Category: Change Management

Do you feel that implementing change in your organization is going too slowly? So did Jack Welch of GE, which is why GE developed the Change Acceleration Process (CAP). Let’s explore how the concepts of CAP might help your organization.

Successful initial implementation and ongoing maintenance of process improvements requires overcoming the resistance to change. Green Belts are change agents who need to recognize, understand, and interpret resistance to change and develop skills to manage it effectively. Managing change resistance is often covered in training, yet a primary learning issue facing most organizations […]

Change management is defined as the methodological approach a company takes in the implemental change of its internal and external processes.

Management plays a critical role in the successful implementation of Lean Six Sigma (LSS) methodologies within organizations. It provides the foundation for driving process improvement, achieving operational excellence, and delivering superior customer value. In today’s competitive business landscape, organizations strive for efficiency, quality, and continuous improvement to stay ahead. In pursuit of these goals, Lean […]

Anyone who has implemented continuous improvement programs understands that employees are the people who make the changes happen. You can force their hands and use managerial authority to direct change, but if team members do not accept and embrace change management, you will not reap the full benefits of change, and sustaining the change will […]

The full value of any improvement initiative is realized only when it is complemented by a robust change management strategy to effectively manage the people side of the change throughout the course of improvement cycle. What Is Change Management? Change management is a systematic approach to transitioning individuals, teams and organizations to a desired future […]

KISS stands for “keep it super simple.” There are other definitions of the acronym but they all mean essentially the same thing. Lots of things in life are complex but there is great value in presenting them in a manner that can be easily understood by everyone. The ability to present complex things simply is […]

Gaining support to implement and sustain a continuous improvement program is an oft-voiced concern of Lean Six Sigma (LSS) practitioners. These concerns reflect frustration in both senses of the term –  feeling frustrated personally and encountering attitudes that frustrate the effectiveness of the program. Three sets of skills and methods have shown success in gaining […]

Executing actions directly aligned to an organization’s strategy is fundamental to achieving success. Strategy with no action is just an idea; action with no strategy is anarchy. Neither scenario enables a company to deliver results. This article explores the three essential steps of achieving success (as defined by a given organization). Successful organizations: 1) define […]

During the month of August – while many are taking time off to enjoy summer – we will be offering a resource page on a different topic each week. The resource page features an overview of the week’s topic and links to the best related content across iSixSigma (articles, blogs, discussions, Marketplace products and dictionary […]

I often think about the losses corporations and government entities take on with initiatives that result in decorative shelfware (the unused products that sit on a buyer’s shelf). There must be millions of great ideas and intelligent business plans just sitting on shelves because of the lack of execution. For all we know the solutions […]

Many years ago I worked in industrial security; I spent many nights patrolling an automotive assembly plant. During this time I would occasionally find flyers written by somebody who called themself the “Sleeping Dog.”

A former colleague recently wrote to tell me about his new position as a Lean leader at a global company. He is excited because his time in his new role will be broken into 70 percent change leadership and management systems work, and 30 percent as tools implementation. A few years ago the distribution of accountabilities […]

Is leadership from the bottom-up better than top-down? How can employees convince and excite their leaders about the opportunities waiting for them with a Lean Six Sigma deployment? The best leadership references on iSixSigma can be found at the following links: Ask the Expert: The Topic – Six Sigma and Employees Developing Change Leadership by […]

This three-part article reviews three approaches to explaining Six Sigma that the author has seen backfire, along with an alternative. Part 1 sets the stage. Part 3 looks at the third trap. Below, I’ve listed three approaches to explaining Six Sigma that I’ve seen backfire, along with an alternative. I don’t want to put words […]

Nobody knows what the future holds, but a shared uncertainty about tomorrow creates a forward-leaning opportunity for reinvention. Future-ready reengineering helps companies move from doing what is most effective today to meeting tomorrow’s challenges.

The following are selected highlights of a corporate leadership profile of H.C. Starck. The complete article – with more details about method and project selection, and the program’s growth beyond the manufacturing floor – is available for purchase on the iSixSigma Marketplace. The almost 100-year-old H.C. Starck knows a thing or two about achieving the right […]

Self-help books abound for those who are looking to improve themselves, either personally or professionally. What these books fail to address, however, is the personalization that most people need to make lasting change. Ron McMillan is one of the authors of the book Change Anything, which introduces a framework to help you achieve any of […]

Every Six Sigma project and Lean event goes exactly as planned right? There are many reasons for detours during your project journey; unfortunately, many of these are unpredictable. As much as we try to avoid these pitfalls by following established methodologies or hiring experienced project management personnel, it remains clear that some of the best […]

Through Lean Six Sigma projects and an arsenal of tools, Black Belts make change and manage change. But before Black Belts pat themselves on the back for a job well done, they should consider the following: How deep, pervasive and life altering are the initiated change? What mechanisms were put in place to make the […]

A common metric many organizations use to assess the performance of their Lean Six Sigma program is project cycle time – the total time from the beginning to the end of a process improvement project, including total process time and all delays. If your organization’s project cycle time is running higher than your targeted rate, […]

The path to Lean and Six Sigma is different for every company. Some begin a deployment as a means to increase productivity or profitability; others start with encouragement from a new leader. For DC Electronics, the journey stemmed from an unlikely combination of circumstances – unprecedented business growth and a bit of tough love from a […]

If you were selecting a basketball team, what criteria would you use to select the players? What about if you were selecting an academic team? If the selection of a process improvement team were the objective, what criteria would you use? The answers to these questions may seem simple, but Belts can sometimes make things […]

Common wisdom about Six Sigma is that top-level executive support is one of the prerequisites for having a successful deployment, regardless of the organization. Almost all Six Sigma training materials (either developed in-house or delivered by external consultants) for Green Belts and Black Belts focuses extensively on how executive support is critical for the success […]