I have always thought the toughest parts of DMAIC are I(mprove) & C(ontrol). One of the reasons for this is that to deliver a sustainable solution means asking people to change. The opportunity to resist change and revert to status-quo being one of the challenges faced.

What early indicator can you use to measure if your solution will be accepted by people? You can ask for sign-off or verbal approval. I find this never really gets to the core issues that people may have with a solution. They provided sign-off but will be only to happy to revert back to original process when you are gone. They may not have really bought-in to the change.

Try this simple approach. When you run workshops to socialise the solution you are bound to get questions, “Yes but what if this happens”, “Have you considered this”, “What about this situation”. These challenge you to have answers that work and it is likely you won’t have them for all the questions.

Here is a measure you can use to determine if your solution will truly be accepted & sustainable:

Our customer workshops no long generate questions we can’t answer

Just keep doing them till you have no more show-stoppers or unanswerable questions. Happy Christmas!