Top 10 Program Mistakes that Six Sigma (Green Belt ) Programs Make

Legacy Blog from Sun Microsystems:  https://blogs.oracle.com/dmular_itil/https://blogs.oracle.com/dmular_itil/ 

Karl D. Williams ran a great article in iSixSigma.com called the Top 10 Program Mistakes Software Green Belts in Training Make . His process influences were steeped in traditional experience including CMM, CMMI, and a Master Six Sigma Black Belt and has performed over 160 customized assessments at over 100 organizations in 19 countries.

The link takes you to his top 10.. 

In this blog, I will explore those favorite lessons that I experienced on my road to Green Belt.

Not Exploring All the Educational Resources

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Too often we neglect taking the training to apply to our work-- training is more of a time based goal than a just in time training to apply to problem solving. Make the most of your time by getting the certificate-- it feels a lot like those 'lather-rinse-repeat' directions on a shampoo-- sure it gets your hair clean but when do you stop repeating?

The net result of trying to learn CMM, ITIL, Six Sigma, or PRINCE2 is that you might have a certificate but still not able to solve problems, so please use context to 'try' and challenge your understanding of the educational resources at hand.

Candidates willing to expend any effort towards applying learning materials to the betterment of their deliverables earn a more expansive grasp of the process intent.

Denial of Application in the Participant’s Workplace
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Requirements without logic will be ignored or half heartedly supported, simply for lack of understanding. The WHY of training and process methodology is not to give a certificate but to give a flexible model for solving problems and doing business better. If your 'WHY' doesn't include this, people will reject Six Sigma for seemingly good business reasons, where, if explored more deeply we would likely learn it is not that Sigma 'takes too long', but that it 'takes to long' to get people to understand the 'WHY' to the approach and the 'WHAT' it delivers.

Process Methodologies solve more problems, better, by not force fitting, but championing the logic. We must be better champions of our logic, our partnership and our approach.

Wanting to Move into Measure and Analyze Phases Before Define Is Solid
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This is one of my biggest learnings... and a bridge.. Remember above the logic of 'paralysis analysis'? Where it takes too long to get to a solution. Equal balance is spending only light homage to the Definition Phase.. It happens when an eagerness to force fit the 'Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control phases into a preselected quick fix, before really understanding the definition.

Case in Point: We used a DMAIC method to roll out our an ITIL Configuration Management Project. Breezing through 'Define' in no time, and besides if 'Define and Measure/Analyze' are essentially the same, then the real action comes when you 'Design' or 'Improve' the design. We learned somewhere in Improve to really challenge our assumptions, as the process weaknesses did not support the Defined Method. Yes we had roles and responsibilities, a tool, a database and clear data, but really missing was an end to end 'strategy' for how to manage and control data as part of the environment of change.

We ended up at the 'Improve' stage making a recommendation to switch to 'DMADV' on the basis that we wanted to do more than just improve a broken process, we needed to define a roles based, systems controlled configuration management process.

Our implementation of DMADV took not much more time than the DMAIC, but the clearly defined roles and responsibilities saved millions in the approach for data management by leveraging the data in configuration to improve other processes-- hardware, application, and service management processes.

RESOURCES: 

• 101 things a Green Belt Should Know : iSixSigma.com
• Six  Sigma Black Belt Curriculum and Body of Knowledge: iSixSigma.com by Charles Waxer
• Six Qualities of Successful Greenbelts: iSixSigma.com by Mike Reback

Dawn C Khan :   LinkedIn   |   Twitter  |