research and Development for Dow Chemical’s AgroSciences Unit.
According to Thayer, Kittle admits that “the approach was a bit ad hoc at first.” Kittle himself says of the InnoCentive program that “we learned quickly that we needed to put some structure around it help drive it.” Kittle continues “You’ve got to be able to get a challenge down to something for which you rationally believe there are the expertise, understanding, and capability to directly approach.”
Does any of this sound familiar? It sure does to me. The problem that Farecast faces – the development of predictive models and the accuracy of predictions – is one that occurs to some extent in almost all Six Sigma projects. In programs I am involved with, we even tackle it the same way Farecast does: state a prediction, test that prediction against reality, evaluate the thinking that produced the prediction, and iterate until we have a useful model. It’s not a "Six Sigma" approach per se, but rather an application of the scientific method.
The InnoCentive piece highlights how useful it can be to inject a little bit of structure into the project selection process. And furthermore, that even a very good problem solving method probably won’t be magic. These too are conversations I have had repeatedly in the context of Six Sigma deployment. Even though the Innocentive folks really have nothing to do with Six Sigma, they face exactly the same problems we do.
What to make of this?  The comments from Dow and Farecast illustrate that folks outside the Six Sigma bubble face exactly the same issues that we do. The reason these article caught my eye is because it seems to me the longer I stay in the Six Sigma world, the less "Six Sigma work" I do. In fact, my activities tend to focus, rather generically, on the following:

1. People: Finding the right people and developing them2. Process: Developing effective processes and discipline to process3. Projects: Selecting the right projects and executing them efficiently
Literally everything I do (professionally!) falls squarely in one of these areas. What’s interesting to me about this (admittedly non-novel) observation is that on the surface none of it has anything to do with Six Sigma. Rather, Six Sigma just happens to be a framework in which to work. I honestly don’t believe there’s anything special about Six Sigma other than that. All the hoopla, all the jargon, all the acronyms, all the bizarre terminology – perhaps the real and only value of those things is that they force us to focus and get organized about our people, process and projects. In other words, Six Sigma forces us to answer the fundamental questions. And if we don’t do that, well, there are a million dead corporate initiatives out there that show what happen if we don’t. We spend a lot of money and create a lot of cynicism, only to end up back we started again.
My point is that the fundamental questions of business (examples: How do we decide what work to do? How do we develop our people? How do we innovate? How can we predict more accurately?) never really go away. And I don’t think you’ll find very good answers for any of them within a Six Sigma program. In fact, it’s been my experience that what separates a good Six Sigma program from a bad one is how effectively these questions have been answered before deployment begins. Which is probably true of any initiative within the organization.
So, Six Sigma provides a reason to focus on the important, foundational questions that the business faces. That’s not news. But perhaps that exuse to focus is actually the true value of Six Sigma - not the projects or roadmaps or certifications or belts anything else. Because the business is going to spend a tremendous amount of time, resources, and money on a typical Six Sigma deployment, there is strong impetus to have answers to those fundamental questions before the deployment begins. And maybe once we have some decent answers, what we deploy doesn’t matter very much at all, as long as we do it well.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Andrew Downard]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 10 Jul 2006 22:01:00 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Whorf is a Black Belt]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/whorf_is_a_black_belt.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Likely to be overheard if you have a Klingon Black Belt…
1.  Behold, the Value Stream Map of Kalis!  The greatest Klingon Black Belt who ever lived!
2.  You doubt the worthiness of my statistical analysis?  I should kill you where you stand! 
3.  By questioning my data you have challenged the honor of my family.  Prepare to die!
4.  Our competitors are without Black Belts!  And therefore without honor!
5.  A TRUE Klingon Black Belt does not worry about Stakeholder Analysis – stakeholders do not survive who do not support the project.
6.  I have challenged the entire Finance team to a Bat’Leth contest.  They will not concern us again.
7.  Perhaps it IS a good day to die!  I say we accept the null hypothesis!
8.  You cannot really appreciate “Lean Thinking” until you’ve read it in the original Klingon.
9.  Klingon Black Belts do not need to sleep during the Improve Phase!
10.  Do not ask me questions in Report-Out unless you are prepared to die!
11.  Klingon Black Belts don’t prepare the ROI.  For that, you need a Ferengi from Finance.
12.  “Six Sigma” is for Romulans.  Klingon Black Belts achieve Seven Sigma or die!
Full disclosure:  This is my adaptation of something that's listed on the web in many places, usually in the guise of "Klingon Programmer" or "Klingon Software Developer," without attribution.  As a "Star Trek" fan, and a Six Sigma Black Belt, I thought we needed our own version!  Try imagining Michael Dorn (the actor who played the Klingon "Whorf" in the Star Trek TV and movie series) as the reader!]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 10 Jul 2006 07:23:09 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Charlton Heston was a Black Belt]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/charlton_heston_was_a_black_belt.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[What was really written on those stone tablets that Charlton Heston held in "The Ten Commandments?"
The Ten Commandments For Six Sigma Black Belts in Healthcare
I. Thou Shalt Have No other Goal than to Serve the Welfare of the Patient, by Process Improvement using Data Analysis or Lean Tools as Thou Needest.
II. Thou Shalt Not Worship any Particular Form of Statistical Analysis Above All Others, nor Bow Down to any individual Quality Expert’s Trademarked Methodology.
III. Thou Shalt Not Take the Name of Thy Computer in Vain, for Thy Computer is a Jealous Computer, Visiting the Iniquity of the Users upon the Third and Fourth Generation of Them that Hate it; but Shewing Mercy unto Them that Love it, and Follow its User Manuals, and Call IT Support when Needed.
IV. Remember the Days of Rest, and Keep them Holy:  Thou Shalt Not Think About Work on these Days, so as to Maintain Thy Sanity, and Promote Clear Thinking when Thou Dost Return to They Labors.
V. Honor Thy Master Black Belts and Senseis, and All Who Impart Knowledge and Understanding, that Their Days may be Long upon the Land and Because Thou Never Knowest When Thou Wilt Need a Letter of Reference.
VI. Thou Shalt Understand the Principles of Each Statistical Method and Test that Thou Doest, so that Thy Hypothesis Testing and Thy Graphical Analysis Shall Be Accurate and Have Acceptable Confidence and Power.
VII. Thou Shalt Keep Informed About New Methods through Continuing Education, Membership in Professional Organizations, and Reading of Thy Professional Journals in Any Spare Time that Thou Hast.
VIII. Thou Shalt Not Falsify the Data, nor Manipulate Data to Achieve Thine Own Ends; neither Shalt Thou Bear False Witness Against Thy Fellow Belts, but Thou Shalt Truthfully Reveal the Situation to Thy Master Black Belt or Sensei in the Midst of Any Problem Investigation that Ariseth.
IX. Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Fellow Black Belt’s Knowledge, but Shalt Strive to Achieve Thine Own Understanding of the DMAIC Process and Lean Concepts; and Thou Shalt Ask Questions when Thou Hast Them, and further Thou Shalt Ask for Help whensoever it is Needed to Fulfill These Commandments.
X. Thou Shalt Write, Speak, and Present in Order to Spread the Six Sigma and Lean Message, because Communication Eight Times Eight Ways is Thy Future and Thy Job Security.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Wed, 05 Jul 2006 08:37:20 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Whither Certification?]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/whither_certification.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[There’s a lot of talk about Six Sigma certification these days. I remember being asked by a talent acquisition manager at a previous employer what it meant to be a “certified” Master Black Belt. The question arose because a quick search on Google turned up programs ranging from 3 days (online) to 2 years in length, and all of them offered “Master Black Belt Certification” as an end goal. In some cases the certification was automatic on completion of the program, in others it required things like project work, testing, or other forms of independently verifiable achievement. As we quickly established, it didn’t mean much at all to be a “certified” Master Black Belt.
Which isn’t to say that certification doesn’t have value. It’s just that it’s value isn’t consistent. And maybe that’s not a bad thing. In fact, in a roundabout way it might be a good thing.
I’ve been involved with the creation of three different Six Sigma certification programs at three different companies. In every case, we started off with the idea that certification should be tied to some external standard – for example, our Black Belts might have to take a test provided by an external quality organization or consultancy. The argument here is usually that standards may slip and/or be applied inconsistently if certification criteria are evaluated qualitatively from within the organization. The idea is to make certification more like a degree or professional accreditation, which in theory has consistent value across organizations.
I reject this view. Individuals who independently pursue achievements that result in recognizable, external certifications of some sort do so to further their individual goals. And the organizations that award such certifications have a vested interest in maintaining high standards so that the individuals they certify conform to certain expectations, furthering the reputation of the certifying organization. Colleges that award degrees are a perfect example. Individuals choose a college to pursue a degree to further their interests and/or career. Colleges won’t award a degree unless those individuals meet the standards they set out. And that makes perfect sense if you are a college.
But businesses are not colleges, and Six Sigma certifications are not degrees, and businesses pursue business goals not individual ones. There is no automatic value to a business in having either “tough” or “easy” certification criteria, or even criteria which are consistent in their application. Indeed, the only thing that should matter in setting up a certification program is what behavior the business wants to recognize and reward. Want to drive the efficient acquisition of knowledge? Design metrics and base certification around those. Want to complete a lot of projects quickly? Design your certification around that. Want to use Six Sigma certification to drive employee morale and buy in? Then certify everyone as they walk out the door of the training course. I could go on, but you get the idea. None of these methods of evaluation are good or bad ideas except in the context of what the organization wants to do.
If you think this argument is abstract, consider a conversation I had recently about a Black Belt (not at my company!) who was running a fairly complicated DOE and having trouble getting support and resources. I asked why. It turned out that the project was basically dead, but the DOE was being done because a DOE was required as part of the certification process. This was a case where the objectives of the certification process were not just out of alignment with the objectives of the organization – they were actually pulling in opposite directions. I’ve seen variation on this theme happen consistently when certification standards and criteria are out-sourced to consultants or quality organizations. Businesses need to use certification as a way to drive the behavior they want to see, and an outside organization simply can’t do that effectively, especially if it is trying to be consistent across many different businesses.
The key thing to remember is that certification itself has no value to the business whatsoever except as a driver of behavior. Of course, if you take this approach, inevitably someone will howl that “certification doesn’t mean anything”. My response? So what. It doesn’t have to "mean anything" outside the organization. All it has to do is motivate the behaviors that the organization is interested in. Nor do whatever standards you come up with have to be consistent. In my view the tenth person that gets certified in a business unit should almost certainly face elevated standards relative to the first person – that tenth person should be benefiting from the experience of others, and anyway, how else are you going to drive continuous improvement? And a Black Belt in HR isn’t going to be subject to the same set of standards as a Black Belt on the manufacturing floor – why would they, since the nature of the work is completely different? And I’m certainly not above certifying a key individual to drive culture change as opposed to for technical reasons. I do have standards, but I’m also ruthlessly focused on moving the organization where it needs to go. If you overlook certification as a way to do that – or if you’re asking someone outside the organization to do it for you - you’re overlooking a very powerful tool for driving behavior.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Andrew Downard]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 26 Jun 2006 22:01:00 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Help for Physicians]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/help_for_physicians.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[After writing my recent blog, "Physician Heal Thyself," I attended a review session for the ASQ certification exam.  The subject of physicians came up when we were discussing identification of customers in healthcare.  One of the attendees reminded the group that  physicians tend to be diagnosticians, looking for a way to fit the patient’s symptoms into a disease classification so a treatment course can be determined.
This made me think:  Would physicians relate to Six Sigma concepts better if we called it AEDTO instead of DMAIC?
Assess = Define the problem, or gather patient / process symptoms
Evaluate = Measure the extent / impact of the problem
Diagnose = Analyze the results of the tests / eval, see which are significant or not
Treat = Improve the patient / process
On-going follow-up = Control to see whether the patient / process stays in the improved condition
Hmmm... something I will run by my physician Yellow Belt and Green Belt colleagues!]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 26 Jun 2006 09:28:15 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Physician, Heal Thyself!]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/physician_heal_thyself.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[What makes some physicians so difficult to convince of the need for change?
I'm talking about physicians who are extremely unhappy with the current state.  They complain to anyone who will listen.  They threaten to take their patient volume elsewhere.  They tell horror stories about orders they wrote that weren't filled, wrong items in the orthopedic implant tray, results that took days to be communicated.
And here we come, Healthcare Black Belts to save they day!  (We think.)
For these unhappy physicians, nothing gives them confidence that an improvement project will work.
1.  It will take too much time.  Three months?  Way too long.
2.  Data-based?  If it's not clinical data, it doesn't count.
3.  Measurement system analysis?  That doesn't square with what they observe.
4.  Voice of the customer?  THEY'RE the customers!  So give them what they want!
You are probably familiar with the saying, "When you've asked one physician for an opinion... you've asked one physician."  Meaning that, in order to understand what physicians want, you have to ask every physician for their opinion since no one will admit to being able to speak for anyone else (including department chairs).  And by the time you've gotten around to all the physicians, the first ones have probably changed their minds.
I haven't come across a miracle cure.  I've used one-on-one conversations, 10 minutes on the department meeting agenda, briefs at the Medical Executive meeting, special "operations" meetings with internists, surgeons, anesthesiologists, etc.  A key stakeholder physician who has a positive outlook and is in a position to influence others is great... if you can find one; some of my fellow Black Belts have been very fortunate that way.
With physicians having such an impact on our ability to provide consistent outcomes in our healthcare processes, it's a challenge dealing with individuals who believe that only their individual way is the right way.
Does anyone else have some enlightening words of wisdom to share, on the subject of physicians and improvement projects?]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Fri, 23 Jun 2006 13:53:12 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Part 2 of 2]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/part_2_of_2.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[There are many myths about what happened to that gumball machine. Some say it was sold to another store where it continued to stay on all day and all night and the problem was never fixed and gumballs were sometimes found in dusty corners. And others tell stories of a tool shop opening in the village where the couple finally bought a screwdriver. There is even a story that the gumball machine finally found it wasn’t a gumball machine after all and it was actually an ATM which explains the stuck gumballs. As I say, there are many stories.
The real end to the story may never be known and as far as I know there are no definitive endings. However, my favourite ending is this one…
After many months trying to run the self maintenance routine a bizarre set of circumstances led to the machine being switched off. This was something that it hadn’t experienced since it was installed in the shop. Over the next few hours the machine found, much to its surprise, that things began to change. It began to realise that to clear the block all it needed to do all this time was to switch itself off, power down and stop the flow of gumballs even for just a few hours. The machine now realised that by powering down it could reset its various counters, cool down its mechanism, and, in time, all the blockages would clear themselves. 
Now, every time the machine gets blocked, the machine simply turns itself to off and all the stuck, rainbow coloured gumballs squeeze gently through the mechanism, rest silently at the little metal door and wait to delight the next lucky customer who cares to buy a rainbow coloured gumball. 
Anyway, that’s just my favourite ending…after all it was only a story.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Brian Costello]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Thu, 15 Jun 2006 06:39:37 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Week of a Black Belt Part 8: Lasting Management Commitment]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/week_of_a_black_belt_part_8_lasting_management_commitment.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Whatever the organization’s maturity level (go see “week of a black belt part 4-5-6-7”), any improvement initiative needs top management engagement and commitment. Usually, there is enough management attention at the beginning. The CEO or Executive team has announced the initiative and walks the talk for a while. However, there are so many 1000 things to manage when heading an organization and therefore there is a high risk of CEO or ET attention fading away.  
In my experience lasting top management commitment and engagement has to be earned (there are off course examples like GE and some others where this is not the case). 
One way to earn it: if you are in charge of running a process improvement deployment or if you are selecting business improvement projects, consider your management as a customer. Try to understand their needs and wants. Probably the CEO and his direct reports they have a “big Y” like “create more cash flow”. Use a Y=F(X) cascade approach to determine how they envision to accomplish this “big Y”. If within the big Y is a y “customer acquisition”, it may be nice to fix quality defects for your current customers, but it won’t earn you much attention. On the other hand, if you put some projects on your road map to improve customer acquisition processes, you will get more attention, because you have aligned your improvement agenda to the management agenda. This is just one way … 
I’m sure many of you have similar challenges and experiences. I’m looking forward to all your comments and suggestions how you have earned long lasting and sustained top management commitment and engagement. Thanks in advance for your reactions!]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sven Saerens]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Wed, 14 Jun 2006 22:00:00 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Week of a Black Belt part 4-5-6-7 : Ready for Six Sigma]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/week_of_a_black_belt_part_4_5_6_7__ready_for_six_sigma.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Time flies! My last “week of a Black Belt” blog dates from May 12th already. Anyhow, when things are busy and interesting things happen, there are lots of ideas to blog about, but no time to actually publish them.
Six Sigma’s 20th anniversary will be celebrated soon. Since 1987 and its first success stories, it has not gone by unnoticed. The number of published books, consultant organizations, internet publications, are no longer countable …
However, many people I talk to remain with some burning questions “When is an organization ready to adopt Six Sigma?” In many cases followed by “Or should we do Lean first?” and “What about BPM, are we better of with that?”  
I also observe that the companies who adopt it are generally local representations to US based multinationals or their suppliers. Also the infrastructure associated with a full pledged Six Sigma deployment is (rightfully or not?) perceived as too heavy on the small and medium enterprise that account for about 70% to our local economy.  
Personally, I think it really doesn’t matter what name an effort goes under. In all methodologies are good tools that can bring a lot of value to any organization, whether it is big or small, in service, transactional or production environments. The best approach for the organization is depending on its level of maturity. Maturity here is not defined in terms of age or magnitude, but in terms of how well the organization knows its customers, their needs and how well the business processes are able to satisfy those.
Consider 2 examples:
1. An organization with low maturity. Typical characteristics of such an organization: strong functional silos, no continuous improvement culture (it works, so why change it?), no clear understanding of customer needs and wants, management cannot sum up core processes when asked …
This organization should start with the basics: get to know its processes, its customers and their needs. To achieve this, it should use VOC tools. It should use SIPOC, process maps or value stream maps to document its processes. Start documenting at a high level, e.g. core process level. Once this is done, it should look for the biggest gaps between the VOC and the process outputs. These should be this organization’s first improvement projects. The organization should be process mapping again to detail the (core) processes that most contribute to the identified gaps. It should use simple and basic quality tools to get to those improvements implemented. Along the way, it will surely find some waste in the processes. Eliminate it! After the improvements are in place and obvious waste is eliminated, the organization should reflect on the learnings and start again. All along the effort document everything. Look for possible (future) process measurements.
Some might call this endeavor business process management, some might call it lean, some may call it Six Sigma. It doesn’t matter! It’s about getting the basics right first and institutionalizing a continuous improvement culture. To get this in place, there is probably no need for advanced training, for Design of Experiment or Design For Six Sigma …
2. Consider the other end of the spectrum: an organization where core processes are defined and have owners at high management level. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to monitor the performance are in place. The customer’s needs and expectations are known and understood. 
Probably this organization has not just started a continuous improvement effort; they have started a while ago. However, the basic concepts of the improvement program are the same as in the low maturity organization, but this organization will need more sophisticated tools. This organization also needs to know its customers needs. The needs of customers today may differ of their needs tomorrow. Thus, by default, listening to the customers using VOC tools is a continuous ongoing exercise, for any organization. 
Having KPIs measuring process performance, implies that measurement systems are capturing process data continuously. This data is reported hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly … KPIs are use to manage the daily operational business. This requires quality measurements! The interest is in detecting and understanding variation in the processes and making the correct fact based decisions. 
Frequent gage R&amp;R exercises will need to sustain the quality of measurement and consequently the quality of operational management.  For improvement purposes, this organization will also need to identify its biggest gaps between its outputs and its customer’s expectations. This will create an improvement initiative engine as there is always room for improvement. As defect levels drop, the room for improvement by structured common sense will decrease as well, creating the need for more sophisticated tools and methodologies. This is the stage where e.g. DOE, DFSS, multiple regression, non-parametric tests and other come in. 
So, when are we ready for Six Sigma ?]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sven Saerens]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 12 Jun 2006 12:25:36 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: From Six Sigma to Lean]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/from_six_sigma_to_lean.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Our health system began its Six Sigma journey about three years ago.  We started up in Wave I with three Black Belts at the two largest hospitals (myself among them) who had no  real idea of what would come.  After a successful round of projects in Phase I, we expanded to hire an additional 12 Black Belts to cover the rest of the hospitals, and moved two individuals up to Master Black Belt positions.  We had a great Wave II - ok, there were the usual growing pains, but overall we were feeling pretty good about ourselves.  Onward to Wave III!
Then we started learning more about lean.  Our executives loved the idea that we could move faster; the concepts and tools were simple to understand and easy to learn.  We shifted gears to start doing some lean projects (kiazens or Rapid Improvement Events as you prefer).  We had very good success; team members were enthusiastic and executives raved.  
Some of our Black Belts, myself included, were happy to learn the lean tools but were not as comfortable with the lean projects as with the DMAIC methodology.  I was puzzled because I liked everything about lean, except for the kaizen project structure, and I couldn’t figure out why this might be so.  After a lot of reflection, I came up with a theory.  It’s based on the Meyers-Briggs personality types - an assessment based on individual preferences in four areas:  introvert-extrovert, intuitive-sensing, thinking-feeling, judging-perceiving.
The DMAIC methodology is perfect for intuitive-thinking types.  These individuals are called "the Rationals" according to Keirsey, and are highly skilled in strategic analysis.  You want to go in there, look at a problem, analyze it, and then pick the right solution.  You invest a lot of time and effort into making things right, and the payoff is doing it right the first time.  Achieving the goal is the thing.
The lean methodology, on the other hand, is perfect for sensing-feeling types.  Keirsey calls these "the Artisans" whose strengths are in tactical variation - that is, trying things out and honing activities until perfection is approached.  You want to go in there, look at a problem, and start trying to make things better.  If at first you don’t succeed, try try again!  You invest a lot of energy into making things get better one step at a time, and the payoff is seeing how far you have come.  Making the journey is the thing.
I’m pretty firmly in the intuitive-thinking camp, so that was my "aha" moment of why I didn’t have the same enthusiasm for Lean as I did for DMAIC.  Having explained this, at least for myself, I started to wonder whether I would have been more comfortable incorporating lean tools if I had approached it from this perspective from the start.  Of course, most of us are perfectly capable of using whatever tools are required to achieve process improvements.  But I wonder whether knowing our personality preferences is just as useful as knowing the tools of Six Sigma and Lean.
What do you think?]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Wed, 07 Jun 2006 05:54:30 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Good News]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/good_news.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[
I do my fair share of venting. OK, sometimes I even go on a rant. I have lots of great horror stories. Unbelievable team members, the Project from You-Know-Where, and the day my computer crashed and I lost 6 hours of data entry. I love swapping these stories, and playing "Can you top this?" To listen to me tell it, my career as a healthcare Black Belt has been rife with disaster the entire time I’ve been in this position.
But every now and again some very good things happen - the memories sneak up on me, when I’m not expecting it. 


· The two team members who started out fighting like cats and dogs - each came to me and said they wanted to leave the team if the other person was going to stay - and who ended up respecting each other and telling me, "I never realized how hard the other person’s job really was, and how well she does it."
· The Green Belt who quickly became a partner in our quest for improvement.
· The nurse who said, "You’ll never get the doctors to change their behavior" and confessed at the end of the project that she had changed her opinion about just what was and wasn’t possible.
· The team member I really didn’t like, but who ended up teaching me more about myself than I wanted to know - and I became a better Black Belt for it. (Hard as that is to confess.)
When we get together with our fellow Belts, maybe it’s a good idea to bring out the positive stories as well as the negative ones. Got any great - good - stories to share with us?]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Wed, 31 May 2006 11:28:34 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Process Owner Dilemma]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/process_owner_dilemma.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[
My favorite quote, from a Manager identified as a Six Sigma project Process Owner: "Well if I’d known that being a Process Owner involved this much work, I would have never volunteered to be one!"
In healthcare, we haven’t traditionally discussed the leadership role of process management. In fact, "running healthcare like a business" isn't usually a complimentary phrase. We run around writing Standard Operating Procedures whenever we suspect it’s our turn for the JACHO or HCFAP visit, and occasionally we run across someone who feels a personal mission to improve their departmental operations.  But, if you ask some healthcare leaders what processes they own, you have just switched to a foreign language. The two concepts - process, and ownership - are not usually part of the culture. Sometimes, the concept is also skipped in DMAIC training.  I was mid-way through my first project when my MBB asked for the name of my process owner, because he/she would be expected to participate in the R3 (Improve) report-out. Until that time I had no clue as to what a Process Owner was, let alone how to find one.
Our poor healthcare managers are so BUSY.  They are constantly swamped with multiple call-ins, intermittent leaves of absence, and high staff turnover.  Nursing and ancillary staff recruitment challenges are tremendous.  Every day brings new and conflicting high-priority assignments.  "Emergency" meetings are called more and more frequently.  No wonder some leaders feel that being assigned as a Process Owner is more of a punishment than a recognition of their responsibility and accountability inherent in their job titles.  And, as a former Manager and Director myself, I can relate to their feelings of being overwhelmed.  But I still need an active, effective Process Owner for my project to be successful!
In our project discussions, we use the explanation that the Six Sigma / Lean project is the means by which their departmental operations will improve, and therefore the project is related directly to the Process Owner's main responsibilities, so it's not an add-on burden.  Somehow, through all the high-priority emails, full meeting calendars, and emergency budget conferences, it just doesn't feel so clear-cut for the leaders I have worked with.  They're too busy managing the crisis(es) to manage the process(es).
This has been the greatest challenge for me as a Black Belt - how to get the understanding of "ownership" across to a leader who hasn't been exposed to that concept in the 30+ years they've been upwardly progressing.  Yes, each of our projects now has a Process Owner identified as part of scoping the project, in pre-Define preparation. Yes, we now have the Process Owner routinely helping to present the Improve and Control report-outs. Yes, we're developing a Process Owners course through our Learning Institute (tentatively entitled "Healthcare Process Management").  But we haven’t been consistently successful at getting the buy-in from all of our Process Owners to make the Control phase sustained over the long term.  They're all too busy doing their "real" jobs to worry about a project that's "finished."
What wonderful piece of knowledge about Process Owner development am I missing?  Do any of you have training classes or parts of your project structure devoted to helping leaders buy into the concept of process ownership?  Please share your thoughts!]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Tue, 23 May 2006 09:49:00 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Lance Secretan, ONE]]></title>
			<link>http://www.sixsigmacompanies.com/archive/lance_secretan_one.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[At an event where the most common number mentioned is SIX, it was really nice to hear a presentation where being ONE was more important than being SIX.  Lance Secretan is inspiring.  His presentation, ONE, The Art and Practice of Conscious Leadership, delivered at the ISSSP Leadership Conference in Scottsdale, Arizona, USA, was a welcome deviation from the Six Sigma mean.  
He created a room of trust with his voice while he shared stories of real people consciously changing their lives for the better.  

“Whenever we are happy or inspired we are one with what and whom we love. Whenever we are not, we are separate from what and whom we love. This explains all our lives adventures.”  
Simplistic yet true.  So our journey towards becoming ONE is stepped in practicing the CASTLE principles.  “All the castle principles are in us already.  We do not need to learn anything new but we do need to rediscover them.”
C.A.S.T.L.E. Principles: Courage, Authenticity, Service, Truthfulness, Love, and Effectiveness.  Lance explained each CASTLE principle with a story, a real story about real people who exemplified each principle.  As the session ended and we all started shuffling off to lunch, “One” by U2 proudly played like an anthem in the background.  
The entire presentation including the stories accompanying the slides can be downloaded from Lance’s blog.  This isn’t the exact presentation (the graphics were much more professional in his live presentation) but the same stories are all in the notes section).  
I also attended the detailed workshop with Lance, where he took us out of the typical classroom lecture structure.  We formed small circles of groups and talked about the Courage principle.  Sharing stories from our lives where we used courage to get through a difficult time or event.   Lance then asked us to think about a current event or problem we are having, personal or work related, and then use the same level of courage we had shown earlier, to get through it and to commit to an action that will get us started.  
Thank you Lance for inspiring us to become ONE on our journey towards being SIX.  ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Michael Marx]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Conferences&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 22 May 2006 13:36:57 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Constancy of Purpose]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/constancy_of_purpose.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I'm sure most anyone reading this blog is familiar with Deming's 14 points. I recall studying them when I first started my Six Sigma journey and though they all have their place, one keeps coming back to me over and over again: Constancy of purpose. When I first read this one I felt a bit like it was a no brainer. Over time I've come to realize most things Deming said fall into the "brainer" category and I think I know why he felt this was so important.
I'm going to save you the speech on leadership here because 1) you've heard it all before, and 2) I'd like to discuss this point relative to project selection.
When evaluating an office, plant, division, etc. for project opportunities, have you ever stopped to gage the local leadership in terms of Constancy of Purpose? Do you think it's a good idea to put a such a factor in your project prioritization matrix? I'm thinking it probably is. If, for example, you are dealing with managers with very little patience and limited knowledge of Six Sigma it would probably be wise to consider projects which make an impact quickly, even if you know there are greater opportunities elsewhere. I submit that it is more important to demonstrate results early so you can gain support from this type of manager for the larger, longer duration projects. The risk of not doing so is to be cut off in the middle of a long project because of their lack of patience.
I don't think it's necessary to belabor the point, I just wanted to throw it out there to see if anyone might be interested in sharing their ideas on Constancy of Purpose as it pertains to project selection.  Feel free to post your thoughts and/or maybe a link to related information. If you have a project prioritization matrix which includes a category similar to what I've discussed here I'd love to see it.
Later.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[W. Michael McBride]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Thu, 18 May 2006 13:39:47 -0800</pubDate>
		</item>

		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: It's Not Easy Being Green... Belt]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/its_not_easy_being_green_belt.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[
I’m sure this never happened to any other Healthcare Black Belts: You’ve been selected as a Black Belt for a team, and you’re assigned one or two Green Belts for the project. Early in the project you notice that one of the Green Belts is pretty weak in a number of areas… basic things like showing up on time, having poor interpersonal skills, and being more interested in using the computer to revise their resume than to enter data.
So, you say to yourself, "Hey! This Green Belt isn’t a very good supervisor - manager - whatever - how did he/she ever get picked for this highly prestigious and supposedly upwardly mobile assignment???" (And, let's be brutally honest, some of our Green Belts are asking the same question about us!).
Do you go to the top leaders and complain about their Green Belt Selection? Do you confront the Green Belt, and if so, how? Do you make it your mission to "fix" the Green Belt, because by gum, you’re a change agent after all? Do you kick the Green Belt off your team? Do you grin and bear it, because hey, it’s only one project and with luck you’ll never see this particular Green Belt again?
I’ve had strong Green Belts who were a major factor in success, and I’ve had Green Belts I would have been better off without. Looking back, I’m not sure I supported the weak ones as well as I should have. What advice would you give to a new Black Belt? Or an experienced one?]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Fri, 12 May 2006 11:36:21 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: What We Ask Our Black Belts To Do]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/what_we_ask_our_black_belts_to_do.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I am regularly asked what characterizes an ideal Black Belt candidate. Like most people in the field, I have a list of adjectives and descriptive phrases I can trot out at a moment’s notice. Mine comprises about 50 items under the following headings: 1) Aptitude For Change; 2) Education and Experience; 3) Intellectual Curiosity; 4) Leadership and Interpersonal Factors. If pressed, I have a PowerPoint version of my list that I can speak to. If really pressed, I have even organized my list into matrix that can be used to score candidates. But to be honest I find that one good conversation with their manager is usually more informative than completing the matrix.
Every time the question comes up, I have the same thought after answering it: in order to define what characterizes an ideal Black Belt candidate, we first need to understand what we expect Black Belts to do. And every time I try to do that, I’m struck by some basic problems. Because often, we seem to expect them to do everything.
Consider a basic tool taught in most Six Sigma curricula: the SIPOC, which stands for Supplier, Input, Process, Output, Customer. (Some organizations cleverly reverse the acronym – COPIS – to emphasize that the customer should come first. Others add additional letters in various spots.) The purpose of a SIPOC is noble – to understand the entire process at high level, beginning with the supplier and ending with the customer. And while the Black Belt normally has a team in place to help them formulate and develop the SIPOC, it’s the Black Belt who owns the tool and the project at the end of the day.
It’s right about here that I start to get confused about what we are asking Black Belts to do. The dogma is that projects need to start and end with the customer, plus include the entire value stream, plus reach out to suppliers, plus touch on multiple functions within the organization. And while there can and should be a project team in place, the ultimate responsibility for all of these things does lie with the Black Belt. But how many Black Belts are suitably qualified (via experience, positional authority, contacts within the organization, etc, etc) to reach out in all these directions effectively? Can you think of a single individual in your organization that you’d be comfortable asking to do all of those things – personally visit with customers, work with suppliers, cut across internal functions, etc, etc? In my experience those people are extremely rare, and many of them already have “chief” somewhere in their title.
So where does that leave us? We need to develop Black Belts through training and experience, of course, but that takes time a multiple projects. What to do on the first, second, and third projects? Picking the right team is one obvious answer, but if the Black Belt doesn’t know what they are doing to a certain extent in all areas, then picking teams members who are very good at their particular function may or may not turn out well in the end. And it’s not easy to do, because those people are typically in very high demand. Anyone who has seen a wave of 20-30 (or more) Black Belts all attack their first projects at once knows this firsthand.
My suggestion is that the organization in general, and the Six Sigma (or equivalent) function in particular, should bear some responsibility for managing the interface between generation of knowledge (i.e. finding out what to do) and the execution pathway suggested by that knowledge (i.e. doing it). Put another way, perhaps the role of the Black Belt ought to be to investigate, understand and recommend…but execution and other aspects of realization ought to be left to those who best understand the area where the activity will occur.
For example, why do we ask Black Belts to go out and listen to voice of the customer? Don’t we have sales and marketing functions that ought to be doing that? Presumably those folks will be much better at it than a newly minted Black Belt anyway because, frankly, they ought to be experts. And if the sales and marketing folks aren’t good at it, then perhaps we ought to focus on that problem rather than institutionalizing a workaround via Six Sigma training. Which I think is what we are really doing if we give Black Belts end-to-end responsibility for a project. We’re admitting that our functions don’t work well together. If we ask a Black Belt with an engineering background to go out and listen to voice of the customer, then we might win the battle for the specific project (although in practice I actually don’t think this happens very often), but we lose the war for organizational effectiveness as a whole. And that’s definitely not what we should be asking Black Belts to do.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Andrew Downard]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Thu, 04 May 2006 22:01:00 -0800</pubDate>
		</item>

		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: &quot;It's So Simple!&quot;]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/its_so_simple.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[
I’ve been in the healthcare field all of my professional life.  Whether this is your situation, or you have joined us lately, perhaps you’ve noticed the same thing I have.  We all know what to do to make things better in our hospitals and facilities. It’s true… just ask anyone.  Solve ER overcrowding? Reduce room turnover between OR cases? Fix lab turn-around time? Reduce errors in medication dispensing?  Everyone you ask will have the answer. (Usually, of course, it’s someone else’s fault and someone else’s problem to fix.)
And, it’s always "so simple."  Even Henry Ford said, "You just put the work in front of the men, and they do it." People should know what to do!  Customer service: smile and greet patients like they are welcome in our facilities.  How hard is that? We shouldn’t need to hire million-dollar consultants for that, should we?  High-quality health care: follow standard operating procedure. It’s right there in the manual, referenced from a dozen national quality organizations!  On-time OR case starts: just make sure everyone, including the surgeon, knows to come in 15 minutes early.  Easy!
And yet, and yet…  When you ask the magic question, "How do you make things better?" what responses to you get? "Well, that is a tough question." "You’re right, that’s the hard part." "Well, it’s difficult, alright." "That’s the $24-million dollar question, isn’t it?"  "We've hired consultants to help us with that."
When I read books and articles on management, healthcare, and Six Sigma, there are lots of people with lots of advice about "what to do."  1. Get leadership commitment.  2. Hire the right Black Belts.  3. Develop a strong infrastructure.  4. Design a good recognition and rewards program.  Not too many people come up with the "how to do it."  Granted, each of us is in a unique environment and culture.  But, even when we use lean and Six Sigma tools, there can be tremendous difficulty in getting people to agree to "do the right things right at the right time."  And we're all looking for the simple - miracle - answer, aren't we?
When we come across someone who has a "simple" answer, rather than just nodding our heads, we should ask – "Just how do you do that?"  (Followed by, of course, "What data do you have to back that up?")   And we should not accept "It’s so simple!" for an answer, especially if we’re paying someone to answer the question.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Sun, 30 Apr 2006 19:28:50 -0800</pubDate>
		</item>

		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Upward Management in Healthcare Six Sigma]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/upward_management_in_healthcare_six_sigma.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[How many healthcare Black Belts think the biggest Six Sigma challenge is not project management, or coaching your team, but teaching your Project Sponsor / Executive Sponsor / Process Owner about Six Sigma?  This is something I've encountered in early Six Sigma Project Waves.
The scenario I'm thinking about is the one where you're meeting with leadership about your project.  In public meetings, they've been supportive; however, to you they say things like:
"I don't think that Green Belt will be able to attend too many of your meetings, I've got her on two special projects already."
"We're having a JCAHO inspection in March so team members won't be available to you that month."
"There's no money in the budget for Six Sigma expenses like a team lunch."
"You'll have to go through the normal purchasing procedures if you want to buy a new fax for that department; it usually takes six months if you can talk the Director into approving the purchase in the first place - but good luck."
You may go to your Executive Sponsor, Master Black Belt, or other Six Sigma leader, only to be told "That's part of your job as a Black Belt to work with everyone to get them on board."   But some Directors or Vice Presidents may not acknowledge your authority to tell them to spend money, take people out of clinical care areas, or re-arrange their plans for the upcoming inspection.  Certainly this is even more difficult when Six Sigma is first being introduced to a hospital or healthcare system.
In one project that I know of, the Black Belt had to put up with a lot of negative push-back from the Executive Sponsor and Process Owner (with the Project Sponsor pretty much absentee the whole time).  He persevered, though, with assistance from his MBB.  By the end of his successful project (which had a large financial benefit), he had gained enough political capital to make the leadership team much more action-oriented during the next project.  
What has worked for you, when you've come across difficulties with your leadership team?  Was there something specific that helped to get them to the "aha" moment of what Six Sigma is all about?  Please share your experiences.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Fri, 21 Apr 2006 09:22:33 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Does It Actually Matter What We Teach Black Belts?]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/does_it_actually_matter_what_we_teach_black_belts.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[In an earlier blog entry (here), I described my feelings on DMAIC and roadmaps in general. To make a long story short, I don’t believe they add much value to the core toolset of Six Sigma. A couple of folks quite rightly expressed their disagreement with my view via comments (here). I say quite rightly, because I don’t have data to back up my hypothesis that the roadmaps don’t matter. To get that data it would be necessary to run experiments at a program level comparing projects (or even entire deployments) done with and without a roadmap. I haven’t done that, and I don’t know of anyone else that has either.
Lack of data, however, generally doesn’t stop me from speculating. And in that spirit, while we’re talking about program-level and deployment-level experiments, there’s one that is even more fundamental that I have often thought about. It’s a scary one to consider about for those of us whose jobs, in whole or in part, involve arranging and facilitating Six Sigma training. The experiment essentially asks the question: does it really matter what we teach Black Belts?
Let me explain. Any Six Sigma program that I’ve ever seen or heard of (or any continuous improvement program, for that matter) starts off with a pitch to executives in which some version of the following conditions are laid out, either by external consultants or an internal champion:

We need your absolute best people;
We need to free up those people to focus exclusively on Six Sigma work;
We need the most important projects to work on;
We need to make sure those projects are properly scoped and resourced;
We need to ensure that the organization supports people working on these projects from top to bottom.
Conditions 1-3 are usually the toughest to satisfy for reasons which are perhaps obvious, although 4 and 5 aren’t exactly easy either. In fact, most deployment leaders will tell you that a high percentage of their time is spent on 1 and 2 alone for the first few years of a deployment. Nevertheless, assuming the program is agreed to and competently managed, we end up somehow bringing our best folks together for four intense weeks of training, during which the concepts, tools, and methodology of Six Sigma are taught. Projects gets worked, and results happen. Everyone’s happy.
My question is this: what if we did exactly the same thing, but didn’t teach Six Sigma? What if we got our best folks together in a room one a week for four weeks over four months, focused them exclusively on the most important projects to the business, and gave them the resources and support they needed to get the job done…but didn’t teach them any new methodology? Would the outcome be materially different than if we taught them some roadmap or program?
In other words, maybe satisfying the conditions 1-5 – which make no mention whatsoever of methodology, roadmaps, DMAIC, statistics, etc, etc – is what continuous improvement really amounts to. Maybe the “sexy” methodology and jargon only provide a to a way to get the organization to agree to conditions 1-5 in the first place. Maybe the whole Six Sigma ball of wax is no more than a means to create the will to satisfy conditions 1-5.
This is the experiment that I invariably run in my head each time I go to a training event. I am struck every time by how bright and energetic the participants are, and how quickly they come together and make progress on their projects. This occurs in spite of – or perhaps because of – the fact that they are usually drawn from different geographies and business units. I’ve been involved with training programs that I think are absolutely top notch, but nonetheless I wonder…would these folks make more progress if we just got rid of the obstacles and let them get down to it with out interfering? Do we really need to teach them anything?
My hunch is no. I suspect if we truly got the best people focused on the most important projects with the right resources behind them, we wouldn’t actually have to teach them a thing. The problem is that conditions 1-3 are extremely difficult (maybe impossible?) to produce in the absence of a program with a lot of “sizzle”. That is, it’s relatively easy at this point in history to sell a Six Sigma program with all the attendant hoopla, but for whatever reason it’s hard to sell the idea of simply getting our best people working on our most important projects with everything else cleared out of the way. Perhaps when it comes down to it, the only reason to have a Six Sigma program at all is to create conditions 1-5. Maybe what we teach truly doesn’t matter.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Andrew Downard]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Thu, 20 Apr 2006 22:01:00 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Elephants on the 5]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/elephants_on_the_5.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I was driving down the 5 in Los Angeles yesterday on my way back to the hotel and, as I’ve discovered is often the case when one’s pace is a blistering 3 M.P.H., my mind began to wander a bit. If you’ve read any of my previous posts you’re probably saying to yourself "great, he’s probably going to try to relate some ancient historical fact or figure to Lean or Six Sigma". Okay so I’m a little transparent, but take my word for it the wanderings of my mind are much closer to the center of the distribution out here than they are back East.
The night before this traffic jam I was hanging out in my room watching a story about Hannibal on the history channel. In the 3rd century B.C.E. the Romans and the Carthaginians had a bit of a disagreement over the control of commerce in the Mediterranean and a showdown was on the horizon. The Romans figured they would muster their forces and sail to Spain to meet the Carthaginian army there but Hannibal, their commander, had other ideas. In a bold military maneuver, Hannibal led a large army with its African war elephants across the Rhône River and over the Alps in icy weather and surprised the Romans on their own turf. In 216 B.C.E. at the Battle of Cannae, Hannibal’s forces inflicted one of the worst defeats on the Romans in their history.
The fighting itself is not what intrigues me, it’s the travel. You see, moving along the 5 at an elephants pace made me think about just how amazing Hannibal’s journey was. Imagine how overwhelming the idea must have been to the officers in the corps when Hannibal called them to his tent and said "fellas, we’re going to Rome". I’m sure they would have been messaging each other on their Blackberry’s, "is this guy nuts", if they’d had them. But Hannibal had vision and he obviously had a good plan.
A good plan can go a long way toward rallying the support needed throughout the ranks when one is planning a bold action. Implementing Lean or Six Sigma, depending on the current state of your organization, can be a pretty bold step. As such, when a leader stands before his council to announce the implementation of these methodologies he must not only have the vision, he must have a plan. Successful deployments depend on the action and determination of the individuals within the organization. If the mission and its goals are ambiguous, ROI will be minimal and outright failure will be a real possibility. The plan is job number one.
Your team is probably not planning to cross the snow covered Alps on elephants, but know this, it was done 2000 years ago without the aid of GPS or cell phones. A good plan can take you far, very far.
Maybe what the 5 needs is a few more peanut stands...]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[W. Michael McBride]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Thu, 20 Apr 2006 14:06:15 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Key Performance Indicators in Strategic Planning for Six Sigma]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/key_performance_indicators_in_strategic_planning_for_six_sigma.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[It is very important to understand how to create a good key performance indicator or KPI for Six Sigma.  This is also true when you add Six Sigma to your strategic plan, as I have.
The KPIs that you develop must first be a goal(s) of your organization, department, etc.  These should be agreed upon.  Remember, these will indicate the target performance levels and the guiding light for your work, so get consensus.
As a leader the KPIs will help you make decisions, guide you to where you need to collect data (baselines) so you can create targets and give you an indication of what improvement(s) have been gained/lost and how you should use that data.  Keep in mind that these should be flexible too.
Do not keep your organization set to such stringent KPIs that they are constantly failing.  After your first year, if you fail to reach your targets look at why, don't just press to do better next year, keeping with the same goals set at the beginning of your strategic plan.  
Remember that in our changing world, we need to be able to change too. ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Lisa Moore]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Wed, 19 Apr 2006 14:08:16 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Who Am I, and Why Am I Here?]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/who_am_i_and_why_am_i_here.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA["Healthcare Black Belt seeks long-distance relationship with diverse group of process improvers willing to share opinions and experiences about the challenges of getting the right people to do the right things right."
First order of business:  Who am I?  I ask myself this question frequently.  Every time I change jobs, it's an opportunity to reinvent myself.  Currently, I'm a Six Sigma Black Belt with three years of experience with Six Sigma and Lean in healthcare.  I've enjoyed the structure and rigor of Six Sigma, while being challenged by individuals who don't think in terms of process.  I've been humbled - and reinvigorated - by my transformation from being an expert in my previous area, the clinical laboratory, to becoming a "newbie" at process improvement.  I'm an optimist by nature, teacher by outlook, psychologist by necessity, and an INTP to boot.
Second order of business:  Why am I here?  I'll use this space to share my opinions about the "A" side of the equation - where Q (the quality of the solution) x A (the acceptance of the stakeholders) = E (the effectiveness of the solution).  I'm fascinated by the "people side" of this work - how to get buy-in; why some of us would rather develop work-arounds than follow a standard process; the all-pervasive "That will never work!" and my favorite, "You'll NEVER get the doctors to go along with that!"  From a team perspective, what's the best way to turn nay-sayers and eye-rollers into converts?  What's the change that has to take place in order to build a true Six Sigma organization?
I really look forward to our conversations together.  Let me leave you with a question, to start:  If you're involved in a Six Sigma effort, what's the ONE THING you wish you'd been told when you started?  Here's what I was actually told - it only took my 2 years to really believe it:  "Six Sigma is not only about the data.  Six Sigma success is based on relationship-building bound to a common philosphy."  What should someone have told you, at the beginning of your journey?
Let the blogging begin!]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sue Kozlowski]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Fri, 14 Apr 2006 07:36:07 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: What's The Point Of A Project?]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/whats_the_point_of_a_project.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[
In a perfect world, every project would lead directly to financial gain. We’d draft a charter that, when well executed, produced savings or income that translated directly to the bottom line. And this would be good because we all like making money. We can put it in the bank, earn interest on it, add many small amounts together, and eventually buy the things we need and want. That’s true of both businesses and individuals. We like financial gain not for itself, but because we enjoy the benefits that financial gain can bring. So, we conceive of most projects along the lines of the structure below.

Trouble is, the link between project goals and delivering financial gain is seldom as direct as we’d like it to be. Although there are exceptions, most projects require an intermediate series of steps wherein it is necessary to learn something. In other words, although we’d all like to proceed directly to financial gain, we usually don’t know how. So the project ought to be about going out and gaining some useful knowledge, then turning that knowledge into financial gain. The picture ends up looking something like the structure below. As I said before, there are exceptions (a project to increase capacity on a known product or service in an underserved market, for example), but in my experience the vast majority of Six Sigma projects have to follow the knowledge gain pathway because it’s the most efficient route to financial gain. If this wasn’t true, then the project would probably be addressed through some other methodology.

This being the case, it’s worth thinking about what we teach our Black Belts, and what we demand of them in terms of intermediate and final results. Certainly we all want the benefits of financial gain in the long run, and every project ought to have financial metrics. But if we recognize that knowledge gain is almost always a necessary precursor to financial gain for Six Sigma projects (and particularly if we believe that knowledge gain is the most efficient route to financial gain), then we ought to include in our methodology and metrics a way to capture and evaluate what has been learned as well. In fact, I believe this so strongly that I often insist problem statements be re-worded to emphasize knowledge gain at least as much as financial gain. Just like money can be banked and accrue interest, so too can knowledge. If we emphasize and value knowledge gain in our projects we end up not only making money, but increasing the level of knowledge in the organization as well. And just like with money, we can store knowledge away, assemble small amounts into larger ones over time, and pull it when we need it on a rainy day. In others words, knowledge is a bankable currency in the organization, just like money. 

In fact, looking at the diagram above, one might take the view that stored knowledge actually has more much intrinsic value that stored currency, because well-managed knowledge can be converted into dollars more than once; that is, even though we can withdraw at will from the knowledge bank, our store of knowledge does not deplete. Further, we have control over when and how we convert knowledge into financial gain, so it is a very flexible currency as well.
This is certainly not an original observation - indeed, I’m fairly confident that diagrams like the ones above have been scratched out in many organizations for more years that I’ve been alive - yet how many Six Sigma projects have metrics that measure knowledge gain in addition to financial gain? It’s a continuous improvement truism that we need to measure what’s important to us. My contention is that our measurements should include an assessment of what is being learned in addition to what is being accomplished. Properly managed and focused Six Sigma projects ought to deliver both knowledge gain and financial gain, and to make that happen the project (and program) metrics need to reflect both streams.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Andrew Downard]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Thu, 06 Apr 2006 22:01:00 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Should all Black Belts be Green Belt Teachers?]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/should_all_black_belts_be_green_belt_teachers.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[In my opinion they should. After going though mindblowing and overwhelming black belt training sessions and doing the first black belt projects I was at time not sure what to do with respect to DMAIC. During those first training projects I was lucky to be mentored and coached by a great master black belt. My personal big breakthrough improvement in DMAIC application came when I went through a train the trainer session to become a green belt trainer. During one week we focused on the pedagogic approach how to make other people understand the coherence of DMAIC, the logic flow in an improvement project … By focusing on this and consequently delivering my first green belt training I understood the bigger picture and full power of the methodology a lot better then before, as if the parts of a 5000 piece puzzle fell in place. You can say that this experience convinced me forever. If not made to by his or her superior, every black belt should at least make the personal effort to deliver green belt training once in his Six Sigma career. It’s not only a great development to your organisation (because of the formed green belts) but also very much a great personal development. You’ll be amazed how much more profound your DMAIC knowledge and understanding will be after this.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Sven Saerens]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Fri, 31 Mar 2006 05:16:55 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Six Sigma Beyond DMAIC]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/six_sigma_beyond_dmaic.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[There is a strong tendency for Six Sigma programs to forge an inextricable link between project management roadmaps, notably DMAIC, and statistical tools. This has never made much sense to me. In my experience, Six Sigma programs can not only exist and survive without the use of typical roadmaps, but prosper and flourish.
In the vast majority of Six Sigma environments, it borders on heresy to even ponder whether some, if not all, projects couldn’t perhaps be completed without the use of a roadmap. While it is probably the case that the DMAIC framework is efficient and appropriate for a certain subset of projects in most organizations, I have never been able to accept it as the panacea that most people in the field seem to. And by people, I mean consultants and executives. Not experienced practitioners, because by the second or third Six Sigma project most folks on the front lines eventually realize that toll-gate driven roadmap processes consume enormous amounts of time and energy in the form of meetings. In fact, I suspect the majority of seasoned Black Belts would abandon toll gate reviews in a hurry if they had the choice.
Consider a class of 24 Black Belts, all of whom will complete 2 projects in a year. Suppose (conservatively) that each project team has 5 members, and (again conservatively) that each toll gate review will take 30 minutes. That adds up to 120 hours of time spent in meetings involving those who are supposedly the best and brightest in the company. And what do those meetings produce? Certainly they gather stakeholders together to inform and discuss aspects of the project. But do they make a material difference to the outcome of the project? In other words, would the end result be better, worse, or the same if we gave the Black Belt responsibility and authority to organize the project and team meetings as they saw fit, as opposed to imposing a DMAIC structure? I submit that in my experience there are few negative consequences to abandoning the toll-gate-roadmap approach, and numerous positive consequences. Fewer meetings are one such benefit…admittedly one of my favorites!
It is undoubtedly true that DMAIC and other roadmaps are: a) easy to teach; and b) easy to administer. This makes the roadmap approach a darling of consultants (who see a consistent and portable program that can easily be taught in many different environments) and executive management (who see that DMAIC in particular lends itself to tidy dashboards and displays). But do the steps add value to a product or service? In most organizations I suspect the Lean folks would consider canceling toll gate meetings an easy, quick-win project. My hunch is that they would be correct in most cases.
What’s the null hypothesis here? If the tacit assumption taught by consultants and embraced by executives asserts that roadmaps and tollgates are necessary, the hypothesis that needs testing is something to the effect of “does a program without any toll gates or roadmaps result in any statistically significant differences compared to a program based on DMAIC or some other roadmap?” And if there were differences, would they be positive or negative? In short, what are we getting for all the time spent on toll gate reviews and roadmap compliance, if anything?
My own view is that there is an infinite variety of improvement opportunities out there, and it’s nonsensical to suggest that any single roadmap will serve a significant portion of them well. Tacit agreement with this view is provided by the flurry of supplemental roadmaps that have appeared (and continue to appear) over the years since DMAIC was first introduced. So the test for the null hypothesis is both simple and audacious: run a Six Sigma program that does not depend on any particular roadmaps and see what happens; teach the tools of Six Sigma without the framework of DMAIC (or any other framework) and evaluate the results; trust practitioners of Six Sigma to decide for themselves how projects should be managed, when meetings should happen, what stages are appropriate for a project. In short, let go of structure and embrace flexibility.
As organizations turn more and more to innovation as a wellspring for continuous improvement, what we ought to be creating is not wave after wave of people who can follow roadmaps well, but rather creative map-makers who can and do chart new paths to any destination. To do that, we need to explore Six Sigma beyond DMAIC.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Andrew Downard]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Thu, 30 Mar 2006 07:16:28 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Leadership Imperative]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/leadership_imperative.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[The following is The Last Word from the March/April 2006 issue of iSixSigma Magazine, entitled "Getting Ahead in Business with Six Sigma."
Operational excellence does not come easy, whether in America's heartland or on the streets of New York City. It takes leaders who are willing to make changes. 
Despite the breakthrough improvements made by for-profit companies around the world, many not-for-profit organizations, including city governments, still put out fires on a day-to-day basis, instead of preventing fires by improving the way they do business.
I can understand why: Carrying out daily activities can be all consuming. If every person had to spend time improving a process, rather than actually doing it, activities would build up in a queue, delaying their execution. Court cases would wait to be processed, sanitation needs would go unmet, and roads would not be kept in good repair. None of that is acceptable, of course, but it emphasizes the importance of routine duties.
On the other hand, imagine if we drove our car for months, even years, without proper servicing - didn't change the oil, maintain proper tire inflation or tune the engine - because we were too busy doing our routine activities. What if we didn't take the time every so often to ensure our car's expected performance? Gradually, the car would not run as well and require more fuel to go the same distance. Eventually, it would stop running.
Most business operations - including those of city government - require similar attention to maintain efficiency.  But unlike servicing a car, a business "tune-up" can drive improvements in performance beyond the operation's initial capabilities.  
I recently had the honor of meeting Rudy Giuliani, mayor of New York from 1994 to 2002, at the IQPC Six Sigma Summit. In his keynote address to more than 500 delegates from around the world, Giuliani provided leadership lessons learned through his wide experience as a lawyer in private practice, as a U.S. attorney in the Department of Justice, and as the head of one of the largest cities in the world:

"There are really two things that make an effective leader: philosophy and process. Some people have great ideas, but they don't ever accomplish them. Some people are enormously efficient, but they have no ideas. If you can put the two things together, having good ideas and goals, and being practical enough to know how to achieve them, then you can be very effective as a leader."
In introducing Giuliani, Daniel Quinn, president and CEO of Aon Management Consulting/Rath &amp; Strong noted, "The ability to measure performance accurately is critical to any organization looking to improve efficiency and ensure success. Rudy believes a system of measurement motivates employees and decision-makers alike. Accountability enables leaders to identify problems more effectively and make solutions pervasive throughout an organization."
Giuliani emphasized that an organization cannot improve unless it is willing to change. "To be a leader, you have to be willing to do something different. You have to be willing to change something." 
Both Giuliani and the mayor of Fort Wayne, Indiana, Graham Richard, made changes that dramatically improved their cities. Whether or not you use Six Sigma as the basis of your measurement and improvement system, as the City of Fort Wayne now does, great leadership requires a vision and a process for improvement. 
Six Sigma provides a philosophy, a roadmap and a toolset. For more than 10 years, private businesses have been proving Six Sigma works. Now is the time for government to partner with private businesses to provide breakthrough improvements that benefit every citizen. 
It is an imperative for our tomorrow; it is an imperative for leadership today.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Michael Cyger]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Thu, 23 Mar 2006 11:06:36 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Know Thyself]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/know_thyself.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Some recent conversations with BB’s and MBB’s from other companies has given me pause regarding the leadership issue as it relates to Six Sigma. The frustration I hear from others, which I’ve also experienced, relates to the lack of continuity between word and deed. Not that it’s necessarily intentional, I mean surely executives don’t intend to fail when it comes to leading an initiative. But if that’s not the case, why do so many BB’s encounter scenarios where the leader speaks the gospel of Six Sigma but does little else.
Well, as you may have guessed, I have a theory. Benjamin Franklin once asked "Who had deceived thee so often as thyself?" This, in my opinion, cuts to the heart of the issue. Leaders, and people in general for that matter, don’t know what they don’t know. One can’t be expected to be an expert at everything thus it seems logical that one would seek training and/or consultation from experts before embarking on a mission with a massive scale like Six Sigma. This however, isn’t always the case. The "I read a book therefore I am" syndrome often takes over and the leader, who now knows the lingo, is convinced he or she can get the job done merely by saying "we’re going to do Six Sigma". Lewis &amp; Clark didn’t set out on their journey based solely on their own expertise. They knew they needed quartermasters, trappers, guides, translators, etc. They had a plan based on multiple sources of expertise and they worked the plan. Their journey, not unlike the Six Sigma journey, wasn’t easy, but they were true to the mission and they were keenly aware of their limitations. Knowing the lingo and that others have seen huge returns from Six Sigma is not a plan.
Along the same lines, I often wonder if some executives fancy the idea of implementing Six Sigma because they know they need change and they’ve read the hype and figure they can hire an expert and it will just happen. This too is a dangerous approach which will quite likely do more harm to an organization than good. I’m not suggesting the leader has to be a technical Six Sigma expert, however, he or she must have a strong conceptual understanding of the methodology and must be willing to steer the organization in a totally new direction. Six Sigma won’t mesh well with traditional management practices. In a traditional environment, it will produce some minor project gains but will eventually fade as those in supervisory positions realize they don’t really have to do it. People have a way of figuring out what the leader wants to hear and if the leader doesn’t have a strong understanding of what is and what is not Six Sigma, he or she will fall victim to these subordinates.
The moral of the story is summed up in the words of one of my favorite actors, Clint Eastwood. "A man has got to know his limitations". A good leader know’s what he does and doesn’t know. Most know they need a solid plan, and the good one’s know when and where to seek advice on the development of the plan.
 ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[W. Michael McBride]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Wed, 22 Mar 2006 07:26:37 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Metrics 101 - Supplier Delivery]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/metrics_101_supplier_delivery.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Notes from the Deployment Front
There are just three things leaders need to get right. 
First is to act like leaders. That is to say when you are involved in this be clear about your commitment. Any leader that talks about this and then talks about more important priorities is not a leader. People hear actions clearer than they hear words.
Second is to align projects with disruptions in the key processes that are aligned with strategy. Simple – look to Policy Deployment for guidance.
Third is measure the right things, but first get your measures right. This is different than MSA and GR&amp;R. Other than financials, you want to measure quality, time, and cost of each key process. I will talk measures of time for the next several posts, because I believe that fixing responsiveness also, by necessity, improves quality and cost.
Supplier Responsiveness –
I believe that any enterprise that depends on supplied resource (goods or services) would agree that the ability of those outsiders to give us what we want; when we need it is critical.
Most companies have two measures – on time to request and on time to agreement. I think on time to request, assuming lead times are defined and respected in the request, is the only important metric. I’ll argue that another day. Regardless of which you drive to or if you drive to both, it’s what is behind the numbers that makes all the difference. We can choose to measure to make people feel good about a bad system or we can put a straight system with simple rules in place that will initially give us ugly numbers. It’s our choice and it really goes to leadership – are they really committed and improving or complying with some initiative brought in by the CFO that just joined you from GE?
A simple example –
Say you work for a multinational company (they usually call themselves global but still make all decisions from HQ) and you have been chasing less expensive labor and materials to Latin America and Asia for the last five years. Odds are that the old purchasing metric of recvar looks great but you now have long lead times. Odds are that your forecast horizon is inside of lead time. Your purchasing and planning has turned out to be the expediting department. Your factories are carrying lots of inventory and your delivery to customers is poor. Sound familiar? If not, don’t read further.
Take the order you just sent to your new friends in Bangkok. A twelve week lead time and you realize you need it in six. Transport time is four weeks and so you change your request, completely disrupting their factory (for the fourth time this month). They come back and tell you that instead of the 100 units you wanted twelve weeks from now, they think they can give you 20 every other week starting in 6 weeks. That means that instead of 100 in twelve weeks you get 20 six weeks early, 20 four weeks early, 20 two weeks early, 20 on time, and 20 late. What is the measure of on time performance?
a)      80% - we got 4 out of 5 deliveries by the original request date.
b)      80% - we go 80% of the material by the due date.
c)      20% - 1 of 5 deliveries was within our on time window of +2, -2 (not knowing what is coming daily makes it really hard to clear receiving every day).
d)      0% - we needed 100 and not having all 100 really disrupted our internal operations.
e)      100% - they are trying really hard and it’s really not their fault.
The only answer that will cause us to fix our system is d). What do we need to fix? Go through the five whys and we have to get back to you cannot plan inside of lead time. Either get a better lead time or extend your planning horizon outside of lead time and then live with it. Anything else causes churn inside your extended enterprise and putting a feel good metric out there will not help a thing.
The one thing I always tell people about Six Sigma is that following the method will guarantee improvement with two caveats – the project work has to be supported (time and team) and you cannot violate the laws of physics. 
Planning inside of lead time is violating the laws of physics, lead time tells you your planning is already finished. Creative metrics will not fix the system!]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Gary A. Cone]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Fri, 17 Mar 2006 08:10:25 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Bad Deployment Top 10]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/bad_deployment_top_10.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Notes from the Deployment Front
Sorry for the long delay in posting here. I’ve been working on taking a failed deployment and turning it around. It’s tedious work with a lot of sleepless nights trying to get a very successful company to understand how to become even better. 
The good news is that it’s going in a very good direction. If you think you are good and want a good challenge, this is the place to be. I will not talk about my company any more – way too many sensitive issues to be discussed in public. Instead, I’m going to start drawing on my past experiences to talk about things I think are important that are outside of what we teach Green Belts, Black Belts, and Master Black Belts.
My first topic will be how to identify a deployment that is going to fail.
Signs of a deployment that will fail – My top ten list:
1)      Leadership clearly articulates all of the other things that are more important.
2)      Leadership claims we are doing this only because negative data has been presented so many times.
3)      Leadership believes that all process decisions must be okay with business guys who wouldn’t know a process if it bit them in the butt.
4)      Leadership wants to object to calling this Six Sigma because they are “Lean”. This is while their material flow is abysmal.
5)      No infrastructure is put in place around selecting and supporting project work.
6)      Training takes place with no immediate tie to project work requiring tool usage.
7)      People are sent to training without projects.
8)      There is discussion around metrics that clearly do not reflect the health of our critical processes justifying them because the negative result is out of our immediate control.
9)      There is no authority to assure data integrity.
10)    RTY only includes tests where we collect data.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Gary A. Cone]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Wed, 15 Mar 2006 09:40:54 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Intellectual Waste]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/intellectual_waste.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[There are 8 wastes associated with a Lean Six Sigma process that are vital to the success of the implementation.  The 8 wastes are:  over production, excessive processing, non-productive inventory, excessive motion, unnecessary transportation, non-standard work, waiting, and intellectual capital.  Eliminating these 8 wastes will add more value to the processes, and increase customer satisfaction.  The intellectual capital of the staff involved with the implementation is the most important tool that cannot be emphasized enough with any movement of change.  Trained, skilled workers are a precious attribute to the organization and they are critical to the success of a Lean Six Sigma implementation.  The knowledge of the staff must be utilized in order to create a free-form flow of ideas, opinions, and suggestions.  
Executing these ideas will require a few courageous, visionary, leaders to turn these ideas into action.  There will be initial skepticism, but this will disappear as results begin to appear.  It is also important to realize that "non-value added" activities are not the people trying to do something wrong.  These employees are just working at trying to provide the best service possible.  The true barrier is the existing system.  Once Lean Six Sigma is applied to the system, employees will find that they are able to respond to and serve the patients faster and more efficiently.  The result is higher satisfaction for the patients and for the staff, and lower costs of providing service.
The hesitation of incorporating the system of Lean Six Sigma lies in the biology of human beings and the natural inertia to change.  To react to this fear of change, Lean Six Sigma teams should be sure to incorporate a minimal training of Lean Six Sigma into employee orientation modules, and it should be worked into performance reviews.  Most importantly, it should be emphasized that the Lean Six Sigma principles do not advocate labor reduction by way of lay-offs.  Efficiencies will be gained, and positions will be eliminated through attrition.  In other words, staff should not be afraid to offer improvement.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Andrew M. Hillig]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Fri, 10 Mar 2006 09:39:18 -0800</pubDate>
		</item>

		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: To Six Sigma or Not - Let's &quot;Pilot&quot; to Find Out]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/to_six_sigma_or_not_lets_pilot_to_find_out.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Benchmarking results consistently identify examples of Six Sigma success.  Even so, getting "nay-sayers" on board is a continuous challenge.  What do you tell them?
Nayism 22:  In lieu of an enterprise-wide Six Sigma deployment, let’s start with a couple of departments and see how it works.
On the surface, this may seem like a reasonable approach but hidden beneath this "toe in the water" approach, dangers are lurking.  Can it work?   Here’s what I say . . .
You’ve heard it a zillion times. . . The power of Six Sigma is not in working a couple of projects.  It’s derived from the cultural aspect (i.e. changing the way the organization works).  The "pilot" approach has some down side that can drown even the best intentions. 
When leadership decides to "pilot" six sigma in a couple of areas, it sends a very clear message to the organization that the leadership team is not convinced that it will work.  This one decision may be enough to spark a feeding frenzy of negativity among the organization’s "nay-sayers" that can overtake even the best deployment efforts.  A successful Six Sigma deployment requires that leadership be passionate about Six Sigma and continuous improvement and and that they relay this passion through their actions.   A "pilot" deployment does not relay passion but sends a clear "caution" message.
Partial deployment can be very tricky.  Once a couple of groups are selected for the pilot, these groups will need to be trained.  But training the pilot group is not enough.  Other departments will require training.  For example, HR (to define Black Belt and Project Champion roles and select the right black belts), Finance (to develop a financial validation methodology), IT (to understand data gathering methods).  Also, as team members are selected, it becomes evident that process customers and suppliers need to be involved.  Data and input may also be needed from ’other’ groups which may or may not have had Six Sigma training or orientation.  At this point, it becomes clear that success will depend on many groups, not just a few that are being piloted.   Without proper deployment in these groups (training and communication) the opportunity for buy-in and support greatly diminishes.
These are just a couple of issues related to "pilot" deployments.  This does not mean that "pilot" deployments won’t work, as I’m sure some have.  It does stress the importance of having a carefully orchestrated plan in place to address issues that may not be present with an enterprise-wide approach.  Six Sigma deployment is serious stuff.   Whether done correctly or incorrectly, it will have a lasting effect on the organization. ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Gianna Clark]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Sat, 04 Mar 2006 06:37:19 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Leading from the Heart]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/leading_from_the_heart.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[The thing that sets apart “Great Leaders” from “Good Leaders” is the ability to care about others. Great Leaders do not have the luxury of acting on their fight or flight response mechanism. They must constantly be ready to fight at a moments notice, and how they choose to fight can mean the difference in how their followers judge them. It is the most recent actions that others judge the leader, regardless of how the leader judges them self.
In implementing Lean Six Sigma into a health care setting, it is important to be strong ambassadors of change and lead staff into a new era of quality not experienced in health care previously. To do this, the implementers of Lean Six Sigma should remember to follow the following guidelines that will effectively attain buy-in from the staff affected by the implementation as well as ensure that the implementers are accepted as strong leaders in the Lean Six Sigma movement.
 
Limbic Leadership and Lean
 
 
1.   Set Clear Standards
a.   Focus on the target/goal of the implementation
b.   Everyone should be aware and understand the standards
c.   Standards should be visual as a reminder to all
d.   Constant communication of the standards is essential
e.   Keep your eye on the prize
2.   Expect the Best, and Tolerate nothing less
a.   Lead by example
b.   Accountability
c.   “You get what you expect, and you deserve what you tolerate!”
3.   Awareness
a.   What’s working and what’s not working
b.   Provide individual feedback – positive feedback
4.   History
a.   Tell stories to inspire
i. Stories of the past, present, and future help to bring together the group.
ii. Shows the group that the leader(s) is attentive and aware
b.   Teach Company Standards
5.   Recognition
a.   Personalize recognition as much as possible – Lets them know “you’re important to the success of the organization”
6.   Group Celebration
a.   Sense of belonging and sense of community
b.   Inspires and motivates
7.   Set Examples
a.   Express Affection
b.   Show vulnerability
 ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Andrew M. Hillig]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Thu, 23 Feb 2006 10:39:16 -0800</pubDate>
		</item>

		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: A Slow Start...]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/a_slow_start.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Six Sigma started in our department slowly.  There were many factors that played into this, but mostly staffing issues:
1. I only have a staff of student employees (from 8-16 per year).2. This staff is in a constant state of change.3. Students come with various skills, many with no math or business or technical background.4. Knowledge transfer/capture had to be a major component of our setup.
At the onset I was lucky to be the only upper level individual who had to champion this idea and support it.  With that out of the way, I was on a quest to find a couple of student employees who not only possessed skills to help support our effort, but also a drive to do this since it went well beyond what any of them were hired to do.
At the time I had a strong set of level two techs who fit the bill so I enlisted their help.  They were both curious and anxious to work on this.  I had communicated what I wanted to do, why it was necessary, and what the benefits would be and they agreed. 
The first step was to train everyone.  This training would get them up to speed but would also become a test on how to train others that would follow.
Our university has a Blackboard system and I saw it as a perfect place for this training to occur. Blackboard is a web-based teaching/learning system which supports online documents, bulletin boards, tests, etc.  They could learn whenever it was good for them...it was perfect!  I developed the initial online site and began publishing documents/bulletin boards/quizzes and they jumped in and started learning.  As we moved along their feedback was invaluable to me on what worked and concepts that should be broken down more.
Once we had a good basic training program developed we began looking at these employees skills and I realized that I had a vast knowledgebase at my finger tips and that the iron was hot to start training others.  Until people could grasp some basic understanding about what we were about to accomplish how could they back this and help?
The remainder of my student employees began this online course and all finished by the end of the school year.
Great.  I had 8 people who had taken this basic training.  Two would not return the next year and I had three new people to train that next fall.   ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Lisa Moore]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Thu, 23 Feb 2006 05:48:10 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: 17th Century Change Management]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/17th_century_change_management.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I was recently reading a book on John Locke (1632-1704), a British philosopher considered by many to be the primary intellectual inspiration of Thomas Jefferson. I thought I’d share what he had to say about new ideas and achieving agreement because the parallels to modern change management are uncanny considering this was written over 300 years ago. The following is a summary of the ideas expressed in his "Essay Concerning Human Understanding" Book IV, Ch. 16, Section 4. The summary was published by Bertrand Russell in 1945.

In his chapter "Of Degrees of Assent" he says that the degree of assent we give to any proposition should depend upon the grounds of probability in its favor. After pointing out that we must often act upon probabilities that fall short of certainty, he says that the right use of this consideration "is mutual charity and forbearance. Since therefore it is unavoidable to the greatest part of men, if not all, to have several opinions, without certain and indubitable proofs of their truth; and it carries too great an imputation of ignorance, lightness, or folly, for men to quit and renounce their former tenets presently upon the offer of an argument which they cannot immediately answer and show the insufficiency of; it would, methinks, become all men to maintain peace and the common offices of humanity and friendship in the diversity of opinions, since we cannot reasonably expect that any one should readily and obsequiously quit his own opinion, and embrace ours with blind resignation to an authority which the understanding of man acknowledges not. For, however it may often mistake, it can own no other guide but reason, nor blindly submit to the will and dictates of another...
How can we expect that opinions thus settled (one’s own opinion) should be given up to the arguments or authority of a stranger or adversary? especially if there be any suspicion of interest or design, as there never fails to be where men find themselves ill-treated (challenged). We should do well to commiserate our mutual ignorance, and endeavour to remove it in all the gentle and fair ways of information, and not instantly treat others ill as obstinate and perverse because they will not renounce their own and receive our opinions, or at least those we would force upon them, when it is more than probable that we are no less obstinate in not embracing some of theirs...
Lean and Six Sigma experts are promoters of change, thus one of our primary functions is to convince leaders, managers, etc. to adopt new ideas relative to how an enterprise should operate. It doesn’t appear this task is any easier now than it was 300 years ago but I think what Mr. Locke had to say in his treatise rings true: Don’t expect people to change just because you are convinced you know a better way. Figuring out how to convince others to change is the greatest challenge a Blackbelt will face and success is often based more on an individuals ability to promote change rather than his or her technical prowess. Learn to be a relationship builder and you will create opportunities to apply your technical skills to achieve greater results than you could ever have imagined.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[W. Michael McBride]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Wed, 22 Feb 2006 07:56:44 -0800</pubDate>
		</item>

		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Maine Department of Labor Lean Initiative]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/maine_department_of_labor_lean_initiative.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Applying the Principles of Lean and Public Value to Reshape a Government Agency
In the fall of 2003, the Maine Department of Labor began a tailored change initiative to fundamentally alter the culture and work of the agency.  Combining time-tested “lean” principles from the manufacturing sector with the emerging public sector strategy of “public value,”*  the Department of Labor is improving the quality and efficiency of the services we provide, and doing so with less money.
Like many state agencies, the Maine Department of Labor faces flat or reduced funding streams at a time of steady increases in operations costs. The term “Bend the Curve” relates to the effort to alter the direction of charted projections, to eliminate a looming $9 million shortfall.
The term “public value”*  refers to an emerging public sector strategy to assess the value of government services, products, and regulations to the constituency served by each. Value can be determined only when a constituency “is willing to give up something in return for it.”

* Kelly, Mulgan and Muers, Creating Public Value: an analytical framework for public service reform, see  http://www.annual-report.gov.uk/files/pdf/public_value2.pdf
MDOL - Bend the Curve Goals

Provide the same or better customer service;
Shift the work of the department to match customer expectations and needs;
Achieve efficiencies by fundamentally changing how work gets done;
Improve intradepartmental collaboration and service integration; and
Decrease expenditures by at least $9M and significantly reduce staffing levels over three years while minimizing layoffs.
Better Customer ServiceBend the Curve also addresses the need to continue to provide public value in the services delivered by the department. With a focus on improved processes, measured outcomes, and service delivery from the perspective of the customer, BTC is changing the way we think about our work.
An Investment in LeadershipRecognizing the importance of empowering staff at all levels of the organization to work collaboratively in the change process, the department is investing in the leadership skills of both management and front-line staff.
Continuous ImprovementUsing formal continuous improvement tools, BTC teams address efficiency in service delivery by measuring the current state and planning and implementing a future state that eliminates waste and enhances services to the customer.
For more information about the Maine Department of Labor’s Lean Initiative see their website: http://www.maine.gov/labor/bendthecurve/index.shtml
 ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Stephen C. Crate]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[General&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management&nbsp;,&nbsp;Methodology]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Thu, 09 Feb 2006 06:35:39 -0800</pubDate>
		</item>

		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Rudy Giuliani, Lessons on Leadership]]></title>
			<link>http://www.sixsigmacompanies.com/archive/rudy_giuliani_lessons_on_leadership.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Rudolf Giuliani, former Mayor of New York City, spoke to a large audience of Six Sigma professionals on Wednesday, January 25 at the IQPC 7th Annual Six Sigma Summit in Miami, Florida.  He gave the group sound advice for developing leadership skills through six principles, each explained through stories from his own experiences.  I’ve summarized a few key points from each principle.
Rudy’s Leadership Principles: The most important lessons in developing leadership.  
One:  The single most important thing that a leader must be is a person of conviction. To be a leader you have to have convictions, set of rules, ideas, know what you stand for, know what is important to you.  There is nothing more powerful than ideas.  Rudy’s role model for this principle was Ronald Reagan.  He also spoke about Martin Luther King and Jack Welch as men of ideas.  
Two:  It is critically important to know how to use accountability, normally defined as what you require of other people.  Rudy defined accountability further: the ability to take that goal, that vision, and make it quantifiable, or in other words, accountability is figuring out how to measure what you are trying to achieve.  Rudy used two examples from NYC; Comstat, the program he instituted to reduce crime, and Jobstat, the program to decrease the number of people on welfare.
Three:  Leaders must have courage, the courage to take risks.  He asked this question: Does fear immobilize you or do you use it to become more productive and more effective?  You should only let fear motivate you to prepare.  
Four:  To be a leader you have to understand ethics, both work ethics and moral ethics.  “Work ethics means you cannot accomplish anything without preparation and hard work” and he noted this is especially true of the person in charge. You cannot get people to work hard if you don’t work hard.  Also, you have to have a sense of right and wrong and you have to deliver it to your organization.  Messages of ethics have to be given from the top.  
Five:  Surround yourself with very effective people.  Leadership is a team sport.  Biggest illusion that happens sometimes with leaders is that they begin to believe that it is all about them.  It’s not, it’s just the opposite.  If they can identify their weaknesses and surround themselves with other people to help, they’ll be successful.  A leader has to be self-analytical.  
Six:  Have a positive attitude.  A leader must be an optimist.  Example of optimists:  Ronald Reagan, Dr. King, and Winston Churchill.  If you can’t see your organization improved, or your vision realized, how can you expect to get it there?  You have got to envision success.  He said this principle has worked for him in every situation except for one, playing golf.  
The standing ovation proved that the audience enjoyed his words.  I was proud to stand and show my thanks to Rudy, not only for his lessons on leadership but for his inspiration.  He truly embodies the leadership principles he taught.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Michael Marx]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Conferences&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 30 Jan 2006 12:42:17 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Improving Sales Effectiveness]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/improving_sales_effectiveness.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[The Last Word from the November/December 2005 issue of iSixSigma Magazine, entitled "Starting-up Six Sigma."
In the early 1990s, the CEO of a large chemical company told his sales managers that they had to start sharing ideas, documenting their processes, and defining a best practice that would make all the salespeople as effective as their best person.
You can probably guess that this directive didn't go over well. The most successful salespeople were very protective of their methods. They were paid on commission and were promoted based on internal competition, so where was the incentive for them to focus on process improvement and share their secrets with co-workers?
The sales function has commonly been regarded as special and therefore exempt from scientific analysis. (Which may explain why iSixSigma research shows that only 28 percent of companies are applying Six Sigma strategies to sales.) But this "special" status is something that any company interested in growth can no longer indulge. The fact is that sales and marketing are processes just like any other business process. They can be riddled with inefficiency, and hindered by variation. And they can be measured and improved. 
GE began using Six Sigma to improve sales effectiveness in the fifth year of its Six Sigma journey, which began in 1995. "We found that Six Sigma isn't only for engineers," said Jack Welch, then CEO of GE. "Regional sales managers can use it to improve forecast reliability, pricing strategies or pricing variation."
Similarly, DuPont started Six Sigma in 2000 and began applying it to revenue growth initiatives in year two. "Six Sigma brought a new focus on the voice of the customer. Customer input is valuable in driving research development, product development, and applications," said Don Linsenmann, DuPont vice president and corporate champion-Six Sigma.
Bombardier, one of the world's leading manufacturers of planes and trains, is now in its ninth year of implementing Six Sigma. The company initially targeted areas that were easily measured and improved: cash flow, cost reduction, cost improvement, cost avoidance and efficiency improvement. Today, however, many of Bombardier's projects are focused on increasing sales volume and sales margin.
Despite these successes, resistance to Six Sigma in sales and marketing is common. Typical attitudes are:

The sales process is an art, not a science.
Salespeople should be in the customer's office selling the product, not anywhere else.
We'll increase sales by having more salespeople.
We'd do a better job selling if (insert other department name here) gives us better (products, services, leads, etc.).
When faced with these attitudes, you can talk about processes and teamwork until you're blue in the face without convincing a single sales or marketing person. Instead, get a few members of the sales staff together and have them walk through the steps they go through when making a sales call. Let them discover common steps (arranged in a process map) and where there are differences. Then challenge them to figure out whether and how the "differences" in actions make a difference in sales effectiveness. Tell them they have to show you data to support their conclusions, and boom! – You have your first Six Sigma project. 
Projects related to sales and marketing are as diverse as: advertising/communication improvement, branding effectiveness, channel effectiveness, client relationship management, lead management, new market development, new product or service introduction, pricing process improvement, and sales effectiveness.
If your business is struggling, your sales and marketing staff may regard being challenged to improve processes as a distraction. If your business is doing well, they'll be even less receptive to change. Don't let that stop you. Savvy business leaders know that Six Sigma is an imperative when a business is doing poorly. And using it under good conditions is one of the best ways to ensure continued growth.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Michael Cyger]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Fri, 18 Nov 2005 01:17:30 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Getting the right Change Agent on the bus]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/getting_the_right_change_agent_on_the_bus.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Notes from the deployment frontline 31 October 05
Getting the Right Change Agents on the bus
Sorry about the two month delay – babies and work have consumed my time. Alison Grace is sleeping most of the night and Mom is feeling almost normal. Work is going from tactical to strategic as we are beginning to understand the value of focusing change agents on the things that distract us from our long term and short term goals. We are funding tremendous investments in structural changes through cash flow. Serious, heady stuff that requires focus.
On the subject of choosing Champions and Change Agents, last time I contended – 

“The common advice of “best and brightest” is necessary but not sufficient. You choose change agents based on something that is encoded in their DNA and is easy to measure. More on that next week. Just know that I believe that the advice that a good change agent is a good manager is terrible advice.”
I will start you with the advice of my good friend Bob Wilson. Bob consults in the area of what I call Human Architecture using a tool called Predictive Index (PI). I am not promoting PI, but will tell you two of the largest practitioners of PI, Bob Wilson and Elmano Nigri, have taken a specific interest in studying Six Sigma and improving results by doing a better job of picking change agents. They know more about us than any other users of behavior predictors that I know of. 
My layman’s understanding of the terms Bob uses below – 
There are four factors Predictive Index uses to describe a person’s drive – 
1)      A – The drive to dominate. Presence of this drive is a person who thinks their ideas are the best ideas; they want to win and don’t mind a bit of head butting. Absence of this drive is a person who avoids conflict. People with the presence of this drive are motivated by money because it buys them freedom.
2)      B – The drive for external response. Presence of this drive is a person who is empathetic, who can read people well; this person is a good communicator and is concerned about how the message is received. Absence of this drive is a communication avoider, a person that prefers email and voicemail to face to face contact. People with the absence of this drive are often perceived as arrogant and aloof, while what they really are is unaware of their affect on others. People with the presence of this drive are motivated by money because it buys them prestige.
3)      C – The drive for stability. Presence of this drive is a person who are very process oriented, that like to know the process and work the process in its proper order. Absence of this drive is a person who is impatient, and like to have 100 balls in the air at once; these impatient folks respond only to deadlines. People with the presence of this drive are motivated by a sense of team and family; they are natural team players.
4)      D – The drive for certainty. Presence of this drive is a person who sees the world as black and white; they have difficulty delegating. Absence of this drive is a person who sees the world as a million shades of grey; they will delegate anything even if it is not appropriate. People with the presence of this drive are motivated by a sense of fairness.
Bob’s thoughts on the subject, an excerpt of a newsletter he sends to CEO’s –

Twice in the last two weeks, consultants came back from different client visits telling the same story.  They told of situations where CEO’s had directed major change efforts within a specific area.  In both cases:

The CEO had put people in charge of the specific area that needed to be changed.
The areas were troubled.
It wasn’t known what was to be done, only that something needed to be changed.
Performance stunk at the beginning of the effort and continues to stink.
Whatever change that was supposed to have been incorporated was to have occurred months previously.
There was no indication the change was going to happen any time soon.
The CEO was still waiting for change to happen.  
Unfortunately, these two cases are representative of many more we’ve seen over the years.
In many cases, waiting for change to occur, even when you’ve directed it, is the equivalent of waiting for Godot and as we likely remember, Godot never came.  The waiting was for naught.  For these waiting CEO’s, change isn’t going to happen until something changes.  And something, whatever it is, isn’t going to change on its own.
Don’t get me wrong, change can happen on its own.  Generally, however, this kind of change could better be described as somewhere between attrition and entropy.  People are either allowing external influences to exert more force than is their due or allowing variance to take over from conformity. Unfortunately, this kind of change occurs when things are getting worse, not better.  And, yes, it can take place on its own.    
However, when you want things to change both systemically and for the better, three things have to be in place:  

Support must exist for the change from management
Change agents need be involved in driving the change
Administrators need to see that whatever has changed will become a part of the new system
The first building block is exactly what was put in place in the cases above – support and direction from management.  Change was asked for, even directed.  Yet, that alone obviously wasn’t enough.
Once it is determined that change is necessary, it is important that the person charged with leading that change is a Change Agent (a person with a high A as well as lower D and C in their Predictive Index profile); or that someone within the team that is driving that change is a Change Agent.  Why?  Anyone who does not have this profile is not comfortable with change, let alone the driving of it.
That’s not to say Change Agents are always successful drivers of change.  They may not have the skill set or intelligence to make the required change happen.  But, they at least start with the propensity to change.  They just may not be successful.
In both of the examples referred to above, the people charged with driving change were highest D’s – people driven to do the right thing.  They were both successful managers.  They both were excellent administrators.  But, they were both failing the task of driving change.  They did not know where to begin.  In fact, every effort they made to begin was thwarted before it got off the blocks with one simple thought:  “What if I fail”?
Highest D’s are uncomfortable driving change because they fear doing the wrong thing or making a mistake.  It is easier for them to do nothing than it is to make a mistake.  Hence, when being asked to drive change, nothing gets done.  And, the CEO waits.
On the other hand, people with Change Agent profiles thrive on change.  They look at a situation and ask themselves, “How can I make this better?”  They’re not concerned about making a mistake.  If they do, oh well.  They’ll just try another solution.  That’s why you want Change Agents driving change.  Change demands comfort with mistakes and Change Agents have that.  Mistakes prohibit change for highest D’s because highest D’s won’t tolerate them!  
In our most recent newsletter, I described the success or lack thereof achieved by 6 Sigma Black Belts with different profiles (6 Sigma Black Belts are people who are charged with creating change within an organization and who are measured by the effectiveness of the change they create.)  The chart below recaps the results.
Black Belt Success Rate:  Who Would You Choose?




 Profile Characteristics

 Success Rate

 Highest A, Lower C, Lower D than A:

  100%

 High A, Lower C, Higher D than A: 

  33%

 All other profiles in Sample:

  0%
 
Statistics prove and empirical evidence supports that if you want change, you need to have high A’s who are also lower C’s and D’s driving it.
I’m not advocating you fill your organization with Change Agents.  There are many places where you likely don’t want change.  Wherever you have high, particularly highest A’s, you will have change.  Like it or not.  Thus, you don’t want A’s everywhere.  You only want them where creation of change or adaptation to it is a necessary part of what it takes to be successful.
In fact, I’m not even advocating that Change Agents be the only people involved in change.  High C’s and D’s (Administrators) should be part of the process and should be around to institute, implement and document the change after it has been developed.  Once Change Agents develop a solution, they like to start to change it again before it is truly standardized.  And change really isn’t complete until it’s been instituted and controlled.  For change to be successful, Administrators need to see that it’s a part of the new system.  
Ultimately, if you don’t have Change Agents where you are looking for change to occur, you are likely to be waiting for change to happen long after it’s been directed.  And if you don’t have Administrators locking in the change, the success intended to be achieved won’t come to pass. 
I’d suggest you look around at those places where you’re waiting for change to occur.  Ask yourself the following questions, “Have I directed the change to take place?” “Do I have a Change Agent (high A that is higher than both C and D) driving the change?”  “Do I have Administrators (high C’s and D’s who are assuring that the change will be instituted?”  If any of the answers are no, likely, you’ve got some rearranging to do.  Or, you should learn to be comfortable waiting.
Waiting is a solution I wouldn’t advocate, however.
Thanks for reading and I hope you found these insights helpful.  And, I hope you don’t have to wait too much longer.
Bob Wilson
So real quick, my take on what Bob’s message means.
We want Black Belts who highest drive is that they think their ideas are the best ideas and they want to win. I think this is true because you send the change agent into a team where only one person owns the problem at the beginning – the change agent. 
We want their communication style to be middle of the road – neither high nor low B. This is because we don’t want the message crafted to suit the audience (highest B) or delivered without a feel for how it impacts others (lowest B). 
We want impatient people (low C) for two reasons. First, even though we teach this as a group of serial activities, in reality you have many things active at once. Usually it is driven by waiting for data. Second, you want people who respond to deadlines (remember stage gate reviews?). Who do you want to own the Control phase? Highest C people of course, not the change agent.
And finally we want middle of the road for certainty precisely for behavior around delegation. Control implies ownership is given to those who run the process, so ownership that only the change agent has at the beginning of a project has to be completely given back. Highest D’s don’t delegate, Lowest D’s delegate anything. Those in the middle delegate when there is someone appropriate on the receiving end.
Do other patterns work? 
Yes. Highest A, lowest B seem to bring the most innovation, but need a PR person as well so you don’t want too many of them.
I also know of some true outliers who among the best but their pattern do not fit. It appears to be a function of exceptional intelligence and high energy. I am talking about two people I know out of greater than 10,000 BB’s I have observed over the last 11 years. So if you are going with the odds, go with Bob’s advice.
Just my opinion, but Bob and Elmano have thousands of data points between them to substantiate.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Gary A. Cone]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Tue, 01 Nov 2005 10:03:01 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: IQPC Summit Keynote Speaker, Jack Welch]]></title>
			<link>http://www.sixsigmacompanies.com/archive/iqpc_summit_keynote_speaker_jack_welch.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I have to admit that I didn’t think that a satellite session with Jack would be all that great, but I was dead wrong.  The question and answer format suits his leadership style and seeing him up on two giant screens made the grandeur of Jack all the better.  My fellow colleagues Michael Cyger and Dian Schaffhauser have already written excellent blog entries about the session and I will follow with my thoughts on two of his remarks.
First, Roxanne O’Brasky, President of ISSSP, asked a question about choosing a mentor and Jack replied, “If you’re looking for a mentor you might end up with a turkey! Do not fixate on a mentor.  You should be looking everywhere for mentors, taking the best of everyone.”  That reminded me of something my father-in-law has always said. Simply, "you can learn something from everyone.  There is not a person in the world that can’t teach you something."  What Jack and my father-in-law are saying is that you don’t need to look to the big shots, the successful gurus for advice on leadership or business.  You should look for the mentorship qualities in everyone.  Don’t limit yourself to one mentor, open yourself up to learning and you will find that anyone can be your teacher.   
Second, Roger Hoerl asked Jack, “Would you have done anything differently if you had to do over again?” (speaking of GE’s Six Sigma implementation). Jack responded he would have gone right on to Lean Six Sigma.  He also said he would have liked less “puffery” and that there wasn’t anything he couldn’t improve…but was happy about the results.  Interestingly Jack threw the question right back at Roger, “What would you have done differently?”  Roger replied along the lines of slower planning so they could hit the ground running.  This is where Jack emphasized the need for over-the-edge fanatical commitment on the fringe of lunacy: “Without all the proclamations and hype you don’t get above the noise level in the organization. If you pet this thing just right, do you get through the noise?”  According to Jack, slower planning and special care doesn’t put out the decibels required to get through the corporate noise.  Jack knows how to push the needle, and as he suggests, there’s no such thing as pushing the needle too far.   ]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Michael Marx]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Conferences&nbsp;,&nbsp;Leadership]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Mon, 31 Oct 2005 13:00:00 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Do Leaders Really Need  to Learn Statistics?]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/do_leaders_really_need_to_learn_statistics.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Benchmarking results consistently identify examples of Six Sigma success.  Even so, getting "nay-sayers" on board is a continuous challenge.  What do you tell them?
Nayism 8:  I know that leadership needs to understand Six Sigma but is learning all these statistics really necessary?   We’re not all statisticians nor do we want to be.
When leadership is first faced with Green Belt training, the statistics can be overwhelming.  This may frustrate some leaders.  A common reaction is to disclaim any applicability to their current function.  Approaching the answer to this question from a ’business knowledge’ perspective may be helpful.   So, here’s what I say . . .
The purpose of learning and understanding statistical analysis is not to make everyone a statistician but to make everyone a better business leader.  The topic of statistics and analytical thinking is part of almost every MBA curriculum and widely accepted as a fundamental skill in shaping a business leader.   Green Belt training takes these fundamental analytical skills and applies them to improving business processes which, in today’s world, is every leaders job.   So Green Belt training is not about "learning statistics". It’s about helping leaders use data, statistics and analysis to make better business decisions.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Gianna Clark]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Sat, 22 Oct 2005 05:00:00 -0800</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Best Black Belts]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/best_black_belts.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[
Do You Know One?
Do you know a special Black Belt deserving of recognition? Someone who gets outstanding results using their own skills, and at the same time fully involves the people who work with them…a Black Belt who brings talent, integrity and good humor to the workplace?
Introduce iSixSigma to a great Black Belt in your business, and we will introduce that Black Belt to our readers.
In 2006, iSixSigma Magazine plans to spotlight the Best Black Belts anywhere on the globe. In each issue, we will feature one such person, sharing the things that illustrate their unique abilities.
How You Can Nominate A Black Belt for This Honor
It’s simple. Just email our editorial team at BestBlackBelts @ iSixSigma-Magazine.com and tell us:1. The name, phone number, email address and employer of your nominee.2. No more than 200 words explaining why this person is one of the Best Black Belts (examples and anecdotal evidence welcome).3. Your name, phone number and email address.
Here’s the Payoff
If your nominee is selected, besides the recognition, they will get a certificate suitable for framing and a one-year subscription/extension to iSixSigma Magazine. For nominating them, you also will get a one-year subscription/extension.
Tell Us About Someone Great Today!
]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Michael Cyger]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Fri, 14 Oct 2005 01:12:15 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Training Sr. Leaders as &quot;Belts&quot;]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/training_sr_leaders_as_belts.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Benchmarking results consistently identify critical factors that are needed to increase the probability of Six Sigma success.  Even so, getting "nay-sayers" on board is a continuous challenge.   What do you tell them?
Nayism 1:  Black Belts and Green Belts are actually doing the work, so why does the senior leadership team need to be "belt" trained?
At first, training senior leaders as belts may seem like over-kill.  How many projects are they actually going to work?   Well, it's not about how many projects they are going to work after training.  It's about helping senior leaders to think differently and to better understand the true power of Six Sigma for their organizations.   So, here's what I say . . .
Before Six Sigma, senior leaders used to ask the same old questions and get the same old answers.  After black belts and green belts were trained, senior leaders would ask the same old questions and get new answers.  After senior leaders get trained, they now ask new questions.]]></description>
			
			<author><![CDATA[Gianna Clark]]></author>
			
			<category>
			<![CDATA[Leadership&nbsp;,&nbsp;Management]]>
			</category>
			<pubDate>Sat, 03 Sep 2005 13:48:43 -0800</pubDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Six Sigma Blogs: Lean Six Sigma Executive]]></title>
			<link>http://blogs.isixsigma.com/archive/lean_six_sigma_executive.html</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Notes from the deployment frontlineWhy does this stuff work?
For those of you who don’t know me, I work in the land of Laverne and Shirley for a fine 100 year old company that is trying to change without losing what makes people want to spend a career here. I am five months into the adventure and having more fun than I ever did in my ten plus years of consulting for many of the movers and shakers in the Six Sigma world. I intend to share with you a thread of thoughts on what the frontline of change looks like.
Recently I have been in awe of rediscovering something I first learned in 1984. It is why this stuff really works. I have been working with two people who I have just recently met, Ernesto and Mike. Let me tell you a bit about each and come back to why this works.
Ernesto is a Mexican national, educated at Tecnológico de Monterrey, Monterrey Tech to us gringos. He has a BS and MS in Engineering from there. He has a PhD from a US college obtained on a Fulbright scholarship. Smart guy. Also has a great value system and was taught it by a guy who sounds like my father. He is dedicated to doing the same with his children. He is helping me create a model so that my company can better understand and support something they honestly don’t understand right now. When painting the picture for him of what I wanted he honestly has become excited by it and is bringing thought to the table that would not have been there for someone who is just going through the motions. He is one of the finest humans and one of the best Master Black Belts I have ever met.
Mike is an engineer from Ohio. I just found out he is leaving the company next week. It saddens me, but I also know that he is leaving for the right reason; he has found an opportunity that truly excites him. He will be improving what is already one of the finest health care systems in the world. Mike brings honesty and passion with him to the job. It is fun to work with him because he truly gets excited when he learns new things about a system he has been embedded in for years. He is a fine human and will be the best Black Belt in healthcare in the Americas.
Why am I having fun? Simple. Learning and watching people learn is among the best of the human experience. 
Why does this stuff work? There are all sorts of theories out there about change management and I think most are wrong. There is a scene from the movie The Breakfast Club that I think sums up why people change better than anything else I have ever seen. The scene is between Claire (Molly Ringwald) and Allison (Ally Sheedy). Claire and Allison are on opposite ends of the high school so