Standing in front of a boardroom, talking about the benefits of Lean Six Sigma and it doesn't take long before the ones most likely to resist change show their true colors. And a question was asked by one of the executives, "If Lean is so great, then why is a company like Toyota who for years boasted the usage of the methodology in such great trouble? I mean should they have known better?" I began to re-live the same reaction that I had had to a WSJ article published a few years back about how Lean Six Sigma is dead because it makes executives dumb. But this time I felt a little more prepared to answer the questions, thanks to a blog response that I had read a while back. I looked at the executive and replied, "a fool with a tool is still a fool" and thank goodness that there were chuckles. No one claimed that Lean Six Sigma was going to be the elixir to all corporate ails. No did anyone claim that quality methodology was going to increase the moral consciousness of executives.These methodologies were developed to help companies better gauge their product and service performance against the needs of their customers. It helps outline issues based on data, but it doesn't have the forcing mechanism to make executives respond accordingly. It is easy to make the methodology the scapegoat of bad or no decisions at all. But in reality nothing will take the place of corporate values, accountability and social responsibility.

Sheila Shaffie, ProcessArc, Inc.

The MBB of a business is moving to a new position - a very nice promotion - and now someone has to back-fill the role. First order of business: how many projects are active and what is their status? the numbers didn't look so good. In the past 14 months 40 projects have been kicked off and only 16 are active. Don't even ask about the closure rate. So what went wrong? All the project owners had gone through training, the projects had been signed off by the functional managers, the BBs where coaching the GBs... All the right things that would ensure success was theoretically in place. After more discussion with the MBB, functional managers, BBs and GBs here is what we found:

1. The right candidates make all the difference - When the candidates were being selected for the training, the selection criteria was for the most part left up to the functional managers. And most often they had picked their SMEs (subject matter experts). SMEs don't always make the best GBs or BBs. Yes they have a deep understanding of the business unit, but they many not posses the leadership, problem solving, critical thinking, communication skills needed to drive technically, politically, and culturally challenging projects.

2. The selected projects where not that critical - Well, even though that criteria was given to the functional managers, they were not going to give up "control" over the one problem that was keeping them up at night. If it wasn't a control issue, it was a visibility issue. The managers weren't convinced of the risk/reward model of Lean Six Sigma - airing out your dirty laundry with the hopes that this methodology was going to resolve their issue. In this case, the director should have set up expectations better upfront: That we need to expose our worst problems and use the methodology to prove its power. This would have created the right environment for positive change.

3. No accountability or sense of urgency - well I guess if your GB is going to be working on a less than critical issue, what are the chances that it will get visibility? And if there is no visibility what is the sense of urgency? And if no one really cares, will anyone be held accountable? A pretty vicious cycle has started and the project goes no where.

The right person, and the right project makes all the difference. GBs and BBs have to be good leaders and problem solvers. They don't need to have functional depth, that is what SMEs are for. Having depth absolutely helps, but if I were to pick between a candidate that is a good problems solver and one that is purely a SME, my choice would be clear. As for the right project - a business critical issue ensures that someone will actually care about the progress of the project. And that will ensure that the project is adequately resourced and funded.

So now I have to figure out what to do with the other 60%. Abandon the projects, reassign them to a new GB/BB or re-define them. And better yet, long term how to help avoid these issues in the second round of project selection. These challenges are common and part of the culture change that is required when deploying Lean Six Sigma.

Sheila Shaffie - ProcessArc, inc.

I just finished teaching a 3 day class on Change Management to a group of managers. They were invited from various functions in the organization (finance, operations, HR, legal, compliance…) to learn how to better manage change: whether this was change being introduced by themselves, their black belts or a corporate wide initiative. The course focuses on the7 major milestones of change management – creating a shared need, creating a vision, mobilizing commitment…all the way to institutionalizing change by modifying systems and structures, ensuring long term success. There was lots of dialogue, and chuckles as we went through things to do and not to do as change is being introduced in the company. While the experience of the attendees varies based on their corporate culture, I wanted to share with you some of the key takeaways from this class:

1. Grassroots efforts, projects that are highly localized, have a lower probability of success. Normally these types of projects/change initiatives are small in scale and don’t get the attention of the executives or top leadership. And if we don’t have their commitment, it will be hard to get anyone to adequately champion the project, assign resources and bust through execution barriers.

2. To get the right level of buy-in, not only do teams have to be formed but their skin has to be tied to the success of the project. This means that they play an “active” role in the project. They have weekly tasks/deliverables, they help identify potential risks, they become the voice of their area as the project evolves. I realized that in some companies, teams sometimes form just in name, i.e., the entire load of the project falls on the shoulders of the leader (BB, GB or otherwise). This kind of team behavior may be an indicator of poor buy-in or poor project prioritization.

3. Project execution cannot stop once the improvements have been put in place. The team needs to determine the newly required employee behavior to ensure sustainability. This also includes putting in place the measurement/reward mechanisms to reinforce it. We don’t always get HR involved enough in projects. If we change a process, and hence the roles and responsibilities of people, then their success metrics needs to change and as logic would follow so should their compensation plan.

4. The project leaders really need to act like the cheerleader for the project in the company. The project goals and objectives may seem crystal clear to the project leader and team members, but that is not always the case for everyone else who may have a stake in the affair. It is the project leader’s main responsibility to ensure that key stakeholders fully understand and agree with the need for change and desired vision.

5. To better manage expectations, resource allocation to projects and initiatives has to be continually assessed. In companies where the talent depth is shallow, most often the same people get pulled on as resources on a project. This translates to them not being able to effectively contribute to the project, which leads to the elongation of the project timeline. The main risk with poor resource allocation is missing the project champion and key stakeholders’ expectations. And that could translate to early closure of the project or rushing the team through a solution (whether right or wrong).

Again, everyone’s experience and main takeaways from these training sessions is different. And it is mainly based on the attendees past experience with change at a given company. These were just a sample of what the attendees discussed as we moved along the 7 milestones of the Change Acceptance Process training.

Some confusion in the marketplace - What is the difference between a Business Analyst (BA) and a Black Belt (BB)

The role of a Business Analyst is quite common in the financial sector - that is not so much the case with other sectors. Sometimes when it comes to execution of large-scale projects, the first reaction of financial firm is to throw a BA at it. "Let them analyze the process and collect business requirements", as if we are already in the Analyze or Improve phase of a project. Other times, there seems to be downright confusion about the role of a BB vs. a BA. And again that is mostly because BAs are so commonly utilized in the financial sector. The other reason maybe that most corporate cultures usually go from problem or idea to solution. The D, M and A of Six Sigma are skipped. Based on our experience in the sector here is how we need to distinguish between the two roles:

- BAs are resources dedicated to documenting the "as-is" process. In our opinion, they are usually not as effective as BBs, because they are not looking at the process with a critical eye. Since a BA is not involved in the Define phase of the project (business case, defect definition, goals...) they may not be equipped with all the right questions to ask while documenting.
- Unlike BBs that own the project from Define to Control, essentially owning the problem and solution, a BA is only really involved in the Measure phase and part of Improve when collecting business requirements. That is to say that a solution has to have been identified by someone else in order for requirements to be collected
- BAs don't always have the necessary tools (read skills) to conduct deep dives, identify root causes of problems and sources of variation and finally develop a solution to implement lasting change

These statements are not meant in any way shape or form as a knock on BAs, rather a statement of what we have observed to date in the marketplace.

BBs are looking at that same process with the distinct perspective of someone who has a charter to solve a complex problem. In this role, they must live the life-cycle of the issue at hand. Their job runs the gamut from convincing senior management of the urgency at hand to strong-arming the IT department to mine the data needed to make an informed decision A BB has to act as part politician part enforcer. No easy task, this!

S. Shaffie, www.processarc.com

We sometimes hear from people that they struggle with “selling” the Six Sigma or Lean Six Sigma package to their executives.  Perhaps it is viewed by people as too much change too fast or too lofty of an endeavor.  ...

I would like to get your thoughts on something.   It is as though most companies are in a state of paralysis.  Wouldn’t you think that given the sharp drop in output and hence revenue, companies should be looking at...

I know that there is an economic meltdown going on, but I am having my very own thanks to my insurance company. I get a phone call from them with the wonderful news that unless we address our “roof...