Month: April 2007

Michael Cyger has been on an office cleaning frenzy lately, giving away books for trivia ¦ I thought I’d do a little spring cleaning myself. I’ve got five Cox-Box wall calendars sitting on my shelf when they should be hanging up in your office.  I’ll send one calendar out to the first five people to email […]

Most methodologies warn against the use of part time resources as project leaders. This is more so true with Blackbelts. However, the Army has a unique situation with the Army Reserves. These are true full time members who serve up to a total of 38 days per year. Couple that with the fact that most […]

Six Sigma critics are right about one of their chief complaints: the program is a re-packaging of a lot of tools and ideas that have been around for a long time. Personally I don’t think that’s a bad thing, since many of the ideas that have been re-packaged were languishing before. Regardless of where the […]

In preparation for an award I am accepting for being a pioneer in the CPM (Corporate Performance Management) and BI space for the work done infusing the balanced scorecard (BSC) methodology prior to our deployment of lean six sigma (LSS) , I started thinking about how many blank faces I see when I start talking […]

The IBM Institute for Business Value released a study earlier this year entitled “Driving operational innovation using Lean Six Sigma.” This study showcases how three companies – Caterpillar, POSCO, and Scottish Power have elevated Lean Six Sigma to do more than improve processes and reduce costs: Although CEOs might instinctively think of management approaches such […]

Hi Blogosphere, I’ve recently taken a big decision. It’s important to know that it is totally the right decision but it was also a big decision. You know when you make a decision sometimes you agonise over it and, as BBs, we often spend weeks gathering data to ensure we’ve absolutely, statistically verified that the […]

One of the most recent moves to engage the leadership in Business Transformation is to have the Project Sponsors brief/present BB/GB projects to the Deployment Directors/Senior Leadership. The strategy is a great way to change the old thought process of “kicking the can down the road” or “maintaining the status quo” until the next bloke […]

When you are just started to work on a new project, as Six Sigma professional you are conditioned not to jump to conclusions and let the data and facts guide you to process improvements. However, by asking yourself two simple questions at the start of such an improvement initiative, you be able to get a […]

Reading Robin Barnwell’slastest post, I was reminded of a conversation I had recently regardingstandard work in our own projects. When our Black Belts share their experiences, it’s really interesting to seehow parts of the project structure are valued differently by each individual. Let me give you an example. We have a guideline for rapid improvement […]

Jessica Harper (managing editor of iSixSigma Magazine), Michael Marx (iSixSigma’s research manager) and I will be in warm Scottsdale, Arizona, May 7-10. If you’re looking to escape the weather and be (almost) guaranteed warm days and sunny skies, then consider joining us in Scottsdale for the ISSSP Six Sigma Leadership Conference. This year I vowed […]

I recently had an opportunity to talk with someone involved in a manufacturing deployment. What struck me was how different their deployment was to ours. This worried me into thinking we were somehow doing it wrong and not doing real Lean Six Sigma. I think I have now rationalised the experience and here is what […]

Last week I joined several of my colleagues in Chicago to participate in the Conference Board’s 2007 Six Sigma Leadership Conference. More than 115 Six Sigma leaders gathered to network and learn more about how companies are “Leveraging Lean and Traditional Six Sigma to Optimize Business Process Delivery.” Mike Kirby, Deputy Under Secretary of the […]

I’ve been having some conversations about belts with my colleagues. Officially, we have “Lean Green Belts” (learn Lean Six Sigma basics, facilitate Lean Kaizen events) and “Six Sigma Black Belts” (know both Lean & Six Sigma, facilitate Lean & Six Sigma projects, coach & mentor Green Belts). We had “Yellow Belts” for a while – […]

Successful operations planning can be a powerful cost reduction and organizational development strategy to help define resources and processes needed to sustain the project’s business outcome after control phase, especially in the contact center space. The black/green belts should not keep the responsibility for the product after delivery, nor be listed anywhere in the control […]

Lean Six Sigma for Contact Centers Once your improvements have implemented, the next step is to ensure sustainability of your results through tools like the Control plan & FMEA.To ensure a smooth transitionto your Contact Center Process Owner, the black/green belt should takea more hands-on approach than one may be used to in the transactional […]

Theterm “Mission Creep” with the Military can be applied to “Scope Creep” in a LSS Project. The constant tension to solve problems has to be tempered with the fact that many problems are “Elephants” that need to be eaten one bite a time. The issue of Mission/Scope Creep boils down to being able to define […]

This could be you! Are you a small or medium-sized business that’s seen great results with Six Sigma or process improvement tools? Do you rely on “Six Sigma thinking” to improve the customer experience? We’re looking for a company that would be an inspiration to other small and medium-sized businesses to feature in an article […]

In two previous blogs, I wrote about intersections between Six Sigma, internal control and data quality. By way of background information, my department performs compliance functions, where we monitor information delivered by third parties and created through internal operations. For example, we receive property-address information and derive new information like geospatial position through “geocoding” processes. […]

Wiley Publishing, Inc. was kind enough to send me a few copies of the new Lean for Dummies book, hot off the presses.

Part two in a two part series on First-Call Resolution. Read Part one, Inputs Driving Poor First-Call Resolution Here’s how to get started with a Six Sigma project: Step 1. Define: Conduct an information-seeking drill-down with SME’s (Subject Matter Experts) who are proven resources in the center. This can help determine the objective and scope […]

Meridian Gold finds and produces gold with its mining operations in Chile as well as a pipeline of exploration projects throughout the Americas. While continuous improvement is nothing new to the El Peñón mine, they recently began using Six Sigma in their Operational Excellence initiative: Edgar Smith, Meridian’s Vice President of Operations, commented, “I am […]

Part one in a two part series on First-Call Resolution For most contact centers, nearly one-third of inbound calls are repeat callers who weren’t satisfied the first time, and more often than not, the antiquated switches that contact centers leverage, just do not do that great of a job reporting on the true FCR (First-Call […]