Sigma projects for Supervisors/Managers?

Deja vu. Hmmm…Troy, see Scott’s post Feb 13.

While I agree with Jsev, I want to take it a little further. This is a classic example of not knowing what the end goal is. Obviously management has a vision or they would not have set parameters to follow, however the process by which to get there was not “road mapped”. It appears that while trying to embrass, you are also just trying to “get it done” in hopes it will go away.
One way to approach management about projects is, “If the fix or improvement to a problem is known, then it is not a full project”, but rather a “Quick Fix” and should be chartered as such. Too many times manager fall into the rut following the DMAIC process and fail to realize that the end result is easy to attain. Now that doesn’t mean you don’t have to do some ground work to prove it, just means the problem is not as complex as to become a full blown project.
Additionally Troy, this is a culture change, in order to be a change agent you must fully embrace the concept that Six Sigma is the way to achieve manufacturing bliss. As corny as it sounds, attitude is 95% of battle.

I am curious on how your projects are being selected.  Properly selected projects should be addressing “pains” within the organization with the overall goal of making everyone’s job easier and more effective. The people working on these projects are more likely to be supportive if they can see the benefit down the line.  If the projects are poorly selected AND those working the projects get beat up for the lack of progress and benefits yielded, it could get very nasty.

Troy,
It sounds like, from your post, that you see improvement and your job as two different things and maybe that is because the wrong people are working on the wrong things. First projects should be aligned with what the business needs and wants to accomplish. Assuming projects meet this criteria how can you have the situation you stated:
“Forcing folks to take care of what they were hired for and six sigma projects. Each has to do not only their own job, complete a sigma project and do 2 additional misc tasks six sigma related before taking a mandatory exam.”
If we take that comment and then your other comment:
“I believe these tools were rolled out with someone’s personal goal in mind. This is why the pressure is on to complete x projects in a period of time. Engineer’s portfolio is really project related so these sigma tasks are just another way of executing projects, but for supervisors and managers, this impinges deeply on what we were actually hired for.”
Only engineers were hired to improve things? Very enlightened.
This sounds a lot more like a territorial issue on your part. Let the other people do Lean and leave the real engineering to us engineers. I suppose everyone else isn’t smart enough to improve things?
Life is actually pretty simple. The people running the company do exactly that. It isn’t a democracy and it probably isn’t even a benign dictatorship. If you don’t like the way the company works find another company to work for because basically you are out of alignment with the company. You take their money then you work their programs.
Personally I would think you would be better off supporting all these people who are trying to improve things rather than spending your time peeing on trees.
Just my opinion.
Yes Stevo it is a long answer but I haven’t posted in several of days so the average amount I posted per day is pretty small.

Darth – I only police the length, not the content.  (sounds a little homo-erotic) not that there is anything wrong with that.
Stevo
Ps.  I stopped reading the post way before any mention of peeing.
Pss.  Please no letters.

Steveo,
This isn’t Miami where you get to sit on a couch snooze while Darth rambles endlessly.
A little Ritalin might get you through those posts that are more than 2 paragraphs long. The peeing part was good stuff.