Category: Blogs

Nominations are open for iSixSigma’s second annual Best Places to Work List. If you are working for a top notch company using Lean Six Sigma, go ahead and nominateit to be included in ourlist of Best Places to Work. Last year 10 companies made the list. McKesson took home the #1 spot, followed by Vought […]

When I was leading a department, I never thought of myself as a process owner. It wasn’t in my job description, and I never heard anyone used the term. It’s one of those useful concepts that I wish I had known, prior to my Six Sigma and Lean education. Here’s my working definition: The process […]

The deadline to submit a speaking proposal for the second annual iSixSigma Live! Summit & Awards has been extended one week. If you were on the fence about submitting an idea, now’s the time to take action. More than 200 of the world’s top business leaders and operational experts will gather, Feb. 1-4, 2010, in […]

Well, maybe I have more than one favorite tool – but there are 2 that arefun to use with a group. One is sticky-note brainstorming. It avoids the perils of the regular “everybody call out their ideas” brainstorming, because (a) you get 100% participation; (b) you can get LOTS of ideas in just a few minutes; […]

While the iSixSigma.com site has been down, the rhetoric about “fixing healthcare” in the US has dramatically heated up. “We need to take the waste out of healthcare!” “We’re paying too much for healthcare!””Everyone should get all the healthcare they need regardless of cost!” Without getting into the political debate, let’s just touch on these […]

It’s really interesting for me to look back and think about how many times quality planning has come up as an afterthought. It is staggering for me to think about what could have happened if quality planning was done the proper way. Here’s an example….one time I was involved with a new product introduction, and […]

Organisation in chaos? Emergencies erupting? Been blind-sided by the unexpected? Project a few years late and still does not work? Need to get things under control? Make way for the Corporate Fire Fighter. (Phew!) This trusted pair of hands hits the ground running….makes rapid assessment of situation….. takes urgent action …… reports an outstanding success […]

iSixSigma Live! wants to know what you want out of an in-person event.We invite you to participate in a short survey about business process improvement conferences. How many conferences do you attend a year? What do you expect out of a conference? Where would you like to see the next iSixSigma Live! event? These are […]

I enjoy teaching, so if you asked me whether you could do too much training, my first response would be “no, of course not!” But, on second thought, I would have to say, “well, maybe.” It’s been my experience that knowledge alone is usually not enough to create an improvement. A lot of people enjoy […]

Consistently delighting customers and providing exceptional handling of issues and errors using the R.A.P.I.D. methodology are two ways to create customer W.O.W. (What’s Needed – On Time – With Value).

Over the last 5 years I have invested considerable time & energy in trying to become a skilled continuous improvement practitioner. I am a strong believer in continual learning via direct deployment experience. Over this same period, continuous improvement has become a main-stream product. Any business without an Operational Excellence, Process Improvement, Process Excellence, Continual […]

When I begin a new project, I include a Communication Plan as part of my team work. That is, we take the stakeholder list and think about who we need to be in communication with, as we move through the project phases. Some of you may do this based on an ARMI exercise (Approvers/ Resources/ […]

Now more than ever, the development and use of control plans play a critical role in succesfully implementing a new process. In my past, I have seen varying ways that control plans have been implemented, but I still struggle a little when I try to find a really good example of control plan development. To […]

You’ve completed your planning phase – whether it’s specifying value and mapping the value stream, Defining / Measuring / Analyzing, or Planning – and you’re ready to move into Creating Flow, Improving, or Doing. Hooray! The pilot plan has been finalized, the Process Owner says it’s fine, the team is ready to move forward. And […]

Time are topsy-turvy, and change is in the air. My role has evolved away from Six Sigma over the past several months, and my readers – both of you – may have noticed I’ve been posting here less and less. This will be my last post. Thanks for all the comments and emails. It’s been […]

Again and again, culture change comes up as one of the most important aspects of a successful Six Sigma deployment and reaching maturity. Yet effecting culture change is one of the most difficult parts to master. Almost 50 percent of respondents to a recent iSixSigma survey said their company was far from achieving its desired […]

With a timely theme of ‘Completing the Chain’, the May/June 2009 issue of iSixSigma Magazine mailed last week. The cover story, ‘A Stronger Chain’, focuses on how companies are wielding Six Sigma and Lean to strengthen their supply chains. As companies examine how to get the most out of their efforts, they are reaching outside […]

Recently James Considine and Stephen Crate have posted about management styles….and their posts have really made me think about management and leadership in general, especially during these challenging times… From my perspective, you have to lead people to achieve results. If you are a manager, indeed your job is to manage the business, but to […]

My colleagues and I have often discussed which type of change manager gets more results, especially which type gets more results in our particular organization. We have a lot of pitbulls, who adopt a fairly confrontational stance when dealing with those who need to make a change. They sink their teeth into the data, make […]

Today I was reflecting on a potential topic that could come up in a traditional project involving any test or DOE utilizing a ’p-value’ criterion – it actually did for me a few times in the past. Hypothetically, say for example there is a process that has very low inherent process variation (process s is very low), […]

I’ve attended a lot of leadership development courses over the years, and received many handouts, folders, and binders chock full of ways to make myself into a better manager… of people, time, money, etc. One precept that has stuck with me is that we should pay attention tothe small things that are annoyances today, so […]

Every once in a while, I’d like to share some reviews of key books that I’ve read so far in my career that have been particularly useful. For my first review, I’d like to reflect upon Crucial Conversations: Tools For Talking When Stakes Are High – by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, Al Switzler […]

I can not help but wonder if there is a Six Sigma tool for managers to use before they decide to administer discipline or impose a behavior intervention to a poorly performing employee. Management style is one of the key factors affecting high employee morale, optimum functioning and low turnover. When high morale is present, […]

There’s no time like the present to study up and learn a few new strategies. I’m a big fan of continuing education and benchmarking best-in-class practices. That’s why I’m excited about the upcoming workshops at the Energy Forum for Process Excellence. Just one problem: I’m having hard time figuring out how to be in more […]