Lean Sigma - It's Not About The Colour

Have you ever noticed how sometimes people have a tendency to ask for the top of the range product because it's the best money can buy when in fact something mid range is actually more than adequate enough for their needs?
Or someone wants something because it's the latest craze and everyone else has got one?
Then there are those who don't even know the product is available and carry on blissful unaware that there is a great product out there that can improve the quality off their life!

When it comes to the Lean Sigma product the above scenario's are all true.

If you've never looked at Lean Sigma or talked to someone about what it is and how it can improve your business or organisation (and it works for ANY organisation, Manufacturing, Schools, Offices, Charities...) then how do you know what it can do for you? Why buy something if you don't yet know you need it!

If you don't fully understand what it is all about don't rush out and get some Lean Sigma training just because the competition have done so!

And if you have looked into it and understand the Yellowbelt - Greenbelt - Blackbelt accreditation process then don't rush out and train half a dozen Blackbelts just so you've outdone the "Jones's" by getting more than they have!

This is beginning to sound like a consumer guide to purchasing and I guess it is a bit like that. If you are going to invest money then it's important that you are clear on what it is you want to achieve, what issues / challenges you have and what a successful outcome would look like.

Lean Sigma training is not about how many Grand Master Purple Belt Wizards you have or how many people you've trained or how many staff have been accredited. Lean Sigma is just a set of tools that can be used to improve your organisation, reduce waste, increase efficiency and reduce variability ensuring quality and profits are improved.

To really get the maximum from these tools you should be thinking about creating a true Lean Sigma culture with empowered, motivated staff who have a "can do " attitude, where Leaders are visible to the teams and Gemba Coaching is the norm and a data driven approach to problem solving is utilised. When this becomes part of the normal way of working you have achieved a true Lean Sigma culture, your very own Utopia!
Lean Sigma tools are just a small part of achieving this. To really embed the ways of working and begin to develop a cultural shift you also need to focus on behaviours (particularly those of the Managers & Leaders) as well as creating Performance Measures that support and drive those behaviours.

The Lean Team Approach

If this sound like something that would benefit your organisation, if you think this might address some of the challenges you currently face or if this sounds like a description of your vision for your organisation then maybe Lean Sigma is worth investigating. However, take heed of our warnings and make sure you buy what you need, and if you're not sure then don't spend until you are! What you want is a sustainable output and that won't happen overnight.

So as Christmas approaches be clear on what you require before adding Lean Sigma training to your list for Santa

To C or not to C, that is the question!

 

Congratulations! You've spent the last 6 months implementing a new change project that will improve ways of working, increase efficiency & productivity and increase profitability. Phew, it was hard work but it will be worth the effort when all these benefits are realised.
However, a further 6 months down the line and people have drifted back to the old ways of working or found 'work-arounds' for the new ways, efficiency & productivity have at best stayed the same and you're yet to see any financial improvement in profits.

Sound familiar? It is surprising how often an organisation never really obtains the full benefits of the improvement they spent time, effort and resource implementing. It's not because it was a poor idea and often it's not due to a poor implementation, though there are always things that could be done better. One of the biggest challenges to sustaining a change is the Control measures organisations put in place after implementation.

Those of you who follow our Blogs will know we love to follow the DMAIC process (Define Measure Analyse Improve Control) and in our opinion, key to embedding change is the Control step. We are always told to spend a significant amount of time in the planning phase of a project (Proper Planning Prevents P#!s Poor Performance) but often neglect to spend an appropriate amount of time thinking about what needs to be done to ensure the improvement is embedded and sustained.

So less rambling and more "How the hell do I do it?"

The first and possibly most important step is to ensure you have clearly defined the New Standards. What was once OK is now history and your new ways of working will require you to define New Standards. Involving staff in the creation of these will go some way to ensuring you have buy-in and in helping in the communication process. It's no good redefining the Standard if you then fail to effectively communicate it to staff AND ensure they have clearly understood what is required (message transmitted does NOT always equal message received!).

Here's another point for consideration - do people understand the impact of the change not only to their part of the process but also to their colleagues; customers; suppliers etc upstream and downstream? This becomes critical when they want to start improving or 'tweaking' the new process or ways of working - understanding the impact on the other parts of the chain.

OK so your New Standards have been clearly defined and communicated but if you want it to stick then you need to have the appropriate Metrics - What gets measured, gets done. Now it is very important that you get the right measures in place as all too often we see badly designed metrics driving the wrong behaviour and ways of working. Again get the staff involved in defining these so that you get ownership (after all they are going to be the ones filling in the data) and also to ensure that the Metrics are relevant. They must mean something to the people using them and they should feed in to higher level management Metrics (See Diagram below). And as we are always fond of saying: make sure your Metrics are Visual! Get them up on the wall, use tables, graphs or charts and keep them simple.
The final element of your Metrics is to ensure that whatever you are measuring, you are measuring it in a relevant time frame that allows you to intervene BEFORE you get a problem.There is no use logging a report is late, better to monitor it's progress against deadline so you can intervene BEFORE it becomes late.

 

With Standards and Metrics in place you are well on your way to embedding the change or new ways of working. All it now needs (and this is good Leadership practice anyway) is some Coaching. We're not just chucking this in as it's the latest craze to sweep business, we really believe in the power of effective Coaching by your Managers. We use a phrase "Gemba Coaching" which means Managers getting off their butt's and getting out on the shop floor or office every day and having real Coaching conversations with staff - "Where are we against the standard?" should be a frequent question asked. This is a fantastic opportunity (yes it really is!) for Managers to find out what is going on, how people are performing, what issues they face or what support they need. It is a chance to recognise and reward the right behaviours and where people are not meeting the standard, use Coaching to improve performance. It is important that Managers cast the right Shadow - remember people do as they see not necessarily as they are told!

So now you have some suggestions to help you ensure the next change you instigate is not only successfully implemented but becomes embedded and sustained providing you with the benefits you expected.

In-Place AND In-Use is the way forward!

If you find this article interesting please feel free to share it with colleagues. if you'd like to discuss more then get in touch, we're always happy to talk and help where we can.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it?

Seeing Waste & Inefficiencies everywhere!

I was playing golf at my local course recently (playing is a strong word for what I do!) and whilst looking amongst the trees for my golf ball, an all too common occurrence, I noticed activity on the green. There were 4 (that's four!) council workers  involved in relocating the hole / flag on the green. Efficiency? Overkill? Waste?



Unfortunately I find myself afflicted with the Lean disease, meaning everywhere I look I see the potential for improvements and savings. If I'm in the car with my colleague Bob we become like the 2 old men from the Muppet's, grumbling and moaning about waste and inefficiencies everywhere we look!

Unfortunately many organisations don't bother implementing changes or improvements until something goes wrong or they are forced to do so due to financial or resource constraints. There seems to be an "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality in the work place which keeps people focused on the day to day tasks. This reactive approach (i.e. wait until something goes wrong before doing something about it) is all too common and ironically many companies actually reward these fire fighting behaviours. Think about it, have you noticed that when the brown stuff hits the fan, people rally round and pull out all the stops to fix the issue. This is often recognised and rewarded as people have put the effort in to fix a problem. What about the guy who goes all year without any issues or problems by taking a proactive approach and spotting issues or risks before they become a problem. Do they get the same reward and recognition?

Another potential problem with the reactive approach is that often due to the pressures involved the 'fix' is often only temporary or does not address the root cause of the problem. Thus at some point in the future the problem is likely to reappear again as the real cause of the issue was never properly addressed.

The 'Sticking Plaster' approach

As someone who has been involved in many change projects I would suggest that it is much easier to implement changes / improvements on a stable base rather than on a changing or variable background. From our point of view if you want change to be successfully implemented and stand a better chance of being sustained then look to do it before the problems become critical. Without the added pressures of trying to find immediate fixes you have time to properly root cause the issue and ensure the 'fix' is a permanent one and not just a sticking plaster.

So if your organisation is working reasonably well then perhaps now is the time to take a look at potential improvement opportunities rather than wait for problems to arise or budgets to be cut.