Tag: strategy

Striving to improve should be the prime directive for all business leaders. If organizations do not improve, they run the risk of getting left behind. So the question is: What is the best strategy or approach for improvement? Over the last 20 years, many continuous improvement initiatives have been introduced, but only one seems to […]

A high performance culture is the result of high performance actions. An organization should strive to implement actions which deliver the desired performance and assess the results of these actions on the culture. If these actions are successful, performance targets are achieved and a high-performance culture ensues. The pursuit of performance gains starts with defining […]

A well planned Six Sigma deployment can lead to a rewarding experience and immense benefits for an organization. On the flip side, however, a flawed deployment may lead to disappointing results – the failure of the entire deployment effort, and/or a significant waste of time and resources. There are five problems in Six Sigma deployments, […]

Business could not have been better. Customers were reacting positively to the company’s new and enhanced service portfolio, the company entered the market without much competition and customer satisfaction was at an all-time high. Profitability continued to rise, and the company’s efficiency rate was impressive. But then things changed. New account numbers abruptly fell. Some […]

Some companies approach strategic planning in a way that lends ammunition to those who would question its purpose. Typically, during strategic planning time, executives sequester themselves in a retreat-like setting armed with sales and market projections and some semblance of customer input. The output of this event is a nice, bound presentation that sits on […]

In a conversation with iSixSigma, Nick Brownrigg, the chief executive officer of Masterlease Group, offers his views on managing for results through Lean Six Sigma and Line-of-Sight™ strategy deployment. iSixSigma: Tell us about your business and the competitive challenges you face? Mr. Brownrigg: We provide full vehicle leasing services to businesses and public sector organizations […]

One-agent-at-a-time coaching is the go-to method in call centers for trying to improve center-wide output measures. But it is less valuable than many believe. Through the use of mathematical modeling and simulation, it is possible to see that coaching, even in moderate turnover environments, does not offer a return on investment (ROI). More-effective improvement strategies […]

Organizations often have a strategy and process improvement program in place, but eventually start seeing signs of waning momentum. The organizations experience a familiar realization that it is difficult to sustain improvements. Organizations including hospitals and health systems have encountered similar challenges. It is not easy to launch a major change initiative in healthcare, and […]

Human resource (HR) professionals who have a background or education in basic project management have a clear advantage. Being well versed in an improvement methodology, such as Six Sigma, is even a bigger plus. An HR professional who is able to present a business case with a compelling return on investment will be respected. Having […]

In a well-managed business that has implemented Six Sigma, the organization’s objectives and strategies and continuous improvement are all closely aligned. Organizational objectives enhance the efficacy and importance of Six Sigma initiatives. And Six Sigma specialists can play an integral role in ensuring the execution of strategy. In many organizations, however, there seems to be […]

Developing a strategy is critical for any organization, and equally important is having a mechanism to translate that strategy into action. However, given the complexities of the European market, there is a special need for a business implementing its strategy to allow its local business unit leaders to adjust the tactics to local needs and […]

The ultimate goal of any Lean Six Sigma program is to achieve operation and execution excellence, which can only come about through a well-thought-out and executed deployment governance framework. A governance framework enables an organization to more rapidly implement positive change by establishing team structure, focusing on knowledge transfer and enabling people. With this framework, […]

Many companies which choose not to utilize Lean and Six Sigma as key components of how they implement change in their organization say it is because the methodologies are too complicated for their business environment. They claim that they do not have the time to build an infrastructure, train Black Belts and Green Belts and […]

Many have thought the traditional definition of quality – meeting the desired specifications of the product’s fitness for use – does not apply in the same sense in the service sector as in manufacturing. But a closer look reveals that today’s services, with a little help from technology, are similar to products in the manufacturing industry. […]

We are constantly hearing about change. Change in the political environment, change in the economic environment, change in our personal lives and change in the business environment. Change has become part of everyone’s life. For instance, no one uses a briefcase-sized cell phone anymore, and mimeograph machines have long been relegated to the storage room. […]

Successful corporate initiatives such as Lean Six Sigma require proper planning, prioritization, resource allocation, budgeting, training, and proper review and reward mechanics. These initiatives also must consider the stability, accuracy and maturity of the core processes, measurement systems and the people they will affect. In most organizations there is a wide range of both experience […]

Editor’s note: A longer version of this article was previously published in the September/October 2009 issue of iSixSigma Magazine. When the U.S. Department of Defense opened a Continuous Process Improvement/Lean Six Sigma Program Office in October 2007, the office had no budget, no staff and, in fact, no office space. But it did have a […]

Effective cultural change is not simply the result of a large group of people accepting the arguments of other influential people – it is the sum of the change of that population’s values, operational knowledge and habitual behaviors. Essentially, culture is not changed until a majority of the population is thinking and acting differently from […]

Turning strategic stretch goals into daily behavioral change has never been easy for big companies. While executives talk about customer focus, what passes for intimate financial interactions in a busy call center is often laden with tedious work-arounds, risk-adverse rules, hopelessly complex technical redundancies and platform interactions. At one of the world’s largest mutual fund […]

Some industry analysts and organizational executives have questioned the effectiveness of the balanced scorecard. The tool, introduced by Robert Kaplan and David Norton in 1992 in an article in the Harvard Business Review, is used to articulate to individual employees the organizational goals and objectives set by management. But some modern critics of the balanced […]

Leaders from across the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), including the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and various agencies and activities, will gather Oct. 22 to 23, 2008 in Washington, D.C., to discuss the state of the department’s Lean Six Sigma deployment. The event, named the Breakthrough Convention and produced by iSixSigma Live! is an […]

Businesses need a framework for guiding the mobilization of an organization around its strategic plan. A “roadmap” enables everyone in the business to clearly understand each action and what decisions need to be made, who needs to make them and when.

The new millennium brought a great deal of change in the marketplace. As the financial scandals of the 1990s came to light, new regulations were drafted and put into place to avoid such occurrences in the future. U.S. financial institutions must comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which came on the heels of the Enron scandal, […]

Many organizations that deploy Lean and Six Sigma eventually hit what is referred to as the “performance measurement wall.” These organizations begin with the right intentions, however, the bottom-line results from their Lean and Six Sigma initiatives are often illusionary because they are focused on the wrong targets. One of the major reasons for this […]