Six Sigma Revitalization: How to Put the Zing Back in Your Performance Excellence Program

By Phil Samuel, Vice President and Engagement Partner at BMG

As the face of business continues to change, so do the performance excellence programs that drive growth. The days of simply increasing efficiencies and reducing costs are gone. Companies are instead looking to performance excellence initiatives to help them drive top-line growth and innovation, reduce waste across the board, develop and nurture talent and shorten product development lifecycles.

But simply training more belts and shouting louder for more support isn't going to get you there. Instead, companies are integrating multiple methodologies together to weave the concepts of performance excellence directly into the fabric of their business. The benefits of this more comprehensive approach are compelling, such as: greater opportunities to meet and exceed margin and ROI expectations, stronger change acceleration processes and stronger client growth.

Indicators that your program is in need of revitalization:

• Your company has not revisited its initial approach over the last three years.
• Your Black Belts aren't performing at the expected success rate.
• Projects often lack discipline and simply don't add up to great results.
• Less than 25% of employees even know about your program.
• You are seeing a limited impact on your company's business strategies and goals.
• Your organization has not been able to link performance objectives with project results.
• Your program is limited to traditional Six Sigma and does not include any work in Lean, Workout or other methodologies.
• There appears to be no or limited process management focus.
• You see additional opportunities for metrics and measurements but are not sure how to get there.
• You have had limited success in integrating your initiatives with your business culture.

Nine Elements of Revitalization

• I. Current State Evaluation -- What are you doing now and how is your program integrated today? You may be using Six Sigma, Lean, Enterprise Resource Planning, Supply Chain Integration or any of many other approaches. Your efforts may or may not be integrated, and they may be deployed globally or inside pockets of the organization. The question you need to ask is, are you using each methodology to its fullest potential? And, are they integrated and performing at optimal levels? If not, what may make better sense given your current situation and your goals? The answers to these questions lead naturally to the ability to develop and drive a roadmap and identify priorities.
• II. Project Selection Process Review -- How are you selecting projects today? Think about your existing approaches to project selection and how do they link to your business strategy, operations and customer processes. A disciplined project selection process is critical to the success of any performance excellence initiative. When projects are improperly scoped and selected, it can poison even the most well-intentioned efforts and lead to a failure of the entire program. Therefore, it is important to optimize how your company selects and scopes projects for execution, making sure they tie directly into the strategic intent of the organization. If your project selection process is hampering your company's potential for improvement, we will look at the methods you use today to make project selection decisions. We can review your project pipeline, comparing it with best practices. And we'll give you an analysis of how you can better manage your project portfolio for better results against established business objectives.
• III. Alignment and Linkage -- How well are your key leaders and process owners aligned and linked to your performance improvement strategy? You may have started your program by getting the right people involved, but over time how has that changed? Maybe there are new leaders who have joined the organization but who are not familiar with, and may be hampering, your performance excellence programs. Or perhaps it is simply time for everyone to re-connect and discuss the desired outcomes and roles inside your organization. In any case, people have to be aligned in accordance with an organization's performance improvement strategy. We can help you take an objective look at whether you have the right personnel engaged in your program to make the impact of performance programs last. We can also provide insight on how you may want to tweak your rewards and recognition approach to achieve better overall results.
• IV. Project Execution and Results -- Just how well are your current projects doing? While project success means something different to every company and project, there are some universal standards you can apply to see how you are doing compared to others. For example, are your projects meeting or exceeding industry averages? How many projects do you have in the cue from certain business areas? And what are the estimated savings of these projects? Also, do you replicate successful projects across the business, and if not why? What sort of controls and sustainability levels do your current projects have? Taking a hard look here will give you insight and clues to improving your ability to execute performance improvement projects of any nature (Lean, Six Sigma, Innovation, etc.).
• V. Knowledge Transfer -- How well is performance improvement knowledge transferred and customized across your business and culture? How and who you train is important. Simply training belts without giving them direct mentoring support, or ways to refresh their skills, could be hazardous to your performance improvement health. Mapping out the current state of your training process will reveal if the training process itself is flawed in some way, assuming you are not getting the results you expected. Some questions covered: Are your black belts full or part time? What role do champions play and what is their interaction like with black belts? What education has your leadership team received regarding the process and expected outcomes? Is there any awareness or team training for your overall employee base? Answers to these questions shed light on where improvements can be made.
• VI. People/Leadership Development -- How are you attracting, developing and retaining employees throughout your program? Different companies have varied approaches for gauging the success of their recruiting and practitioner development efforts. Companies that are not committed to truly recruiting and developing their top talent often find their inattention results in poorer performance. We can help you tend the flock by evaluating your process for selecting people and how well it is working. We look at how you gauge practitioner competency, and we examine your ongoing talent development process, looking for lost opportunities.
• VII. Communication -- What is your process for communicating information about your program to all of your employees and with what results? This is often a sticky topic for companies. Making a large announcement at the launch of a program can cause fear, uncertainty and doubt across the rank and file. But not announcing anything or doing it poorly can also cause confusion and drive the rumor mill. The right time and way to talk about Six Sigma is highly dependent on the company and its culture. But revitalizing your efforts will require an analysis of your internal communication process. How and when are you talking about performance improvement to employees, shareholders, clients and analysts? Are you conversing with your supply chain about your efforts and trying to get their involvement? And in what ways do you share stories about your success with others?
• VIII. Culture -- How is your deployment viewed today by your employees? Since company culture drives a great deal of your program's success or failure, it's critical to look at how others perceive and talk about your program and its success in the enterprise. Are the process excellence team members seen as elitists? Data hounds? Fire fighters? Ideally, your process improvement team should be viewed as future leaders and enablers for cost reduction and revenue generation. If this is not the case, it may take some work to turn that around.
• IX. Metrics - What are the measurements your company is using to drive business? The choices for measuring success are many and there is no right answer on which metrics are the best to use. The only requirement for success is that your team does use metrics and that they agree universally on what they are. Traditionally, companies measure success in a combination of these four ways: financial, customer, process and people/systems metrics. By looking at how you gauge success we can more clearly see and advise on what should be the next steps.
  

  These nine areas of focus require more than a simple discussion. If you are facing a revitalization challenge, you may want some assistance. BMG's team of consultants can help you identify areas for improvement and prioritize so you can get your program back on track as soon as possible.

For more information, contact Jodee Bennett, Breakthrough Management Group Inc., www.BMGi.com, or call 1-800-4-6-Sigma.

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