The One Secret to Successful Lean Six Sigma

Many of my clients and colleagues are forever asking the question "How do we assure sustainability

for a Lean Six Sigma Project." This is by far the most difficult part to achieve and it is all about the people.

Based on my personal scars and experience, any improvement activity is 20% about the tools and 80% about the people and it is people that determine the sustainability.. so, what determines whether change 'Sticks' or not ?

The beliefs, behaviour and actions of individuals all form part of the make up of the 'Culture' of an organisation and it is this 'Culture' that determines the sustainability of your LSS project, Programme or Transformation.

In order for anything to remain in place, it has to be accepted as 'The norm' or the 'Modus Operandi', or put quite simply, "It’s the way we do things around here". The change must become part of the culture of the organisation. If it doesn’t, it will always be "The stuff we have to do as well as our day job" and will be dropped at the earliest opportunity.


So, what exactly do we mean by Culture?
Associated words and phrases….

• Way of life, customs, traditions
• Society, background, ethnicity
• Conduct, behaviour, habits, manner

Definitions……

• "…relating to the cultivation of the mind or manners especially through artistic or intellectual activity…"
• "… the norms and values that people live by…"
• "...unwritten rules that define what is expected of people and how they should behave…"
• "…the way we do things around here…"

And that leads us to our next question, what do we need to change the culture?

Firstly, we must begin to change the behaviour, values and beliefs of the leadership. To do this successfully requires skill in building rapport, influencing and sales, as the first step in any change of ANY kind is, DESIRE !

Then we need to find Change agents within an organisation who exhibit a "pioneering spirit". We need to define a 'picture' and 'feel' of the desired future and plan a strategy and roadmap to make it happen.

Involve as many people as possible who will define it, create a plan and take the actions necessary for it to be realised. And finally, Effort, skill and patience.

What do we need to do to go about creating the desire, which will in turn allow us to begin to change the behaviour, values and beliefs of the leadership? Firstly, answer the following questions:

• Who has a need that I/we can & must satisfy? – either a business or a specific person
• Who do you know who is respected by the people you need to influence?
• Who do you know that you suspect might be respected by the people you need to influence?
• If you don’t know anyone then what research will you need to do to find out?
• What chains or links between people can you create?
• What value could you create for the person/people in the chain? 

Ok, so we've covered what we need to do to make Change stick but to be honest, that’s the easy bit.

Now we get into HOW we go about changing the beliefs, behaviours and actions of the key people connected to the change programme. This can only be achieved by influencing, negotiating, demonstrating the benefits and getting the stakeholders to WANT to do things differently – Creating the DESIRE !

Some say these are the "Soft skills" or the "Fluffy stuff" or "People skills" and that some people have these as a natural ability but they can't really be taught to people who don’t 'Have it'.

That’s absolute garbage!

This is an exact science, as exact a science as physics. It’s common name is ...... SALES

Or, how we use these exact techniques to build solid relationships with high degrees of rapport and trust in order to get our stakeholders to actively want to exhibit the desired behaviours and actions that will in turn, shape the culture into one which embraces the changes introduced, as the new NORM.

This is too big a section to be covered extensively in this blog post but is covered in our black belt syllabus at http://www.beyondlean6sigma.com/programmes/black-belt/

Or, to really become an expert in this field, we run a 5 day consultancy masterclass, which covers the "People" side of LSS in great depth, get in touch with me.




If you enjoy reading my blogs, please take a look at my many other on-line resources,

Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/leansixsigmacert
Follow me on twitter, https://twitter.com/DrLeanSigma

I have also recently launched a new range of Lean Six Sigma on-line training courses which you can read about here, http://www.beyondlean6sigma.com/programmes/




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One fatal flaw guaranteed to cause your Lean Six Sigma Programme to FAIL

Greed ! (Otherwise known as unrealistic expectations).

It is necessary to identify specific objectives in order to attain the vision that has been set for the company and that the vision itself is realistic and the timescales attached to this. I have seen this with at least two of my clients, whereby they are completely bought into the whole Lean Six Sigma philosophy, apart from one part – the part that says they absolutely MUST take the people with them. (This of course is the part that takes the time, as we must get these people through their own individual change curves at a pace that isn’t too uncomfortable for them).

A key objective can be defined as a manageable portion of the overall company vision.  For example, an objective may be to increase productivity by 10% by the end of the year, which is quite realistic (as long as this isn’t set in November !).

It is vital that each objective is realistic to ensure a sustainable Lean Six Sigma transformation (if the objective isn’t realistic, you’ve lost the people on day 1).  A company cannot expect the change agents to run multiple projects with multiple trainees simultaneously in order to grow the organisational knowledge in the shortest time.  The expectation cannot be satisfied because the change agents have only gained a reasonable understanding of the approach while developing the pilot area.  Overburden on the change agents can result in projects failing to meet their specified objectives.  The failed initiatives can then permeate a general attitude from company employees:  “Lean Six Sigma –we tried that and it didn’t work!”

The organisation must recognise that it is investing for the long term when pursuing these objectives.  Persevering with a structured and well-planned approach in satisfying the objectives can reap huge business benefits.  But beware, most organisations that embark on Lean Six Sigma transformation are greedy for results, which ultimately will result in failure.  The greediness comes from an organisation’s belief that it can become a Lean Six Sigma exemplar to a higher degree, faster and with less resource than anyone else.  There are no short cuts to the Lean Six Sigma transformation.  World class Lean Six Sigma organisations have taken many years to establish their position today.  It takes time to catch up – so, please be patient.

The following analogy shows the importance of patience and developing a proper infrastructure to support the change.  Two gardeners each plant a seed in some fertile soil. After six months, each seed has sprouted above the ground to a length of only four inches.  One of the gardeners is concerned because the plant is not growing fast enough, so he removes the sprout along with its root and plants a new seed.  The other gardener is more patient and understands that the sprout is still developing its foundations and has great potential, even though the growth hasn’t been that great. Another six months passes and the patient gardener now has a plant that sprouted to a height of two feet!  This flower was able to grow so rapidly because it was nurtured early on and allowed to develop at its own pace.  One the other hand, the new seed for the impatient gardener has only grown four inches again.




If you enjoy reading my blogs, please take a look at my many other on-line resources,

Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/leansixsigmacert
Follow me on twitter, https://twitter.com/DrLeanSigma
I have also recently launched a new range of Lean Six Sigma on-line training courses which you can read about here, http://www.beyondlean6sigma.com


#leansixsigma, #beyondlean, #leansixsigmacertification, #leansixsigmatraining

Building the foundation for a successful Lean Six Sigma Implementation

A few months ago, a client asked me when they could start putting in place Lean Six Sigma in their organisation following the completion of a ‘Diagnostic’ activity.

I told the Head of this organisation that they weren’t ready for Lean Six Sigma and his jaw almost hit

the floor! I qualified my point by asking him some very basic questions, things like; How many do you need to complete today? How many people will you need to complete today’s requirement? How big is your performance spread? What does a good day look like? Along with a few more simple but essential questions that you would expect any good Operations person to have a good handle on.

He couldn’t answer a single question and quickly understood what I was getting at. We needed to get the foundations in place FIRST, before we could begin a typical LSS intervention. We needed to get his operation ‘In Control’, so that he could at least answer some of the questions asked of him. The phase I was moving him into was the ‘Stability’ phase, which would then give us a stable platform from which to build.

The primary purpose of the ‘Stability’ phase is to lay a solid foundation for the organisation. At the conclusion of this phase you should have a certainty that the ship has been steadied, fire fighting is a thing of the past and ‘Forward’ is the only way to go.

Depending upon the outcome of the Diagnostic Phase some actions may be required immediately to prevent disaster. This is where the Stability phase and the Strategy phase often overlap.

There is no Right or Wrong order to carry out the following actions, it will be solely dependent on what you uncover in the Diagnostic Phase.

For example, if a major cause of your companies problems was down to poor deliveries due to lack of visibility of shop floor productivity levels, meaning you never know when your product is coming off the line. You immediately put in place measures or KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) to address this and give you that visibility.

This can be done very quickly while other things are being worked on – Put your customer protection in place IMMEDIATELY, this will give you some time to work on the long term countermeasure.

Implement Standardised Operating Procedures

“Without Standardisation there can be no improvement” (Taichi Ohno). Implement Standard work in the operation and ensure adherence to this relentlessly. Once this is in place and adhered to, if an error occurs there can be only one of two possibilities; either the process wasn’t followed, or the process is wrong. It really is that simple (Taking breakdowns and catastrophic failures out of the equation).

Institutionalise daily comms/operations meetings to convey to all staff that what they do is important and to allow them to understand what is required, by when and to what standard.

Getting these seemingly simple things in place and rigidly adhered to will give you benefits beyond your imagination, as well as starting to create the culture which will then pave the way for future changes and improvements to be implemented much more smoothly.

There is one caveat: Involve the people every step of the way. If the people are involved and on board everything else is easy!



If you enjoy reading my blogs, please take a look at my many other on-line resources,
Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/leansixsigmacert
Follow me on twitter, https://twitter.com/DrLeanSigma

I have also recently launched a new range of Lean Six Sigma on-line training courses which you can read about here, http://www.beyondlean6sigma.com/

#leansixsigma, #beyondlean, #leansixsigmacertification, #leansixsigmatraining

3 Essentials ingredients for any change project…..

I met an old client of mine last week and they asked “Why can’t we just get going and make the changes we've identified?”

My reply was a measured one, as this was a client who asked all of his staff to just do things NOW, without questioning the logic. This was knee jerk management at its worst. The changes they’d dentified didn't address the root cause of the problems they were having. Indeed, the problems they were having hadn't even been fully defined yet and there was certainly no data to back anything up, just gut feel. As I've talked about in previous mails, the Define stage is absolutely critical in setting up your improvement project for success.

We've already looked at the problem definition element previously. Three other key elements of the Define stage, which are critical are to ensuring the success of a project are:

The Goal Element

Defining what you’re looking to achieve
1, Make your Goal for your project SMART!

• Specific 
• Measurable 
• Agreed 
• Realistic
• Timed

Recognise, as with the description of the problem, things may change as data clarifies the picture.. Where Are We Going - How Will We Know When We Get There?

2, Ensure you answer fully, all of these Key questions:

• What’s the purpose of this project? 
• What prompted it? 
• Why is it important to work on this now? 
• How much improvement are we looking to make and by when? 
• Who needs to be involved? 
• How will customers be affected? 
• How will we know if things improve? 
• What data or information is needed? 
• What’s the broad plan

3, As with any journey, if you don’t know exactly where you’re going, how can you ever expect to get there? Define clearly what you want the outcome to be of your project. Even with the most state of the art Sat Nav, if you had no destination set, you’d never arrive!