Aimee E. Cowher

I’m going to take a slight personal detour before writing more technical guidance of tools.  However, it isn’t completely unrelated to the overall theme of Seek the Art of the Possible or the topics about which I commonly write.  It is important to set goals - personal, professional or even project goals.  Goals give us something to work toward, a means to keep us focused (difficult for those of us with a Low C Predictive Index profile) and a measure to judge success.  Of course, we don’t always achieve our goals, which doesn’t necessarily mean we have failed if we view it as an opportunity to learn, improve and maybe even try again.  So, I am sharing these tangential thoughts because I have just received my certificate for completing the Detroit Free Press Flagstar Marathon.  It is still somewhat surreal to me that I actually ran 26.2 miles, until, of course, the residual pain in my knees and toes without toenails remind me that it, in fact, is a reality.  It isa goal I set on my 30th birthday to run a marathon before turning 40.  That goal I beat by a little over a year.  Once I started training, I set another goal to run it in 4 Hours, 30 mInutes.  Well, that one I didn’t accomplish.  I hung with the 4:30 group thru 18 miles then fell behind.  Considering the challenges I faced in the weeks leading up to the race (pulled calf muscle, bronchitis, sick kids, etc.) I’m satisfied with my performance.  Further, the reaction of my almost-5-year-old daughter when I returned home from the race and she saw the medal around my neck is even more gratifying than finishing - “Mommy, you WON!” and that’s exactly how I feel!  Set goals, stay focused, measure success and learn from failing.  If we can do that personally, professionally, in Six Sigma projects, in the turn-around efforts in businesses and communities, WOW!  Think of the possibilities!

Saludos,

Aimée

 Sticking to the theme “back to breakthrough,” I wanted to share another recent encounter that reminded me of the early days of Six Sigma.  Every August, we host our annual Celebration of Life.  For Gary’s explanation and history of the party see the posting in Miscellaneous Musings.  This year, we were honored by the presence of a long-time colleague of Gary’s, Mike Carnell, who taught me the what good project support looks like.  Thank you, Mike! 

In a previous posting, I said that strategic project selection is the most important job of leadership.  The follow up to good project selection is giving project teams every opportunity to succeed.  This includes picking the right people to lead projects, giving team members time to focus, and providing necessary training and application support. I will comment on each in successive postings but will begin here with what I consider the most important factor of successful projects at the change agent level. 

It takes time and practice to become proficient users of the tools we teach as part of a Lean Six Sigma curriculum.  How much time?  Not as long if we have selected the right people to be change agents using Predictive Index (High A, Low C, Lower D than A).  You can see more on this subject at Gary Cone’s Blog (http://blog.gpsqtc.com) in his May 20, 2008 posting titled, “Getting the Right People on the Bus,” filed under Human Architecture.  Still, there are challenges to use the tools when it comes time to apply them beyond the textbook examples that are worked in training. 

Whether you have internalized your efforts or are using outside resources, project support needs to be provided and by someone who has mastered the toolset.  During the Define phase, a session begins by reviewing the status of the project with the team leader and getting a thorough understanding of the nature of the problem, the baseline performance of primary and secondary metrics, and how the scope of the project was determined.  Ideally, the same person provides ongoing project support so this doesn’t need to be repeated every support session. Often, there is some additional data collection that needs to be implemented immediately. 

In the Measure phase of a project, a team usually needs some facilitation to create the process map and capture all possible sources of variation.  In my experience, teams often get stuck on how much detail to include, what to call an input or output vs. a process step, what format to use, or worse, they want to leap from a fishbone to an action plan.  A good process map will identify where additional data collection is necessary, where in-process capability should be quantified, and what measurement systems are being used and need to be analyzed.   During the analyze and improve phases, a person proficient with the toolset gets creative to streamline data analysis. 

Check out recent and upcoming postings in the Techie Talk category for further insight into the questions that should be asked during project support.  I have started with some of the most commonly misunderstood or abused tools.  I hope you find it helpful if you deliver project support or are a team working without support.  If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to send them my way!

Saludos,

Aimée

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

On a few different occasions, I’ve recently been reminded about my early experiences in Six Sigma.  Two of them, in particular, have caused considerable reflection. Most notably for me is hearing the term “back to breakthrough” and I only wish I could take credit for the term.  That goes to Mike Cyger of iSixSigma who is putting together a conference by that name that has a good chance of 1) creating similar reflection for some old-timers in the Six Sigma community, 2) causing relative newcomers (the masses who have taken the plunge into Six Sigma trying to duplicate the results of GE outside of a strong performance driven culture nurtured) to rethink their approach, regroup and reinvigorate and even a chance of 3) compressing some of the skepticism among naysayers who have avoided Six Sigma (or at least the label because the tools are embedded in most continuous improvement methods!)  Allow me to expand on each.

I still recall the announcement of Six Sigma at AlliedSignal back in 1994 as a means to achieve Operational Excellence^®, a necessary but not necessarily sufficient step in the pursuit of the vision to be “a premier company, distinctive and successful in everything we do.”  Hats off to Larry Bossidy and AlliedSignal leadership marching to the beat of his drum for capitalizing on every opportunity to communicate the vision, link it to strategy and explain that Six Sigma was the tactical plan.  At the time, I wasn’t familiar with the concept of Strategy Deployment but now recognize it as such.  One of the things that made it work, and gets me “back to breakthrough” is that improvement objectives were BHAGs (Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals)  results were expected and leadership was absolutely engaged. 

All Six Sigma projects were expected to deliver a 50% improvement in the primary metric with no degradation in the secondary (cheater) metric.  In the beginning, there was also an aggressive financial target that had to be acknowledged by the controller as hitting the bottom line.  The reported financial savings tended to be conservative as I personally recall not being able to declare cost avoidance as savings.  For example, if you increased capacity but there wasn’t new product filling the void, i.e. building more w/ the same resources, then it didn’t count.  Some would argue the wisdom of this approach but it kept the savings clean and more importantly, built rigor and discipline into project selection that seems to missing in some efforts today. 

Saludos,  Aimée

While enjoying a glass a wine with a colleague a few weeks ago, we were debating the issue “to blog or not to blog.”  Being the newly appointed CEO of her company, she admitted that the sales and marketing group were encouraging her to put up a blog on their website.  She relented that she’d have posted anything worth saying within 6 months and wondered who would read it anyway?  Having been working on the design and intent of this blog for some months, I admit at first it took the wind out of my sail.  Then, I adjusted the rudder (mindset) and decided to regain momentum.

I am so fortunate to have the experience of the last 18 years in industry.  It would be impossible for me to share the collective knowledge of all the brilliant people with whom I have worked in a single lifetime, much less in 6 months.  Besides that, every new experience brings new knowledge and more to share, which is the best part of my work!    As for who will read it, who cares?  I just want to write about it and I hope someone out there finds it useful.  Of course, the knowledge-sharing will be enhanced by those who choose to contribute content.

The intent of this blog is simply to share knowledge as it relates to effecting change, or as a wise executive recently labeled it - seeking the art of the possible.  I look forward to sharing my thoughts on books I have read and hope that others will comment and critique in the Book Babble category.  I will also present insights gained through recent experiences in the area of leadership and strategy (Leadership Lingo and Strategy Speak categories.)  And the engineer in me can’t help but offer technical guidance, starting with the basic tools taught as part of a Six Sigma curriculum that are too often misunderstood, abused, or omitted (Techie Talk.)  Of course, I might offer completely irrelevant but hopefully interesting tidbits in the Miscellaneous Musings.  

By the way, if you’re reading, I do care and welcome your feedback.

Saludos,