European Business Improvements

There has been a lot of talk recently of what makes a good black belt and what we should demand of both a green belt and black belt project in terms of financial savings to the bottom line. I was having a little decision about this with Mark Rewhorn (aka Sparky at European Business Improvements forum)and came up with a different view on targets for the first phase project(s) and would like to share with you the one of the many strange thoughts I have.

I have over the last 12 months been involved in the deployment and implementation of six sigma into my organisation. I have had mixed results but can see light at the end of the tunnel. I have sat down and asked myself why the mixed results;

1. I did a text book training programme with every senior manager receiving a 2 hour overview, there were then 8 attendees on the 2 day champions course, all senior people I might add, I arranged for 6 green belts to be trained, I did my black belt conversion course and to top it off I arranged for 10 post training days support.
2. I did a lot of work in terms of establishing a list of projects, only at a recognise stage, using tools and techniques that identified a number of projects worth considering.
3. The belts were all chosen based on capability and knowledge of processes within the business.
4. I discussed with every champion the role and responsibilities required of them, I also arranged meetings with the belts and champions for an informal chat about the projects and also offered my 100% support.

So, why the mixed results? I have come to the conclusion that one reason was that we did not get early wins at the start. The fact we spent months defining is another topic for another newsletter. I think that if we had taken some early wins, the six sigma message would have spread throughout the organisation and would have resulted in more people throughout the organisation wanting a part of it.

So then I ask myself why, and I keep saying to myself, it was the project targets and the project timeframes. Normally you would expect a project to run for approx 6 months, this was the norm suggested to me on my training. I think it is too long, so if I were to implement six sigma again, I would cherry pick some of the tools and techniques and set my belts some more realistic targets over a 1 or 2 month period. This would see small improvements to the bottom line, build the belts confidence for them to take on a more challenging project with more financial benefits and keep the six sigma message in “your face”, as results would be more frequent.

Now the six sigma purists might, or will, say that what I have said is not a six sigma project, and I guess I could agree. But I would then say if my 7 belts all made a £5k saving each in the first 1 to 2 months of going live I would have paid for the training costs. So, if my second phase of projects took a little longer using more of the tools, I will double the savings to £10k for another 3 months of project work.