Chapter 17

Ten Places to Go for Help

In This Chapter

Tapping into a wealth of knowledge and experience

Using the power of the Web

Considering software applications

Joining a community of interest and developing a network

Sometimes Lean Six Sigma seems a bit daunting. But don’t worry, plenty of help and good experience exists if you know where to look. In this chapter we show you where to find all the advice and resources you need.

Your Colleagues

A well-managed transformation supported by Lean Six Sigma relies on excellent leadership, teamwork and support being available for everyone involved across the organisation through an internal network.

The senior team need to really show their support through their active involvement in the journey, perhaps taking on the role of Champion or ensuring resources are provided and supported for the transformation projects.

Every project deserves a good sponsor, or ‘champion’. When things get tough, as most projects do from time to time, your project champion is a good source of help. Your champion supports your project team, helps unblock project barriers and assists you when you need buy-in at a more senior level in your organisation. And, of course, they are there to help ensure things stay on track.

Support can also be offered through a spectrum of different coloured ‘belts’; for example, Black Belts supporting Green Belts. Ideally, Black Belts will be able to call on support from Master Black Belts who are professional experts in Lean Six Sigma, but in smaller organisations this support may be outsourced to a specialist Lean Six Sigma practitioner.

The ‘belt’ terminology isn’t mandatory, by the way. Many organisations just use terms such as ‘practitioner’ and ‘expert’ instead of Green Belt and Black Belt.

It’s also essential that everyone does what they say they will do and commits to what’s been signed up to on the transformation charter.

Being able to access this kind of support network is important. You probably already know that a big difference exists between using a tool in a training environment and operating in the real world, where your first port of call for help is usually your own colleagues.

Other Organisations

Every year, the number of organisations deploying Lean Six Sigma increases. Over time, the combination of tools and techniques may have changed, but the essentials of using a systematic method, focusing on understanding customer requirements and improving processes are well tried and tested. Visiting some other organisations and learning from their experiences is well worthwhile. You may not be able to look deep inside your competitors’ businesses, but you can discover lots by visiting similar-sized companies in different sectors. Industry and government special-interest groups are a good source of help and often arrange visits for groups to observe companies at work. If you have the chance to visit a Toyota plant, for example, in just a few hours you’ll learn a lot about the cultural approach that forms the basis for continuous improvement and Lean thinking in general.

The American Productivity and Quality Center is a useful source for considering the process architecture you might need, and their generic level 1, 2 and 3 process models also provide a helpful framework for benchmarking with other organisations.

At least some of your projects are likely to be using the framework of Quality Function Deployment, where benchmarking data will be essential in your unfolding product or process design.

The Internet

Following are some of our favourite websites devoted to Lean Six Sigma and associated improvement approaches, but there are lots more to delve into by using your search engine:

• www.asq.org: The site for the American Society for Quality, offering very comprehensive online resources and publications.
• www.catalystconsulting.co.uk and www.enablingresults.com: The authors’ own websites, regularly updated with new articles.
• www.efqm.org: Full of useful material and a link into the knowledge library of the European Foundation for Quality Management – essential for anyone serious about developing quality and excellence across an entire organisation.
• www.isssp.com: Dedicated to Six Sigma, with plenty of articles.
• www.isixsigma.com: The number one (US-focused) Six Sigma website, with bulletin boards, job ads and links – for addicts only.
• www.qualitydigest.com: A useful online magazine on quality.
• www.qfdi.org: The site for the Quality Function Deployment (QFD) Institute. QFD is an approach to really understanding customer requirements and linking these to processes, products and services; it’s often used when Lean Six Sigma companies want to design new products and services. QFD is an additional tool used in Design for Six Sigma (DfSS).
• www.goldratt.com: This website focuses on the Theory of Constraints, an approach to help manage and reduce process bottlenecks.
• www.shingoprize.org: This website provides information about the Shingo Prize Model^™ and award.
• www.nist.gov/baldrige: This website provides information about the Baldrige model and award.

Social Media

Here’s a resource that continues to grow and provide a wealth of information. Put your key words into a search engine, for example ‘policy deployment’, and you’ll find all sorts of sites to look at. You can also view a host of videos on sites such as YouTube.

Maybe you can find someone to follow on Twitter, too, or perhaps you can start something yourself.

LinkedIn is an excellent source of information related to Lean Six Sigma transformations. Several Lean Six Sigma groups enable you to network with practitioners and champions.

Networks and Associations

You can find all sorts of networks and associations relating to Lean Six Sigma. Some networks offer online and offline services to encourage collaboration and knowledge exchange between members, and often hold regular members’ meetings.

For example, i&i is a European community of practice for business improvement and innovation. To avoid any ‘selling’ connotations, this network doesn’t permit consultancy organisations to become members.

National and regional quality associations such as the American Society for Quality (ASQ), the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) and the British Quality Foundation (BQF) provide opportunities to share good, and not so good, practice through meetings, visits to businesses, conferences, workshops and online resources, although these aren’t dedicated purely to Lean Six Sigma. The EFQM provides an extensive knowledge library to members offering insights into the approaches used in different organisations.

Conferences

Lean Six Sigma conferences are a regular feature of the conference calendar these days. Conference organisers hold Lean Six Sigma ‘summits’ every year at different locations around the world. These summits provide a range of mainstream speakers, smaller workshops and networking, and informal discussions regarding every aspect of Lean Six Sigma. Whether you’re just starting out or want to keep up with the latest thinking and new developments, these summits are a great source of information.

Books and Publications

A wide range of books covers strategy and its deployment; you can even find books focusing solely on the X Matrix, for example. We don’t feel able to recommend any one book in particular, other than Lean Six Sigma For Dummies (Wiley), of course, which provides the additional information you’re likely to need to fully utilise this book.

Rather, we suggest you take a look at what’s available, perhaps taking advantage of Amazon’s ‘look inside’ feature so that you can get a better sense of the content. That said, The Team Handbook (Third Edition), by Peter R. Scholtes, Brian L. Joiner and Barbara J. Streibel (Oriel Inc.), focuses on both soft skills and managing a team and is thus worth a look.

Periodicals

Several journals are devoted to Lean and Six Sigma, including:

• International Journal of Six Sigma and Competitive Advantage – keeps at the forefront of Six Sigma developments
• Quality World – the magazine of the Chartered Quality Institute in the UK, with regular features on Lean Six Sigma
• Six Sigma Forum – a specialist magazine of the American Society for Quality (ASQ)
• UK Excellence – the magazine of the British Quality Foundation, with regular features on Lean Six Sigma

Software

You can certainly start down the Lean Six Sigma road without having to invest in specialist software, but as your journey proceeds you may want to enhance your toolkit with statistical and other software. In this section, we mention a few of our essentials.

One area of Lean Six Sigma where we recommend not using software, especially when starting out, is value stream mapping and process deployment flowcharting. For this, we suggest that you map the process using sticky notes, a pencil and a large piece of paper pinned to the wall.

That said, if you do decide to use software for process or value stream mapping, consider Visio from Microsoft, iGraphix (www.igrafx.com), SmartDraw (www.smartdraw.com) or FlowMap (www.flowmap.com). Lots of other software options are also available, so just see what suits you.

Statistical analysis

Most everyday mortals use only a fraction of the full capability of their spreadsheet program such as Excel. These programs are good at statistical analysis – but because they weren’t designed specifically for this purpose, producing even the most basic Pareto chart without help from a kind soul who’s produced a template for this purpose is surprisingly challenging.

Fortunately you can find several plug-ins for your spreadsheet program to help you perform Pareto analysis, and slice and dice your data quickly and easily without having to design your own template.

Microsoft provides a useful data analysis ‘Toolpak’ for Excel, which has been extended with the latest versions. For more complex statistical analysis, try the Excel plug-in SigmaXL, which lets you produce a variety of displays including SIPOCs, cause and effect diagrams, Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) and several types of control chart, as well as a comprehensive range of statistical tools.

Most Black Belts and Master Black Belts favour Minitab ® Statistical Software. This package has been around for many years and is a favourite of universities and colleges teaching statistics. Minitab is a very comprehensive statistical analysis package designed for serious statistical analysis. Don’t try it at home without some serious training as part of an advanced Green Belt or full Black Belt course.

JMP ® Statistical Discovery Software is another package gaining in popularity for use in the world of Lean Six Sigma. It links statistics to a highly visual graphic representation, allowing you to visually explore the relationships between process inputs and outputs, and then to identify the key process variables.

For more advanced statistical and predictive modelling, take a look at Crystal Ball from Oracle. This popular bit of software is good for forecasting, simulation, and evaluating optimisation options.

Deployment management

For large-scale deployments, consider forming a project library and use tracking software to help you and your colleagues across the organisation manage and report on projects. Similarly, the strategy deployment process, when deployed across multi-division/cross-functional organisations, can benefit from enabling software systems. Software packages such as those from i-Nexus and Instantis are designed specifically for this purpose, and are well worth investigating as your deployment grows across the organisation.

Training and Consultancy Companies

A wide range of specialist training and consulting companies provide services for clients in the Lean Six Sigma arena. In your quest for training, you’ll find a few global players and lots of smaller specialists and one-person bands.

When you choose a training and consulting partner, try to use the ‘quality × acceptance’ equation. You want your trainer to have excellent technical skills, but also consider how well they would work with your organisation. Will your organisation’s culture accept the trainer/consultant? Will the trainer/consultant instil confidence and provide all the services you require?

In our experience, few organisations bother to check suppliers’ references. But unlike choosing a partner or spouse, in business asking previous clients how well the partnership worked is fine! Working over a long period with a training and consulting company is a bit like a marriage – shared values are a good foundation for belief, integrity, respect, trust and honesty.