Aimee E. Cowher

I’m often asked “what are the absolute ‘must-haves’ for change efforts to be successful?”  I answer that on different levels for leaders and change agents.   If I had to pick one area to focus leadership’s attention to their business process improvement efforts, it would be project selection.  Projects drive everything – the number of projects needed to achieve financial objectives, the people required to work them and the training those people need to achieve improvement goals.  Projects aligned with strategic objectives can create breakthroughs in process performance.  These projects get resourced because of their strategic impact.  We look for the right people to assign to these projects and we make sure they have the tools to succeed.  Too often, the approach is reversed – companies start with a plan to do training (Lean, Six Sigma, DFSS, etc.,) people volunteer for the training, and then, participants are told they’ll need a project.  It’s a classic case of the tail wagging the dog.  And then, leadership wonders why they are getting less than breakthrough results.  Strategy–driven project selection leads to the right people being trained with the right tools (which should be the simplest tools to accomplish the task; more on this in a successive posting…)  Leadership needs to be involved in project selection and then needs to remain engaged in reviewing the progress of projects, breaking down barriers and expecting results.  This is one way to get “back to breakthrough” and I am hopeful that we will hear more on this topic at the isixsigma conference being held in Miami in January 2009.  Find the details at:  http://live.isixsigma.com/events/summit/miami/2009/default.html

Saludos, 

Aimée

Tags: Breakthrough Results, Business Process Improvement, DFSS, iSixSigma, Lean, Six Sigma, Strategy