How to Turn Resistance into Support for Lean Six Sigma

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One phrase in Lean Six Sigma that may be heard more than any other is “culture change.” Most organizations today are undergoing some form of culture change, and 75 percent of all major or cultural changes fail to achieve their goals. Experience shows when strength and culture collide, culture has a higher probability of winning. […]

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Yellow Belts: Creating a Corporate Sense of Inclusion

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As the Lean and Six Sigma evolution makes its way throughout the financial services industry and organizations make decisions on how to best spend training dollars, an interesting trend is emerging. Many companies looking at ways to more broadly incorporate Lean and Six Sigma into their cultures are finding that a general knowledge across the […]

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Reflections on Six Sigma: Eleven Reasons It Has Thrived

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It has been nearly 20 years since Motorola executive Bill Smith coined the phrase “Six Sigma.” This makes one ponder why it has been so successful. The following is a list of personal reflections upon Six Sigma’s longevity in no particular order: 1. The Partnership with Finance The involvement of finance in both the estimation […]

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Storyboards Lend Structure and Discipline to Six Sigma

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Six Sigma’s step-by-step approach to problem solving has benefited greatly from the development of a common toolkit, project framework and terminology. That commonality, to a large extent, has made Six Sigma a business phenomenon transcending corporate and national boundaries. However, one broadly implemented element of Six Sigma project management that is often underestimated is the […]

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Displaying Project Storyboards Reenergizes Effort

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Prior to and during the launch of Lean Six Sigma (LSS), the intent of the program and how it will be beneficial to the company must be communicated to all employees, else the organization risks confusion and disenchantment from the outset. Sometimes, even when the effort gets a good start, difficulty arises in maintaining the […]

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How Six Sigma Adds Value in an Existing Quality Culture

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A Conversation with… Randall W. Powell, VP of Eastman Chemical Company In a conversation with iSixSigma, Dr. Randall W. Powell, vice president of Eastman Chemical Company, Europe/Middle East/Africa, offers his views on how Six Sigma adds value to an existing quality culture. Located at the company’s regional headquarters in The Netherlands, Dr. Powell has operations […]

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Making the Journey Toward Culture Change in Healthcare

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Recognition is growing among healthcare leaders of the need for a culture change within their organizations. Moving from recognition to reality, however, is more difficult. The problem lies in the perceptionย โ€“ or misperceptionย โ€“ of what a culture change actually entails. Culture change is not a program with a completion date, nor is it a quick […]

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Six Sigma Presentations: On Target with Minimum Variation

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Six Sigma presentations are something every level of practitioner โ€“ Green Belt, Black Belt, Master Black Belt, Champion and even deployment leader โ€“ must do. However, many presenters face their initial efforts with a great deal to say but without a great deal of experience in saying it. As you prepare your first presentation or […]

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Overcoming the Barriers to Change in Healthcare System

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Research has shown that 95 percent of diets fail over the long term. Oddly enough, various studies show that 60 to 80 percent of major change initiatives also fail. In both cases, it is certainly not for lack of good intentions. For a person who has been on a successful diet, it is frustrating to […]

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Manager's Guide: Fostering Success with Lean Six Sigma

Manager’s Guide: Fostering Success with Lean Six Sigma

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Managers must create and foster an environment that sets the stage for employee success. Six essential factors can guide managers toward a thriving Lean Six Sigma program.

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Six Sigma Culture: Better Processes and Problem-Solving

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CEOs of businesses launching Six Sigma initiatives often say they expect Six Sigma to help create a company culture of continuous improvement, as well as achieve important financial results. Having culture change as an explicit reason for doing Six Sigma is not only laudable, it shows savvy. Experience demonstrates that changing the way work is […]

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Start Now with 10 Keys to Successful Transformation

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There is no need for another survey to confirm what healthcare professionals already know โ€“ healthcare delivery is overdue for a major renovation. New management models and strategies must be adopted that will: Enable quick, sustainable results around immediate issues. Equip teams with solid problem-solving skills and proven best practices. Empower the organization with a […]

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Dispelling Several Myths About Leadership for Change

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It is widely recognized that successfully implementing Six Sigma requires leading and managing change effectively. Today’s manager lives in the paradoxical world of having to simultaneously control day-to-day operations, while encouraging appropriate risk taking. Leading change, especially in successful businesses, is about aligning energy through a compelling vision of the future. The willingness to change […]

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Presentation Development/Delivery Tips for Six Sigma

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While those new to Six Sigma sometimes assume Black Belts and other practitioners constantly sit in front of computers running numbers through statistical software, that is far from the truth. Indeed, everyone involved in Six Sigma spends much more time interacting with their fellow employees and managers. And, with some regularity, those interactions are in […]

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Managing Change to a Continuously Improving Culture

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When evolving a culture of continuous process improvement using associated methodologies such as Six Sigma or Lean, the ultimate goal is to improve business performance. An important factor is changing the underlying culture of an organization. It is important to define culture in terms of the organization, and to understand its ramifications to the organization. […]

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Knowledge Transfer Is the Key to Lean Six Sigma Culture

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The Lean Six Sigma deployment climate has evolved from one of training internal resources as experts on implementing process improvement projects to a progressive and forward-thinking collective effort facilitating cultural change in an organization. Historically, with a few exceptions in large companies, most financial services organizations are behind in terms of adapting formal, continuous improvement […]

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Teaching Six Sigma Awareness/Methodology in Workplace

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Teaching Six Sigma awareness and methodologies in the workplace is not that different from teaching any process improvement subject. The most important point is to let the audience members know up front that they do not need a master’s degree in statistical analysis. From there, just “keep it simple” and use common, everyday examples to […]

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Basic Strategies for Avoiding and Overcoming Resistance

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The pattern is so predictable as to be universal. A leadership team announces to a company that they are going to launch Lean Six Sigma. The next few months are a blur of activity with executives and their direct reports scrambling to conduct an assessment, plan the deployment and determine how to recruit and allocate […]

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Enabling Culture Change in Healthcare with Six Sigma

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After embarking on a Six Sigma journey, many organizations soon realize that one of the most significant benefits is also one of the most difficult to quantify. It cannot be measured in terms of “Z” scores or analyzed using a box plot. This benefit is the “people value” (no relation to p-value). It is the […]

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Success of Improvement Initiative Depends on People

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Whether it is Lean, DMAIC or DFSS, Six Sigma boils down to improving business processes. And irrespective of the methodology employed or the scientific rigor behind it, every process improvement initiativeย โ€“ if it is to be successfulย โ€“ has to be approved, understood and implemented by people. Given the body of work published about human inertia […]

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Healthcare Quality Initiatives: The Role of Leadership

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A distinguished panel of healthcare executives recently shared their thoughts on the importance of leaders taking an active and visible role in their organization’s quality initiatives. They also agreed on the need for organizations to develop the right management systems and structures to adequately support their quality efforts, measure outcomes and encourage accountability. Speaking on […]

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Overcoming the Challenges to Project Realization

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Black Belt project would end with a concise set of action items being turned over to the transition owner who would then swiftly implement them and achieve the desired results. But for many Six Sigma practitioners in transactional environments, simply handing off the project does not guarantee that the gains will be realized. Even in […]

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Why a Quality Management System in Service Industries?

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In every organization, both management and the general workforce tend to resist change, whether it be in systems, culture or environment. That is naturalย โ€“ people are usually happy to continue with what they have always done. The change brought about by the introduction of a quality management system (QMS)ย โ€“ particularly in service industriesย โ€“ is no […]

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People Complexity

People Complexity Can Require a Special Roadmap

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The DMAIC toolkit is excellent for solving technical complexity problems. However, you may have noticed that Lean Six Sigma is not as adept at helping solve people problems. The solution is an integrated DMIAC/change management roadmap.

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