How to Become a Lean Six Sigma Organization

In a difficult economy, an increasing number of senior business leaders are seeking to boost the performance of their operations by adopting Lean Six Sigma. Before these organizations can begin to reap the benefits of continuous process improvement, they must first understand the fundamental elements of the process known as DMAIC (for Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control).

One of the best ways to roll out a Lean Six Sigma program is to treat the process as a Six Sigma process in and of itself. The following are some basic guidelines, arranged in the classic five-stage DMAIC process, for organizations that are interested in adopting Lean Six Sigma.

Define

As soon as corporate leadership indicates that the organization will adopt Six Sigma, it is imperative that all senior leaders become familiar with Six Sigma concepts and what being a Six Sigma organization actually means. Strong and visible support from the top is critical to the success of the program and continued organizational change.

Senior management must go through a leadership training course that outlines the basics of the DMAIC process, Lean Six Sigma management and other types of training available, such as Design for Six Sigma (DFSS). This training should include specific examples of success, typical timetables for deployment and a set of measurable goals. Lean Six Sigma Champions need to be identified, trained and given clear expectations about how they will contribute to the deployment. Financial representatives also need to undergo this training as they will be required to validate actual and projected financial benefits from the very early stages of the roll-out.

Measure

In order to gauge the impacts of processes on an organization’s productivity, progress must be measured as the program is rolled out. The key performance indicators (KPIs) for the program should, at minimum, include the following elements:

1. The number of Black Belts (BB) and Green Belts (GB) who need to be trained, as well as experts in Lean and DFSS
2. Dollar-target benefits

These elements also need to be tied in with individual (performance) goals to ensure success.

Training to the next level – All leaders (middle management and above) need to take awareness training for Lean Six Sigma, which takes approximately fours hours and includes basic Six Sigma and Lean principles. This training is essential to ensure that team members understand the key concepts and view Lean Six Sigma as a resource that can help them achieve their objectives, rather than being an outside interference.

As the organization’s leaders go through their leadership or awareness training, a targeted number of Belt trainees should be determined for the first year. A typical approach would be to have a “first wave” of Green Belt training in the organization. As the trained Green Belts return to work in their own roles, it is often beneficial for them to take on a Green Belt project that is closely aligned with their job objectives.

In the beginning, at least, the best-performing employees should be selected for the Green Belt program to ensure a higher probability of success. Line managers also need to be involved in the selection process to ensure their continued support. Success in these early stages can go a long way toward demonstrating the benefits of Lean Six Sigma to the entire organization and encouraging buy-in. Champions and senior management must give the program high visibility to ensure that the employees understand Six Sigma as the normal “way of business.”

Project Selection – When DMAIC is first rolled out in an organization, there are normally discussions about what is and what isn’t a Lean Six Sigma project. During this time, leaders should remember the whole point of the process: To improve organizational performance through use of the Lean Six Sigma tools, not the other way around.

A key point in the identification of worthy projects is the use of data to demonstrate that there is an opportunity and that the perceived benefits are not based on hearsay or “gut feelings.” It cannot be emphasised enough that a substantial investment in the early stages of project definition must be made to ensure success. Most project failures are due to poorly defined projects that could have been avoided if adequate preparatory work had been conducted.

In the beginning of project selection, the Champion must also be proactive in team-member identification, as well as the removal of any barriers that may prevent team formation. Typically the core team should consist of three to six members, who should include, at minimum, a process owner, a subject matter expert and a process operator. Someone working close to the process must also be included in the team, as that person will likely have a deeper understanding of the day to day operation and ensure operator buy-in.

Extended team members should include a financial representative, who does not need to attend all the meetings but who should have a full understanding of all project developments. The Champion should be present for the first team meeting, when the project scope is reviewed and agreed upon by all team members. In all matters, the VOC, whether it is internal or external, must be the driving force for any project definition.

Analyze

Typically, a Six Sigma DMAIC project may take between three and five months to complete, but this can vary enormously depending upon the urgency and the project scope. A Kaizen event, for example, may take only three to five days, while a more complex project could take up to a year. A basic rule, often overlooked, is that clear agendas must be sent out by Belts or project leaders well in advance of the meetings in order to aid preparation. Minutes with clear action owners and timescales also must be distributed as soon as possible after each meeting.

Once the initial wave of Green Belts has started their projects, a Champion review process should be put in place. Typically this should happen once per month, where all the GBs come together with the Champion to review the scope, financial benefits, barriers and progress with specific actions. This will ensure that progress can be measured and demonstrated according to the key deliverables in the DMAIC process. Occasionally, business conditions can change, and the Champion should not be shy to pull the plug on a particular project if it is clear that no financial benefits will be gained, or if a greater opportunity for improvement is found elsewhere.

Depending on how the organization wants to develop its Lean Six Sigma program, business leaders may want to consider which, if any, of the GB candidates could become Black Belt candidates. BBs will gain more in-depth Lean Six Sigma training and will work 100 percent on the program’s roll-out by leading more complex projects than the GBs; typically, BB projects are worth more than $100,000 in savings for the organization. BBs can also mentor other Belts and help Champions and business leaders identify future projects.

As the Belts start to become more familiar with Lean Six Sigma during their projects, it will become easier for them to understand how the tools can be better employed and to identify ways in which business performance can be improved.

At this point, a fixed, robust project identification process should be in place. This should entail a meeting that normally takes place on a monthly basis and is chaired by a BB. The attendees should consist of process owners, business leaders (where possible) and operators from all areas of the business. Depending on the complexity of the organization, this may be broken down by division or business area. The meeting attendees also should change from time to time to freshen up the flow of new ideas.

The Champions, process owners and business leaders should each have specific targets for the number of ideas to be generated, according to business function or division. This type of meeting would normally take the form a brainstorming exercise, where the team (using a fishbone diagram) would identify potential improvement areas.

The group would then prioritize these ideas and assign specific actions during the meeting. These actions would normally entail data collection, where an individual would have the task of locating the correct data in order to validate or reject a perceived opportunity. As the meetings progress and become part of the culture, there should be a pipeline of ideas being worked on at any given time. The end result should be a “bucket of opportunities” that the business leaders can select from, according to the business needs. These would then be resourced accordingly.

Improve

All Belts must go through a certification process after satisfying certain clearly defined criteria (i.e., achieving a certain amount of savings, demonstrating usage of certain tools or presenting project benefits to the business leaders). At this stage, the business will start to see the benefits of the initial Six Sigma projects.

The certification process and the project successes need to be highly visible in the organization so that all associates can see that Lean Six Sigma is the way the company will be approaching business in the future. Part of this visibility can be achieved by an appropriate celebration and recognition of project successes by senior management.

Once this level is reached, the Lean Six Sigma training program needs to be spread throughout the organization. Management should consider enlisting all associates for awareness training. The high-profile successes will also generate a greater interest from other associates in attending training sessions.

Control

As the company continues to move toward becoming a full-fledged Six Sigma operation, the following events must be fixed in the organization’s monthly calendar:

◉ Monthly project review meetings – Attendees: Belts, Champions and business leaders.

◉ Project identification meetings – Attendees: Process owners, Champions, process operators and Belts.

◉ Validation of savings – Belts need to have savings validated by the finance rep.

The KPIs for this process need to be clear to all associates in the organization. These should include the following and should be part of the senior management review process:

◉ Lean Six Sigma training plan versus target, continuously updated according to business needs

◉ Certification plan versus target

◉ Number of Belts with assigned projects (resource utilization)

◉ Savings versus target, including a required monthly financial report.

◉ Number of prioritized ready-to-assign projects versus target

Final Steps

When all of the above processes are in place, the organization will be well on the road to becoming a Lean Six Sigma company, where Six Sigma tools are utilized for everyday activities at every level.

The above requires a huge effort from senior management, at least in the early stages. There is a need to have a high level of discipline within the organization to ensure that the above meetings take place with the expectation that those assigned actions will deliver in a timely manner.

Initially, some resistors could perceive Lean Six Sigma as additional and unnecessary work. But as projects progress, with the required level of support, employees will see that the process simply helps them perform their roles in a far more effective manner, giving them greater potential for personal development and ensuring that their organization remains competitive.

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How a personal organisation system can boost your productivity

You are always busy, but does that mean you are always productive?

Incoming queries from your team, requests from your seniors, Slack notifications, ‘quick questions’ and other ad-hoc tasks can soon mount up and make it hard to feel that you have been productive. Then there’s life admin, another culprit encroaching on the output of your working day. The niggling mental interruption that you must pick up milk on the way home; or any of the numerous distractions a remote worker has to try and suppress!

The solution: a personal organisation system. Here we take a look at what defines a personal organisation system, what practices you may already have in place, and actionable tips for achieving a system which works for you. A system which, most importantly of all, boosts your productivity.

What is a personal organisation system?

A common misconception is that a personal organisation system is what software you use to keep you on track. Be it Google calendar, Trello, Toggl, Miro, Todoist or any of the various Hubspot tools. But these are exactly that – tools. How you use them is your system. And this will be different for everyone.

A personal organisation system is a set of rules you give yourself. These practices help you handle the various inputs in your life. And key to staying organised is making these good practices a habit.

How to tailor a system that works for you

Achieving a strong system can improve your work rate, save you time, and prevent the stress associated with being unorganised. The first step to attaining a successful personal organisation system is to reflect on what you already have in place.

Perhaps Kanban boards are your go-to for organising your workload? You have them tagged and colour coded and are obsessive about updating them. Or maybe you are forever using iPhone Notes on the go and love how it syncs with Gmail? Reflect on the great habits you are in and what is working for you. Let these form the foundation for your personal organisation system.

Next up, you should think critically about parts of your current system that are not working. Be brave enough to iterate or eliminate what is not serving you. Rather than settle for a tool that has pitfalls, feels a chore or generally doesn’t work for you, seek out a better one.

Try out new apps

Are you forever missing calendar notifications? Just because coworkers swear by Google Calendar does not mean it’s the tool for you. Be open to different software. Recognise if there are parts of your toolkit which could be improved. Would it be easier if your ticketing system integrated with your chat tool, for example? Or perhaps you’d benefit from the ability to access finance spreadsheets without launching a different software.

Chances are if there are features missing from your favourite software then others have experienced these issues too. Software is constantly being invented and reinvented to accommodate the changing needs of the project professional and to boost their productivity.

Though time-consuming at first, it is worth the investment of trying out some of the leading productivity apps on the market. Do your research to suss which ones integrate your must-have tools and go from there. Best of all, many offer free trials. The invested time will pay dividends when you find the right tool that seamlessly becomes part of your system.

Establishing your own rules

Armed with the right software in your project management toolkit you can build upon your system. Establishing your personal system’s rules will involve forming habits and being disciplined. Issues that come up in your daily work life are sure to test and challenge your system, so it is important to have rules. Here are some examples:

Issue: Back to back meetings mean you have no time to create tickets or actionable tasks from your meeting notes.

Rule: Use your preferred tool to schedule time or set a reminder to come back to your notes later.

Issue: Forgetting to reply to emails. Particularly common if your personal organisation system involves chunks of the day when you are in ‘do not disturb’ mode in order to make headway with tasks.

Rule: Get into the habit of ignoring your inbox completely during these times. That way your emails will remain in the status of unread, making you less likely to skim them with the intention of coming back to them later, only to forget.

Issue: Forgetting to reply to emails still

Rule: Go a step further and set yourself the rule that you are only to open an email once! You must reply to it straight away or file it. Only allow yourself a few exceptions for those which require research or more thought. Alternatively, take a look at Boomerang for Gmail for more smart ways to organise your inbox.

Issue: Missing notifications and reminders

Rule: Determine what level of reminder each type of task needs. Slack’s ‘remind me’ feature is ideal for gentle nudges that you can snooze. Whilst an alarm on your phone is a more disruptive approach for things that cannot be missed.

Issue: Unable to locate an email or file even using search

Rule: Tidy up your inbox and drive, whether it's filing by project, file type, recipient or status. Good file naming can help with this, as can regular clearouts and archiving items.

Issue: Flitting between tasks. Project managers are born multi-taskers. When even was the last time you handled just one thing?!

Rule: Carve out a chunk of time and activate do not disturb modes. Whilst chipping away at tasks a little at a time will get them done, focussing for a period at once can be far more productive.

Toolkit: Mastered

Once you have set your rules and have your toolkit mastered you are well on your way to a successful personal organisation system. Organisation in itself takes time. It’s okay to have not-actual-work time, if it improves and enhances your work for the rest of the day/week. Block out time in your schedule for getting organised. For some this will be first thing every morning, for others it will be Sunday night ready for the week ahead.

A personal organisation system has the potential to substantially boost your productivity. It will improve your focus, save misspent time and remove the stress of letting things slide. A solid system can see your everyday performance rise and make you a superior project manager.

Source: prince2.com

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What Process Improvement Can Learn From Soccer

Billions of people across the globe were bitten by soccer fever in 2014. It’s a sport that is widely followed and has the highest level of thrill. The other day I was watching a repeat telecast of the Brazil vs Chile match. It was an exciting match that went into extra time and then eventually it was up to a penalty shootout to decide the winner. The post-match comments were interesting and made me realize the seven things that process improvement can learn from soccer.

1. Play with a team and not with players. Like in soccer, all process improvements are done with a team. It is critical that a process improvement team, like a soccer team, should have one goal – to win. Your process improvement team might have a couple of great players, but the success of a project depends on how you are focusing on the skills of each player rather than just depending on a couple of great players to bring about that improvement.

2. Have a strategy. We have heard of 4-4-2 or 4-4-1-1 formations of a soccer team. These are strategies that are made in the dressing room and are practiced multiple times before the actual match. A process improvement manager should ensure that there a strategy to improvement. Roles and responsibilities of each member needs to be clearly defined before you start the project. It cannot be take-as-it-comes. A poor strategy will often decide the fate of a project.

3. Play to your strengths. There are teams who are great in defending and there are others who are great at attacking. Some teams will goal with free kicks, while others go for corners or set pieces. Often the strategy is built around your strengths. In process improvement it is also advisable to identify your team’s strengths. You do not want to suggest a technology intervention or innovation for improvement unless your team has the capability to bring the change or the organization is willing to spend. Remember, even small interventions can bring improvement.

4. Revisit strategy. There are times when things do not go according to plan. It is important to revisit your strategy. The advantage process improvement has over soccer is that you need not wait for half time. As soon as you identify that things are not moving as per the plan, it’s time to revisit the strategy.

5. Avoid yellow and red cards. When you initiate a project you are surrounded by many people who would not want change in their processes. They will question your strategy, your target, improvement recommendations and everything else that they can. As a project manager, you need to find a way out to work around them rather than work through them. Remember your Champion is like a referee and he has to be on both sides. Do not give him a chance to pull you down, especially when you are playing in their half.

6. Do not play for a draw. The difference between a great team and a good team is that great teams never play for a draw, even if they know that a draw will sail them through to the next round. In process improvement, you should never settle for less, even if you know that less will ensure that your project is closed. There is always a chance that your stakeholder will realize that there is more opportunity to improve and she will ask you to revisit your target when you are looking for the final sign off. This can demotivate the team and also puts a question mark on the ability of the project leader.

7. Don’t leave it for penalty shootout. You should never leave the result for the last. There should be enough tollgate reviews and rigorous pilot testing to give you confidence that you will succeed. When you reach a penalty shoot-out stage, the probability to win becomes 50 percent, no matter how good a team you have.

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Case Study: Optimizing Fuel Economy

Late last year, I decided to upgrade my vehicle. For seven years I’d driven a Honda Civic. It was nothing special, just a reliable vehicle with good gas mileage – the perfect commuter car. But now I’ve got two kids, own a home and picked up woodworking as a hobby; fitting car seats and dimensional lumber into the Civic were mutually exclusive.

After much deliberation I decided to purchase a Chevy Colorado, and since I was going for a truck, I figured why not go all the way and chose the ZR2 edition just in case I found the need to ford rivers or scale mountains down the road. The truck came in and life was great – it sat up nice and high, the kids loved climbing in the back and trips to Home Depot were much easier. That is until I had to fill the gas tank! I knew I’d sacrifice fuel economy for utility but trading north of 30 miles per gallon (mpg) for less than 16 just wasn’t going to fly. It was time to put my Master Black Belt hat on and experiment!

Figure 1: Side by Side Comparison of the ZR2 (left) and Civic (right)

As I stepped to my whiteboard I was excited by the number of factors available for experimentation with the truck. I began to develop a fishbone diagram but rather than think in terms of the 6 Ms, I binned my variables into continuous, categorical and noise buckets. This helped to identify the factors I’d include in my experiment and those which may have an impact but which I couldn’t control in the future so understanding their impact was less critical. At the conclusion of this review I was left with my vehicle speed and the tire pressure as two continuous factors; the tailgate position being up or down and gasoline ethanol content as my categorical factors. The winter months made running the air conditioning and window position less than desirable and cruise control was added as an initial condition for all runs to reduce variability.

Figure 2: Fishbone Diagram

My next step was to take the desired inputs and determine my design. In this case I wasn’t overly concerned about the number of runs in my experiment. After all, I was traveling to work every day and this information could be collected with relatively little effort along the way, but I did note two hard to change (HTC) factors on the fishbone diagram. Tire pressure and the ethanol content in my gasoline would both be fairly onerous to deal with and would have negative consequences on my experimentation plan if fully randomized. Tire pressure changes would add time to every morning and evening which I wasn’t willing to incur and made much more sense to run together, and since changing the contents of my gas tank every day weren’t possible, randomizing that factor would have shifted this from a one-month-long study to one that consumed the better part of a year!

With these considerations in mind, I moved forward with designing a 2-level split-plot design with 2 hard-to-change and 2 easy-to-change factors. I decided to only track my to-work direction of travel to remove the variability associated with changes in topography and used cruise control during the stretch of highway I frequent. My factor levels were as follows: tire pressure: 30 psi (low) and 40 psi (high); fuel type: 87 octane (low) and 92 octane (high); tailgate position: down (low) and up (high); and finally speed: 5 mph under the posted limit (low) and 5 mph over (high).

After collecting data for a little over a month, we were ready to analyze! I used the Pareto chart (Figure 3) and the normal plot of standardized effects (Figure 4) to fully reduce the model. What I found was that the tailgate position and an interaction between the tailgate position and speed, as well as the fuel type and speed were all significant.

Figure 3: Pareto Chart of the Standardized Effects

Figure 4: Normal Plot of the Standardized Effects

From there, I used the optimizer to understand the sensitivity of the model and my expected fuel economy in the optimized setup. By driving with the tailgate down, 5 mph below the speed limit and with my tire pressure fully inflated, I could realize a fuel economy of 21 mpg, and a savings of over $400 per year!

Next, I reviewed the contour plot of mpg performance versus speed and tire pressure to investigate the opportunity for future experimentation.

Figure 5: Contour Plot of MPG vs Speed, Tire Pressure

The contour plot shows that our best performance was at the lower right boundary where our tire pressure was highest and speed was lowest. Unfortunately, I’m not willing to drive any slower or risk popping a tire by increasing pressure any further, so I guess I’ll have to learn to live with a few more stops at the gas station. At least the trips to Home Depot are easier!

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Common Misunderstandings About Process Control Tools in Non-Scientific Applications

One day when I was starting my career, I was having lunch with a group of my friends. One of them had just returned from a business trip to Manhattan. He said that there was one NY building that three million people visited every day. We all nodded our heads and agreed that New York was one big place.

Midway through lunch I started thinking about this and asked my friends if it was really possible that three million people went in one building complex each day. This was before the advent of online search, so for facts you had to rely on the old guy that hung around on a bench at your local gas station for information. Since that guy wasn’t handy we agreed that this was probably a bad fact. I bring this up because we do things like this all the time. We read or hear “facts” and accept them without critical thought. This article reviews a sample of the kind of facts we accept in the workplace that sometimes we should not.

There has been exponential growth in the availability of data, and the ability to analyze that data in business functions. Automated systems in operations such as HR, finance and purchasing create opportunities to easily access huge amounts of data that just 20 years ago would have been unimaginable. Magnificent spreadsheet software and online surveys have further enabled our ability to collect and analyze data. These technologies have facilitated advancements in the use of statistical process control tools in the business environment.

However, with great data comes great responsibility. Many times data is misunderstood and, therefore, used to draw inaccurate conclusions and make lousy business decisions. You will be better off if you can identify a few ways data is often misunderstood and misused; look at the following examples to help you build understanding and encourage a healthy skepticism when presented with “facts.” (Note: The author is just a working stiff who observes things over time – not a mathematician or scientist – so if you disagree with the analysis below, you should leave a comment and/or write your own article.) What follows are some common problems you may encounter when collecting or reviewing data.

Results We Forget to Measure

I first discovered Six Sigma when the CEO of a technology company I worked at discussed the concept in an employee presentation. He commented on a goal of achieving only 3.4 bad parts per million items produced. I remember thinking to myself that:

1. There’s nothing I’m ever going to do a million times.
2. I probably made 3.4 mistakes before lunch that day.

I was all for improvement but this kind of goal seemed unimaginable to me.

Our corporation was somewhat famous for their program-of-the-month method of management. We had a saying that CEOs came and went but department managers were forever. This expressed our work philosophy of just biding our time till the current fad went away. Now it turns out our CEO was kind of pushy (others might say driven) and he just wouldn’t let this concept go. So, we decided to collect some baseline data on our error rate so we could show we were team players. It turns out, we learned a lot.

We were not without measures in our business. We had cost measures and weekly spending compared to goal measures and response time measures and customer satisfaction measures. However, we had never really thought about measuring our defect rate until we contemplated the six sigma challenge introduced by our CEO. We decided to try to measure errors, and it proved enlightening.

In my section of the corporation we were in the business of answering customer questions – typically of moderate complexity. The questions weren’t such that you knew the answer right away but they could be answered by people after a several months training; an advanced university degree was not required. We assigned a couple people on our team to listen in to the questions coming in and our answers for a period of several weeks, and we did an evaluation of each answer for both accuracy (did we give the wrong answer) and completeness (the right answer but not all the information someone might have found useful). Prior to this time we had mostly been measuring how many calls were handled per associate.

We found that our error rate was something north of 20 percent, or 200,000 bad answers per million opportunities. We weren’t all great at doing math in our heads but we could all see that this was slightly worse than Six Sigma. We were shocked to find out we were that bad at what we did, but this drove us to significantly reengineer our whole way of doing business.

The specific actions we took to address the problems aren’t important, but we invested in additional automation and used a Lean tool known as standard work. We never approached Six Sigma results, but did get our error rate into the 5 percent range, which was a dramatic improvement. The big step to driving improvement was the decision to measure our defects.

The mistake we were making wasn’t not having measures – we had lots of them. Our problem was that we were not measuring all the things which were important. Lean discusses the concept of understanding value from the perspective of the customer, and we had missed a large part of our work that customers valued.

Things We Know for Sure That Aren’t So

There is one special kind of personal experience that is especially harmful to improvement, and that is a personal experience repeated so many times by so many people that it becomes data. There’s a saying attributed to a number of people of people including Will Rogers and Lou Holtz that goes, “We’re not hurt so much by the things we don’t know, but rather by the things we know for sure that aren’t so.” Too often in the workplace we accept certain truths as data and work to solve problems by attacking the wrong things.

Let me give you an example. The CEO of a company I worked for was convinced that the main reason people quit was because of poor leadership. So she felt if we invested big time in leadership development that the training would pay for itself in turnover reduction. So the company embarked on a massive global leadership training program based on the data that “people don’t quit their employer, they quit their supervisor.” Let’s examine this decision.

First, the decision was made based on a truism which is widely accepted – people quit because of bad leadership. Labor mobility is a complex topic and I’ve studied turnover data for most of my life. I would say that sometimes people do quit because they hate their boss, but in looking at data I’ve seen I never concluded that this was the overwhelming number one key to retention. In fact a study I read in a leading publication that looked at thousands of people who left their jobs found that people leave great and lousy supervisors at equal rates. It turns out that people working for leaders they view as great tend to receive more development opportunities and have more self-confidence and feel encouraged by their boss to learn and grow. They frequently feel empowered to take chances and move on, and often they do just that.

Second, the decision to focus on only one data point excluded an attack on all the other reasons people leave their job. We didn’t look at job flexibility, compensation (people do quit because of money no matter what those pesky HR people tell you), employee involvement in decisions, work hours or any number of other things. We invested most of our resources in training leaders.

Finally, we worked on a premise that you can get results by training leaders. Over the years I’ve seen a large number of bad leaders go through training, and the output is mostly trained bad leaders. So we worked with another assumption, which turned out to be bad data – that training in leadership for a couple weeks a year will actually drive behavioral change. I’m not saying it can’t, but ours didn’t.

Our large training effort had no impact other than to consume a lot of cash, which wasn’t surprising. A lot of very good work was done to chase a problem that wasn’t real. It’s hard to challenge these true stories that aren’t actually real. And although sometimes for the sake of your career you have to play along and live to fight another day, I encourage you to not accept commonly held assumptions just because they sound cool.

Convincing Ourselves That Flawed Processes Are In Control

I’ve worked for a number of corporations over the years that decided to invest in developing the perfect measures for processes that can’t be accurately measured. In Lean we call this the waste of over-processing. I have observed lots of these but let’s take one very common process – performance assessment.

Many businesses decide to develop the perfect performance assessment, performance review or performance appraisal process. The process names have changed over the years for the same reason I suppose that convicted felons frequently change their names upon release from prison – to hide from their past misdeeds.

The only clear data point concerning the performance evaluation process that is valid is that managers and workers universally feel the processes suck. No one likes them, they consume massive amounts of resources and there is no evidence in behavioral science research that performance can be measured reliably.

People have asked me over the course of my career for ideas on how they could improve their performance. I’ve told them one of the best ways to improve your performance is to change bosses. You can do exactly the same work in the same way, and one of your managers will hate it while another will feel you are the employee of the year. I was in a job where one of my managers felt I had no process skills and just made up crap as I went. I got a new boss who felt I was creative and a maverick who really knew how to work the system to get results. I was doing the same work for both of them; they saw my results very differently. It’s because real performance can’t be measured objectively.

Why can’t we measure work performance? Because there are too many errors we can’t control. Recency error, halo error, lack of inter-rater reliability, external events, rater bias and other factors all combine to make the performance evaluation process pretty crappy from a measurement – and therefore fairness –point of view. Sure, if you want to measure thigs like does someone ever show up for work or do they sleep on the job you can probably capture that, but fine differentiation among reasonably hard-working people can’t be done.

Many organizations have some form of merit pay that will force the use of some kind of performance assessment process, but it won’t be objective and fair and correct. Recognize that you can’t measure this, and if you have some role in implementation of design, focus your efforts on making the process consume as few resources as possible. Simplify and automate what you can, focus on interests and goals of your employees and call it a day. Job performance measurement is just one example; there are many other processes that cannot accurately be measured. Focus your efforts on avoiding the waste of over-processing.

Improvement That Really Isn’t

Here’s the situation. I’m at a tailgate party and we have a massive cooler full of many varieties of beers with 100 bottles on ice. I decide to get a beer for myself and four of my lazy companions ask me to grab them one since I’m up. I open the cooler and without looking pull out five bottles. Three of the bottles are Corona, one is a Smithwicks and one is Rolling Rock. What’s the chance that three out of five or 60 percent of the bottles in the cooler are Coronas, just like the sample I pulled? This is a question of sampling and margin of error. I think we’d all agree that none of us want to put a lot of money on a bet that 60 of the beers in that cooler are Coronas. If I pulled 50 beers and 30 of them were Corona, then we’d feel better about the bet.

This is the concept of sampling and making assumptions about the bigger population based on the sample. The reason to discuss this is that so many times in my life I have been in meetings where we were discussing changes in data that I’m pretty sure were within the margin of error. The margin of error is a range indicating how sure you can be that the sample looks like the population. The margin of error in my beer sample of five, by the way, is 43 percent.

I’ve been in meetings where we discussed a drop in the net promoter score or employee satisfaction score of 5 percent and talked for hours about why this may have occurred. Conversely, I’ve seen similar events where we were all patting ourselves on the back for improving. I have a hunch that a fair number of these conversations have been about data that is within the sampling margin of error. In other words, there was actually no drop or improvement in results we dedicated significant time and consumed valuable resources taking about what was nothing. We were chasing facts that weren’t real, like corporate cats chasing invisible laser pointer images. Anytime you begin a discussion of survey data, start with margin of error.

Can We Work Santa Into the Summary?

There are other types of process control errors you may encounter, like multiple variables affecting outcomes (sometime we can discuss the joys of multivariate regression analysis), sample bias, manipulation of output presentation and scaling and, of course, outright fudging of facts. This isn’t meant to be an all-inclusive guide, but rather a suggestion to be more inquisitive when presented with data. We waste so much time and money chasing bad facts, and my hope is that this gives you a little encouragement to challenge assumptions rather than accept them at face value.

I know that many of you work for large corporations and often feel powerless to effect meaningful change. When I was young in a large firm I often felt like one of Santa’s elves; I toiled away all year in anonymity while some old guy in an expensive suit got all the recognition at year’s end. I challenged the process many times and was shut down, but every once in a while I changed the direction, and that made all the other attempts worthwhile. I hope you keep challenging.

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Are you making one of these 5 top communication mistakes?

Bad communication can be hugely damaging for workplaces. When the simplest of instructions get lost in translation they can be misinterpreted. This can be costly both in terms of time and money. When communication is lacklustre, otherwise enthusiastic employees can become disheartened and lack morale. The result – low productivity and a disengaged workforce.

So where are we going wrong? Here we take a look at five of the top mistakes employees and leaders can all be guilty of when it comes to communicating effectively.

Was that the brief?!

Does it sometimes seem your team are incapable of doing what you’ve asked them to? It could be down to the brief you’ve delivered them.

When outlining a project, clarity is paramount. Misinterpretation at this early stage will have a knock-on effect throughout. Individuals won’t achieve what they need to, and schedules will start to slip, resulting in a project that is over time and over budget.

Clearly communicating a brief should be a dialogue with your team. It should ideally be done in person, or over video-conference, with supporting documents provided. They should set out what teams need to do, when by and why, i.e. exactly what needs to be achieved. When a briefing is a two-way open dialogue, employees have the opportunity to ask for clarification or more detail and understanding is improved from the get-go.

Change your tune

Just as actions speak louder than words, how you say something can have more impact than what you are actually saying. We can all be guilty of expressing ourselves emotionally, particularly in times of crisis. It’s not necessarily a bad thing; it shows you are invested and passionate about the project. But, in a position of leadership you must ensure that the line is not crossed and that your tone is not edgy, or unprofessional.

The simplest way to change your tune is by getting into the habit of pausing before you speak, especially when tensions are high in a challenging situation. Just as you would save an email to drafts ahead of sending to ensure your message is not misconstrued, take a breath before you talk. That way what you want to say is less likely to come out in a reactive way or with an underlying tone of anger, or passive aggression.

That fwd: email

Leaders are by nature, busy people. And so, it is all too easy to overlook where a little more articulation may be needed, but failure to do so could cause problems further down the line. One example of this, and one that we believe many of us can hold our hands up to, is forwarding an email.

Whilst quick and easy to redirect information with a couple of clicks, the issue with forwarding an email to a member of your team is that they may be left wondering if it is for information only or instructional. The same goes for cc’ing someone into a thread, or assigning tickets. Are they simply being kept in the loop? Or are you wishing for them to perform a task? Just a note or sentence at the top of the email or ticket is all it takes. A little clarity can go a long way in these situations.

Getting a robot to do your job

Software can make our lives easier, improve project outcomes and streamline our jobs but it should not replace us. Robot technology has the ability to automate tasks such as scheduling, sending reminders, and even reporting. But its limitation is the human touch, and this cannot be rivaled. Humans are social creatures and benefit greatly from connection, it’s what engages us, and an engaged employee is proven to perform better.

There are cases where a tech trumps the manager. For example, many employees would prefer a schedule reminder from an app rather than a manager breathing down their neck. But there are also areas where leaders have become overly reliant on software. For instance, various project apps we now use daily record time spent on tasks, outcomes and monitor success - all assigned to individuals. These recorded statistics are great, but they do not give the full picture of an employee’s performance, and so should not be solely relied upon when reflecting on a project’s successes and pitfalls. Your presence and connection during a project are paramount.

Being unapproachable

The final communication mistake managers commonly make is being unapproachable. “What? Nope, not me!” We hear you cry. But see yourself through your employee’s eyes for a moment.

The very nature of hierarchy is enough to make staff hesitant to consult you on matters perceived to be beneath you. Likewise, they may fear the retributions of admitting mistakes or struggles to someone in a position of power. The issue here of course is that teams who do not consult with their managers when issues arise, or even attempt to cover up problems, could end up causing further, bigger problems for a project.

There are ways to overcome this: Demonstrate that you are a team player by readily pitching in, and when an employee comes to you with a concern do not react negatively. Respond to employees in a supportive way, and promptly too - within a day ideally, so that your team does not perceive you as being too busy for them. A further resolution is having an open office and actively encouraging employees to communicate with you in person, particularly if an issue is time dependent.

If you are committing any of these sins, perhaps you’re not communicating as well as you may have thought. Resolve to be a better communicator by actioning our tips and you will soon find morale and employee engagement improve tenfold in your workplace.

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Team Teachings: Lessons in Operator, Equipment and Product Accountability

Bulked continuous filament (BCF) carpet yarn manufacturing is a commodity product for which production from a single plant can be measured in the hundreds of millions of pounds annually. Hundreds of draw-texturing positions produce 15-pound bobbins of textured yarns continuously – as many as 3,000 in a month from a single position – which are then sold to carpet manufacturers. The carpet manufacturer usually plies these yarns, heat-sets them and then stitches the plied yarns into carpets. For a cut-pile fabric, the carpets are sheared to form the tufted surfaces found in many home carpets.

A number of BCF carpet yarn characteristics, such as yarn bulk and dyeability, must be closely controlled by the fiber producer. A single yarn end that is different enough from the rest of the population can appear as a streak in the final carpet for hundreds of yards. In some cases, that streak can cause the fiber producer to incur tens of thousands of dollars in claims.

In November 2005, a BCF yarn manufacturer charged my Six Sigma team with installing systems to reduce their percentage of off-grade material by 4 percent to enable that gain to be forecast for 2007. This would be significant for the manufacturer because in the prior two years it had produced more than 11 percent off-grade yarn, worth an estimated $27 million. The eight-person team that led the effort at two plants was so successful that the systems were put in place in time to realize the actual savings in 2006 – one year ahead of schedule.

Because yarn manufacturing involves lots of people and many independent machines striving to make an identical product, accountability for both machines and people can be an issue. Learning to improve operator, equipment and product accountability were major teachings from this Six Sigma project team. The following case study outlines how the team went about improving accountability, in part by characterizing positional performance.

Accountability of People

At this manufacturing company, more than 150 operators maintained just under 1,000 texturing positions continuously over four shifts. Typically, each person was responsible for 20 positions that were grouped by machine into rows where two operators could roam an aisle to oversee their respective positions and help one another when needed.

The team developed a performance metric to provide operator accountability. The metric was a product of two factors, each normalized on a 1 to 100 percent scale: “machine up-time factor” and “machine quality factor,” the latter based on the percentage of off-grade bobbins found at final pack-out inspection. Each bobbin contained a label that identified the operator and machine position and that enabled this data to be easily collected. Figure 1 shows the two factors (red and green) and their total performance composite (blue). Using this data, each operator’s performance could be quantified on a weekly basis.

Figure 1: Composite Operator Performance Ratings

As is seen with many Six Sigma improvement teams that are strongly backed by upper management, improvement came quickly in these weekly ratings. Each week, an operations team met to discuss performance, including the weekly operator performance metrics. Originally, the performance goal was targeted at 80 percent, but in just three months that goal was raised to 86 percent and shortly thereafter to 90 percent. Each week the worst performers were identified and retrained, while the best were recognized with small rewards, such as a dinner. In addition, the top performers (those with total performance rankings greater than 95 percent) could be paired with those needing improvement in consecutive-row assignments. People accountability clearly reduced waste and improved performance.

Accountability of Equipment

A BCF yarn texturing position’s purpose is to draw and crimp the yarn to add strength and bulk while at the same time stabilizing its structure for dyeability. There’s roll heating, steam pressure jets, cooling towers and intricate yarn pathways for hundreds of positions that must be made as identical as possible. Any setup with even a minute difference can be disastrous to a final carpet made weeks later at a customer’s mill. The Six Sigma team introduced positional auditing as a strategy to implement equipment accountability.

A couple of times each week, a supervisor would walk through the plant and audit each position for problems. Figure 2 tracks the percentage of positions not set properly for one of the nine reasons shown in Figure 3.

The early 2006 benchmark showed that 16 percent of these positions would have one or more problems. Forty weeks later, following introduction of this positional audit strategy, that number had dropped below 6 percent. Figure 3 shows results from one of the last audits taken during this period. It shows how the problems in this 6 percent of the population were distributed (e.g., 27 percent of them exhibited extreme plug pressures) a metric used to quantify bulking jet performance. Clearly, this type of accountability increases operator awareness, altering them about what problems to look for and what metrics are most important.

Figure 2: Percent of Off-standard BCF Texturing Positions

Figure 3: Causes of Off-standard Texturing Position During 40th Week

Maintenance provided another example of equipment accountability. On any given shift, there were two individuals charged with positional maintenance whose job it was to keep the positions operational. When a processing operator experienced a positional problem, he or she would flag it and stop its production. It was then up to the maintenance personnel to get the position back up and running. The team established a positional maintenance accountability strategy by monitoring the mean time required between fixes – by position and by maintenance operator. What they found was astounding.

While two-thirds of these positions would perform for hundreds of days without a problem, on average, positions serviced by maintenance operators would require additional work within 2.5 to 4.5 days (worst to best maintenance operators). Obviously, the maintenance strategy was designed to apply a Band-Aid to the problem rather than a lasting fix. Accountability allowed the team to help operators understand and then improve that strategy.

Accountability of Yarn Characteristics

BCF processes are controlled for, among other things, their yarn bulk level. Bulk differences are problems that are most likely to show up later as carpet streaks. Although each position is routinely controlled for bulk through an exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) strategy, there still could be a wide range of bulk responses within a position over time, as well as between positions. Consequently, the team monitored bulk and bulk variation, and then calculated positional Ppk – process performance – in a 20-shift rolling average.

Figure 4 shows the distribution of positional bulk Ppks for a given product being run on 280 positions. Remember: A Ppk of 1.0 means that at least Six Sigma variations of the population (99.73 percent) could be expected to be found constrained between upper and lower specification levels. Lower Ppk numbers equate to more out-of-spec material being formed by that position. The red line, for example, shows how many textured bobbins could be expected from a position performing at a given Ppk level for one month. The position with a Ppk equal to 0.30 could be expected to produce as many as 1,000 out-of-spec bobbins in a month’s time.

Figure 4: Distribution of Positional Ppks 

Once this metric became available, a maintenance strategy could be implemented where: 1) daily, the worst-performing positions were identified and improved and 2) the best-performing positions were identified and used as chances to learn more about the characteristics required for top performance.

Team’s Teaching

The team involved in this Six Sigma project learned a valuable lesson: the more data one can gather from a process, the better the chance there is to understand the process and then to improve it. Adding accountability metrics for operators, equipment and product helps to identify improvement opportunities.

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How PRINCE2 Foundation Certification Can Boost Your Career Growth?

PRINCE2 Foundation Certification

Since you are involved in a project management career, PRINCE2 Foundation and Practitioner Certification are essential. PRINCE2 Foundation exam is a much inquired after credential in project management. Axelos is the organization that advocated the PRINCE2 Foundation certification.

Therefore, if you are engaged in this certification, you require to be aware of the PRINCE2 Foundation exam cost and what it needs.

Who Can Go for PRINCE2 Foundation Certification?

Professionals in project management areas such as Project managers, project coordinators, expeditors, and project teams who strive for career growth and climb up the ladder can go for PRINCE2 Foundation certification. People who continue titles such as designers, product managers, team members, Business Analysts, Project Support Staff, or the Quality Assurance group can go for the PRINCE2 online practicing as well.

Objectives

When you attend the PRINCE2 Foundation Certification, you will learn how to:

• Lead projects or work in a project environment using the most globally accepted project management method.

• Deliver to budget, quality, and time, while mitigating risks, managing interdependencies, and recognizing opportunities.

• Use a Structured approach with controls to implement a delivery methodology that works repeatedly and will allow you to deliver projects successfully.

• Design plans and reports to satisfy the requirements of any level in the project team and Project Board, therefore, improving information and control.

PRINCE2 Foundation Exam: Pass Secrets

• The PRINCE2 Foundation examination is one hour in time, and the number of questions to answer is 75 multiple-choice questions.

• Out of those 75, five of the Foundation examination questions will be new questions that the examiner is testing out to understand if they are pleasant and well structured.

• You will not be listed on these, but you do not know which those five questions are, so you must go forward and answer every question!

• So, in the PRINCE2 Foundation examination, you are being marked out of 70 questions.

• The Foundation examination pass mark is 35 correct answers, which is 50% of the live questions.

• The PRINCE2 Foundation examination is a closed book exam, which means you are not equipped to take any notes, source materials, or books into the exam and particularly not the PRINCE2 Manual!

• There is no denying marking, so wrong answers are not corrected; you are just given a zero mark for that appropriate Foundation examination question.

• Sometimes a tricky question comes up.

• It is only in your mind, by the way, the PRINCE2 exam boards never set trick questions, PRINCE2 Foundation examination questions will only be based on knowledge within the PRINCE2 manual.

Reasons to Take a PRINCE2 Foundation Certification

1. Recognized and Honored

This is one of the world’s best-known project management methodologies. It is a qualification that adds weight and credibility to your CV.

PRINCE2 Foundation for Beginners: From Introduction to Passing Your PRINCE2 Foundation Certification Exam

2. Broadly Used

As PRINCE2 Foundation is already in place in so many organizations across the globe, having PRINCE2 Foundation training and certification opens many new opportunities to you.

3. Cross-Industry Versatility

Sometimes a modern working environment or an utterly new industry is precisely what you need to bring fresh enthusiasm and energy to your project work. With a PRINCE2 Foundation qualification, you would not be defined in any one specific sector.

4. Continuation-Efficient

If you need to gain a credible project management certification in a short space of time, PRINCE2 Foundation is an attractive option.

5. Qualification Affability

If you require to dip your toe in the PRINCE2 Ocean, you can start with the PRINCE2 Foundation certification. You will have the option to return and achieve the PRINCE2 Practitioner later on.

From Visually.

Summary

PRINCE2 Foundation is meant for individuals who want to equip themselves with the knowledge of this process-based methodology.

In this context, you will be satisfied to see that getting your PRINCE2 Foundation certification is a significant step in the right direction. By learning about the project management industry’s rules and processes, you can make sure that every project reaches a successful conclusion.

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Lean Template System Reduces Document Waste

With the growing need for reducing waste in all aspects of work done in an organization, people are looking at innovative ways to obtain this objective. One waste area, often found in organizations handling outsourced projects, is excessive – and often redundant – documentation. These organizations may be certified against a variety of standards, which only adds to the need for documentation.

To overcome this waste, practitioners can follow a simple plan for leaning existing documents, and for creating new lean documents. By building and maintaining a master document, they will be able to follow the paperwork related to their various projects and standards. Leaning documents also:

◉ Enables a systematic and structured approach for problem solving,

◉ Gives direction to the team’s thoughts and actions, and

◉ Allows for less time spent dealing with documents.

The following case study illustrates the benefits of leaner documentation.

Case Study: Organizing Documents

A firm is going for its capability maturity model integration (CMMI) assessment. The firm has obtained some templates for organizing documents, but they are not specific to their needs. Instead of simply completing these generic templates, another template is created that is tailored directly to the firm.

Although it may seem odd to create a new document to aid in leaning other documents, the team knows the project will be beneficial once it is completed. It is like calling a meeting to talk about reducing the number of meetings called – silly but necessary.

Structuring the Customized Template

The template is created in a software spreadsheet program and is organized in five sections, shown in the figure below.

Structure of Customized Template

1. Plan Section – The Plan section contains a list of plans that are to be leaned. For example, the plans governing project management would be:

◉ Project management

◉ Configuration management and data management

◉ Risk management

◉ Measurement

◉ Process and product quality assurance

The names of these plans are listed in this section and each plan is distinguished with a color code.

2. Table of Contents (TOC) Section – This section lists the TOC entries for each plan, including team member involvement, training and other activities involved in the plans. The same color code should be followed to make the TOC entries match their corresponding plans.

3. Option Section – This section is made up of a drop-down option of “Yes” or “No.” Interpretations of these options are as follows:

◉ Yes – This option is selected if the TOC entry is present in the document under review.

◉ No – This option is selected if the TOC entry is not present in the document under review.

4. Decision Section – In this section, under the column Final Decision, the names of the documents under consideration (the plans) are given as drop-down options along with the option “Not Required.”

5. Remarks Section – This section is provided to capture remarks or comments, if any, during the entire exercise.

Using the Template to Lean Documents

The team should fill in each section of the template, grouping the plans as discussed above. After completing the entire exercise, the entries that are repeated in various documents can be seen. The results may surprise those completing the template.

For each TOC entry, the team should look to see if it has more than one “Yes” marked in the Option section. If so, determine if a decision about responsibility is required. If it is not, select Not Required in the decision menu. If it is, decide which plan it should be moved to and complete that task.

After filtering out the non-required TOC entries from the template, the team should review all the entries again to ensure they meet their satisfaction. The remarks section is used to record their findings, if any, during the review.

Replicating the System

The approach can be used in creating new documents as well. In this case, instead of listing TOC entries for all the plans, list all the entries that would be required to be documented. The team can brainstorm to come up with all the sections required as standards of various certifications and then select the options that should be moved to a different plan. This helps in attaining the objective of Lean documents.

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The 5 Stages of the ITIL® V3 Service Lifecycle

ITIL® V3 takes a Lifecycle approach to providing best practice guidance for IT Service Management. There are five stages in the ITIL V3 Service Lifecycle: Service Strategy, Service Design, Service Transition, Service Operation, and Continual Service Improvement.

Service Strategy

The Service Strategy phase of the Service Lifecycle provides guidance on how to design, develop, and implement IT Service Management. Students will understand how service strategies can be developed to give the business a distinct advantage in the marketplace. During Service Strategy, an organization will determine its target markets and how to differentiate itself from its competitors. The organization’s management team will understand the costs and risks associated with their Service Portfolios and can efficiently use this information in their operational decision-making. Practical examples will be used to describe the assessment and planning involved within the IT departments of small, medium, and large corporations. Having the proper strategies in place can give the company a proactive and productive approach to their business operations.

Service Design

The Service Design phase of the Service Lifecycle provides guidance on how to design and develop services and IT Service Management processes that will support the service strategies already developed. Learning how to design service plans will prepare IT professionals and business leaders to address customer concerns in the most proficient manner.

Service Transition

The Service Transition phase of the Service Lifecycle teaches IT professionals and their business associates to manage changes in a productive manner. Service Transition provides guidance on how to efficiently and effectively transition new and changed services into operations without disrupting or interrupting other services or processes.

Service Operation

The Service Operation phase of the Service Lifecycle provides guidance on the practical aspects of day-to-day business operations. The goal is for the IT department to keep things running smoothly, reliably, efficiently and cost-effectively. The activities and processes in this phase ensure that services are delivered to customers at the agreed upon levels with minimal interruptions and disruptions. Service Operation focuses on providing value to both the customer and the service provider.

Continual Service Improvement

Even if nothing changes in an organization, there is always room for development and improvement in IT services. Continual assessment is the key to understanding where improvements can be made. ITIL training can help learners identify where these possibilities for progress are.

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5 Steps to Successful Continuous Improvement

Continuous improvement is the ongoing effort to improve products, services and processes to drive efficiency, effectiveness and overall quality.

But what does that mean for an organization? For many, continuous improvement is a struggle. Companies solve problems by fighting fires, but that’s not continuous improvement. Instead, organizations must change how they think about getting better by improving how they improve.

But how? What happens if you want to do continuous improvement but don’t know where to start? What if your organization wastes too much time firefighting or operates in silos?

Is This Your Company?

Imagine an example: Your organization has struggled in the past to make real change happen. Departments generally work in silos and rarely come together unless it is to fight fires. You deal with problems every day and know what is preventing the company, at least in your area, from taking things to the next level. But you have never been asked for your perspective.

At your next monthly meeting, your leadership team pulls people together to focus on a key issue and promises that this time will be different. You can see the eyes rolling already. First, the project has no clear timeline. Second, what are you working on? The goal and measurables expected are unclear. Many people in the room have questions but few raise them. When are tasks due and who will do them? Who is leading this project? Is anyone being held accountable? Why are you working on this now?

People know they are on a team, so you schedule a follow-up meeting to come up with ideas for addressing the key issues. Right away, you can see how things are going to go. One or two people do all the talking and are already shooting down ideas as too difficult, lacking management support or being too costly. The rest of the group, if they are participating at all, are distracted with their laptops as they answer emails and fight fires back at their regular jobs. A few ideas are deemed worthy and you discuss what to do with them. But as time passes, the group meets less frequently due to scheduling conflicts and progress slows. Eventually, the work stops altogether.

When leadership asks for an update, the group confidently states that they have identified some real steps that can be taken to address the key issue but haven’t done any of that work. Frustration mounts as effort is perceived as wasted, and any implementation is delayed as leadership moves on to other priorities.

As efforts like this are repeated, culture begins to suffer. Employees don’t feel heard and leadership is frustrated at a lack of results on key issues. Ideas are raised like starting to do more “360 feedback” and employee surveys, but will they help? You don’t think so but are thankful that you can still contribute in your regular role.

So much for making real change happen.

How can you do continuous improvement better? Here are five steps any organization can embrace to get started on the right path.

Step 1: Plan Projects More Effectively

Like any effective initiative, better continuous improvement starts with better planning. What is so hard about planning a project? Organizations struggle to plan projects effectively for two main reasons:

1. They generally know what the problems are but don’t start in the right place for fast action.
2. They don’t spend enough time on the details before launching their teams.

First, most companies, especially if they ask employees close to the work, can do a decent job of figuring out what their problems are – at least the major problems. If the employees don’t know what the real problems are, robust root cause analysis may be required before project planning can begin. Once armed with the right problems, though, many organizations still struggle to get to work. You can take steps to improve in this area simply by starting with the big problems and breaking them down into smaller pieces until you find projects that can be accomplished with small teams.

Second, companies are usually so eager to improve that they launch teams with little time spent on the critical logistics needed to ensure success. Questions go without concrete answers. Who is leading the team? What functional expertise is needed to ensure you have a broad range of input? Do you have a clear project charter? And, most critically, when is this team expected to finish?

Figure 1: Set the Stage

When planned properly, projects are launched with the right team in place, the right person (or people) to lead them, a clear project charter from which to work and a project schedule finalized to hold people accountable.

In short, well-planned projects start sooner, get going faster and get better results from more engaged employees.

Step 2: Work in Teams to Brainstorm Solutions

Teams are a hot topic in business. From apps that promise to get teams working together more effectively to video conferencing and webinar technology, there seem to be solutions around every corner for making it easier to bring groups of employees together to solve problems. But do any of these solutions address what a team will accomplish when they get together? No!

When we say, “work in teams to brainstorm solutions,” what we mean is simple: You must recruit people from areas directly affected by the problem you are trying to solve. You must give them a roadmap and a process for brainstorming solutions. Finally, you must create an environment where the best ideas can win.

Critically, we believe teams should start with brainstorming ideas because that is where the energy is! In most cases, front-line employees are passionate about solving problems they work with every day – not about learning tools or methods or techniques.

This step is all about ensuring your teams are productive when they get together. Remove the politics, ownership and heartache that usually occur when people try to solve problems as a group. You do that by avoiding things like judging ideas too quickly, making top-down changes, not holding people accountable and ignoring the front lines.

When teams are working well together, solutions get more buy-in because those close to the work were involved and employees get excited about working on a team that gets results.

In short, teams excel when they are free to brainstorm what to do about a problem and empowered to go and solve it.

Step 3: Turn Ideas into Action – Fast

Far and away the most common complaint we hear about change initiatives is speed – or a lack thereof. Change simply takes too long. So, this step is all about doing what you can to turn ideas into action fast.

How? By flipping the script on choosing what to work on. Most companies choose first the biggest ideas that are likely to make the biggest impact on their mission. This is wrong. Too many organizations bite off more than they can chew and get stuck trying to implement world-changing ideas.

Think back to planning projects effectively in Step 1. If your project is planned appropriately, you will have a planned end date. This is where you can flip the script. Choose the ideas that give you the best combination of impact and speed based on those you can take significant action on before your team wraps up. With an eye toward what can actually get done, teams stay motivated to hold each other accountable with realistic and achievable benchmarks.

Figure 2: Choose Your Projects Wisely

Ideas get turned into action fast when organizations work on the right ideas and capitalize on what individuals do best – taking what needs to be done and actually doing it.

Step 4: Track Results and Sustain the Gains

Tracking and measurement are never going to be the sexiest part of any improvement campaign, but they are critical to success. Executive sponsors care about many facets of any campaign, but nothing speaks louder than concrete results. (In the words of Jerry Maguire, “Show me the money!”)

By tracking the action items of each individual idea, reporting progress throughout the project and compiling results against the current state of performance, teams can take major steps toward validating their efforts and inspiring future teams to do more.

Additionally, one of the biggest hurdles improvement initiatives face is backsliding. What happens when the team disbands, and everyone goes back to their day jobs? Too often, this means things revert to where they were before. Nothing kills success faster.

To avoid this, effective teams sustain their gains by identifying potential red flags and putting plans in place to overcome them. They predict who and what may stand in the way of their success and work, in advance, to get those people on their side.

Accurate tracking and compelling control plans help build the case for future projects by showing what is possible.

Step 5: Transform Your Culture

All of this is no good if the culture doesn’t change. Building fast-change capability into your organization is about installing the four previous steps and letting the results take over. People start to feel more motivated to contribute ideas and open to new solutions. Change becomes easy and fun, working in teams becomes exciting and fear of failure disappears. Employees also learn to think about the needs of their customers and how processes work to effectively, or ineffectively, provide value to their stakeholders.

In short, culture goes from a company where only a select few think about improvement to one where it becomes part of everyone’s job.

Figure 3: Increasing the Space for Improvement

These five steps are not new. Organizations often embrace these five steps by launching rapid action/improvement events, but any effort to improve should use these steps as a guide.

Is This Your Company? – Revisited

Imagine our previous example instead went something like this.

At your next monthly meeting, your leadership team announces they are sponsoring a project to solve a key business issue and have pulled together a cross-functional team of front-line employees like you to help. They lay out a clear calendar with a project end date and describe the goals in a charter with clear expectations and deliverables. They nominate one of the group members to be the team leader and give the team a roadmap to follow for brainstorming ideas and acting on them.

At the next meeting, the real work begins. The team follows the brainstorming roadmap to come up with dozens of ideas for solving the problem and everyone is engaged. By sorting and prioritizing, the best ideas are selected and assigned to individuals for fast action. The initial meeting concludes with people feeling excited because real work has already been done and people know what they must do to make progress and by when. People will be held accountable.

Because future meetings were scheduled at the beginning of the project, attendance is not an issue and leadership stays up to date. Progress is steadily made as the project nears completion. Ideas get implemented because people are bought in and results are tracked to show the impact. The team disbands feeling good about what they have accomplished in a short amount of time.

As you go about your regular duties once more, you notice a change in the way people are talking about problems. Instead of complaining, ideas for solutions start to flow. People see what you and your colleagues were able to accomplish and start to embrace faster change. This doesn’t have to be so hard after all. All because the mindset toward improvement changed and a plan to improve was put in place.

What’s Holding Your Organization Back?

Why hasn’t your organization already implemented these five steps to success? It’s probably one or more of the following issues.

◉ Too many silos: In most organizations, it is difficult to foster collaboration between stakeholder groups, so implementing new ideas is a struggle.

◉ Lack of confidence in a process: Most organizations have tried various ways to tackle the continuous improvement challenge, but traditional tools are too complex. Using no process, however, is even worse!

◉ Lack of results: In the end, projects take too long and solutions – even when eventually implemented – seldom stick.

◉ Lack of time: People are busy. Those close to the changes that need to improve do not have time to improve the business while they fight fires.

The key is to use simple tools that make embracing continuous improvement easier than ever.

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