prerequisite for achieving sustained change. Consensus does not mean that everyone is in absolute agreement, nor that everyone thinks the proposal is the preferred approach. Rather, consensus implies that the parties are will- ing to accept the proposal in spite of the differences of opinion that might exist. A good question to ask the stakeholders in order to gauge the level of consensus is: ‘‘Can you live with it?’’ Differences in viewpoint are accepted, and can be reconciled with Six Sigma’s analytical tools. In this way, achieving consensus allows the team to move forward, so the merits of the proposal can be proven through sound data-driven analysis. Alternatives to consensus such as majority voting, arbitrary flipping of a coin, or ex- changing of votes for reciprocal votes (bartering) undermine the team’s re- sults and must be avoided.
The easiest way to achieve consensus is through the proper use and analysis of data. This so-calleddata-driven decision makingremoves the subjectivity of decisions. Opinions are replaced by supported facts. Of course, gathering and analyzing data takes time, so management must give teams enough time to be thorough. Fortunately every decision does not require extensive fact-finding, and proper use of DMAIC tools will provide guidance.
Three tools useful for building consensus are:
The affinity diagram, which provides a means to generate a collection of ideas about a proposal, then summarize the ideas in terms of categories.
The nominal group techniqueis simply a means of reducing a large collection of ideas into a workable number of key ideas.
The prioritization matrixallows us to prioritize our options according to weighted criteria.
Each of these tools helps obtain consensus by systematically reducing a large number of disparate ideas into a smaller group of items that can be managed or analyzed.
the team. This role-playing undermines the authority of the team leader, and circumvents the team’s progress. It is important for the team leader to effec- tively enforce ground rules during this stage. Failure to enforce the ground rules can prevent the team from moving forward to the norming stage, and it can result in project failure.
In thenorming stage, the team begins to make some progress. Team members allow themselves and each other to reach a stage of independent thinking, which allows them to effectively collaborate on problem solving and analysis.
In theperforming stage, the team has realized gains and feels confidence and pride as a result. They are performing as a lean, mean team.
Within the group dynamics, it is not uncommon for team members to pe- riodically, even subconsciously, assume counterproductive roles, such as those shown in Table 4.1 (Pyzdek, 2003). The team leader and members should be aware of these easily recognizable roles, which are often prevented through enforcement of the ground rules previously discussed.
Team leaders should concentrate on practicing effective facilitation tech- niques, particularly when disagreements arise. Emotions must be kept in check.
Facilitators must foster respectful communication among the team members.
They need to remain neutral, so that they continue to have the trust of all team members. Avoid judgmental language, sarcasm, or nonverbal gestures that
Table 4.1. Counterproductive team roles.
Role Description
Aggressor Attacks values, feelings, or ideas Blocker Persists on resolved issues;
resists consensus Recognition-seeker Boasts
Confessor Airs personal opinions
Playboy Shows lack of commitment, jokes around Dominator Asserts authority, manipulates
Help-seeker Evokes sympathy
Special-interest pleader Shows interest in own group only
might insult or intimidate others. Effective facilitators will ensure that all par- ticipants have an opportunity to contribute. Sometimes real effort is required to draw out the quiet participants or to quiet the overbearing participants.
Black Belts learn a variety of focusing tools to lead teams from disarray and disagreement to order and consensus. Focusing on data, rather than opinions, is particularly helpful.
To maintain neutrality when discussion becomes heated, it is sometimes helpful to slow the frenzy and ensure that the points of disagreement are clear to all. In this way, misinterpretation can be resolved or minority voices heard.
An effective method of doing this is to help the team develop a clear list of advantages and disadvantages for each option. Keep the focus on the specific problem at hand. Help team members remove opinions and attitudes that cloud or prejudice the issues. At the least, develop a consensus on the points that need to be addressed for the issue to be resolved.
When team authority is not recognized, usually by those outside the team, then the stakeholders may not have been properly identified. Often, team authority is questioned by groups or individuals who feel they are not re- presented on the team and refuse to contribute as a result. It may be that they are indeed represented, but they have not been brought up to speed on the team’s mission. These problems can be prevented through proper communi- cation throughout the stakeholder groups. When stakeholders refuse to contribute or actively block progress, sponsors may need to discuss these is- sues with the individuals outside of the team setting.
Power struggles can also occur in teams, usually when more senior mem- bers of an organization decide to ‘‘flex their muscle’’ or if two groups in the organization have competing interests. The ground rules, discussed at the initial meeting, should be referenced and enforced to prevent escalation of these struggles. Data-driven consensus-based decision making often under- cuts these power struggles. Creating an environment where all members par- ticipate prevents certain team members from dominating the discussions.
It may sound silly, but too much agreement may be a bad thing. Conflict can be good. A healthy dose of skepticism may find a problem before it be- comes a headache. Respectful differences of opinion can help the brain- storming process uncover new methods or discover old problems that haven’t been addressed.
In summary, the following issues regarding team development and con- sensus building should be recognized:
Projects cannot succeed without a team effort by the affected stakeholders.
Team members have responsibility to ensure team performance.
The team leader must establish and enforce ground rules.
CHAPTER 4 Define Stage 79
Buy-in is crucial; consensus builds buy-in.
Responsible team management leads to successful project management.
Recommended Tools
The following tools (discussed in detail in Part 3) are applicable to the define stage of DMAIC:
Project Selection and Definition
Matrix diagramsandprioritization matrices are used to select projects that are aligned with the company goals and objectives.
Work breakdown structureis used to define a manageable project scope.
Pareto diagramshelp identify significant opportunities.
Process mapsprovide a visual means to define the process and identify stakeholders.
SIPOCidentifies the process activities, key inputs and outputs, and stakeholders.
Project Scheduling
Activity network diagram calculates a deterministic critical path.
PERT analysis allows critical path determination assuming variation in time estimates.
Gannt charts manage the project milestone dates.
Consensus Building
Affinity diagrams provide a means to generate a collection of ideas about a proposal, then converge on useful categories of issues.
Nominal group technique reduces a large collection of ideas into a workable number of key ideas.
Prioritization matrix prioritizes options according to weighted criteria.
Quiz for Chapter 4
1. A Black Belt has been asked to put together a proposal for solving a particular customer problem. In doing so, she determines that the
problem is quite widespread, with many manifestations and causes.
As a result, her project plan requires a 15-month deployment, with up to 20 stakeholder groups involved in the team. This project:
a. Is a good project to raise awareness of the Six Sigma program.
It involves many different groups and will have a great impact on the company, its customer relations, and its profitability.
b. Is way too big. The project should be broken down into manage- able projects, each of which can be compared to other proposed projects for funding purposes.
c. Requires the use of a facilitator to manage the different stakeholder groups.
d. Both a and c.
2. To break down a large project into smaller, more manageable projects, a Black Belt should use:
a. An analytical hierarchy diagram.
b. A flowchart.
c. A work breakdown structure.
d. An activity network diagram.
3. Project charters help to prevent the occurrence of which of the fol- lowing reducers to stakeholder buy-in:
a. Unclear goals.
b. No accountability.
c. Insufficient resources.
d. All of the above.
4. Joe’s project seemed to be going along well until the project team started to implement the solution. At that point, a department that hadn’t been involved, but will be affected, starting raising objections and pointing out problems to the proposed solution. This indicates:
a. The team should immediately get the sponsor involved to settle the disagreements.
b. The department is afraid of change and needs to be told to accept the team’s findings.
c. The department should have been identified as stakeholders early on and included in the project team or the team’s problem-solving sessions.
d. Choices a and b.
5. Bob, a team leader, is having trouble getting buy-in from various members of the team. In one particular problem-solving meeting, these team members didn’t seem to listen to any of Bob’s ideas, and were
CHAPTER 4 Define Stage 81
WBRT: Prepress/Printer’s Proof
insistent that their ideas were more credible. Some reasonable advice to Bob would be:
a. Replace the team members with those more willing to work as team players.
b. Work on his communication skills, display interest for others’ ideas, and use data to determine which ideas have the most merit.
c. Ask their managers or the project sponsor to convince them to get on board.
d. Choices a and c.
6. Jill is the team leader for a project aimed at reducing the cycle time for invoices. The team has reached an impasse on generating potential root causes of process failure; only a few ideas have been offered by only a few of the team members. As team leader, Jill should:
a. Request that the current team be dissolved, and a new team formed with process experts.
b. Report the impasse to the sponsor, and suggest the team meet again in a month or two when they have a fresh perspective.
c. Use brainstorming tools.
d. End the meeting, and work on developing the list herself.
7. With regard to team dynamics,
a. Initial meetings are generally friendly, with the team leader exer- cising control.
b. Conflict is common, and can indicate that team members are becoming involved.
c. The team leader should move the members toward thinking independently.
d. All of the above.
8. At the team’s third meeting, its leader, John, is starting to feel a bit uncomfortable. He had established ground rules for the team, and some of its members are starting to question those rules. John should:
a. Exercise his authority as team leader and insist that the team follow the rules.
b. Lead the team to establish its own rules.
c. Defer to the team sponsor.
d. None of the above.
9. In team meetings, Jane seems to listen to whoever is speaking, but then has questions for the speaker. John, the team leader, senses that a few team members are frustrated with Jane, thinking she takes up too much time. John should:
a. Politely ask Jane, after the meeting, to try to keep her questions to a minimum.
b. Politely ask Jane during the meeting to try to keep her questions to a minimum.
c. Thank Jane publicly for asking relevant questions of team mem- bers, so that issues and opinions are clearly understood.
d. Ignore the frustrations. Personalities don’t always mesh.
10. Jim is assembling a team to improve quality of a process with two stakeholder groups that have a history of fixing blame on one another.
Jim would like to avoid getting ‘‘stuck in the middle’’ of these two factions. Jim can reduce the likelihood of this by:
a. Asking only one group (the one providing the most value to the team) to be part of the team on a full-time basis, with the other group represented only as needed for input.
b. Asking the sponsor, who oversees both groups, to attend meetings so that she can settle the disagreements.
c. Discussing team ground rules at the first team meeting, and firmly enforcing these rules throughout. These ground rules would include respectful communication between team members and decisions on basis of data (rather than opinion).
d. Asking the two groups to each recommend someone who can colead the team.
CHAPTER 4 Define Stage 83
CHAPTER
Measure Stage
The objectives of the measure phase are explained and illustrated in this chapter.
Objectives
The objectives of the measure stage include:
Process definition at a detailed level to understand the decision points and detailed functionality within the process.
Metric definition to verify a reliable means of process estimation.
Process baseline estimation to clarify the starting point of the project.
Measurement system analysis to quantify the errors associated with the metric.
Process Definition
In the measure stage of DMAIC, a detailed process-level map of the current (i.e., as-is) process is developed. This detailed map clearly defines the activities subject to the improvement efforts. The top-level process map developed in
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the define stage serves as a starting point. While the top-level map shows the general flow of the process, it lacks the detailed decision points that truly characterize the process.
Aprocessconsists of repeatable tasks, carried out in a specific order. Pro- cess personnel responsible for implementing the process on a daily basis should be enlisted to develop the detailed process map. Their perspective on the process is likely to be quite different from their supervisors or the support personnel who originally developed the process flow (if that exists). It’s not uncommon to find operational workers have customized the process to ad- dress real-world situations they see in practice. This information may not get communicated to all the relevant stakeholders in the process, including their immediate supervision or fellow line workers.
By enlisting the input of these process personnel, their experiences with the process, specifically in the steps they see as necessary and sufficient, are un- covered. At this time, judgment is reserved on whether these are desirable or undesirable customizations. It’s likely they are the source of significant variation to the customers, and their effect can be evaluated in the analyze stage. The main concern at this phase is to develop a realistic picture of the as-is process.
The as-is process map can then be used to visualize the decision paths that are encountered in the process. Often much more complexity is built into the process than expected, and much of this complexity is non-value added. This complexity will be reviewed in the analyze stage.
Metric Definition
In general terms, aprocess metricis simply a measured parameter from a pro- cess that provides some indication of the process state or condition. For a given process, there may be several metrics useful to operational personnel. Some of these operational metrics may also be useful in Six Sigma improvement projects.
Six Sigma metrics focus on one or more of the following three critical factors: cost, quality, and schedule. Factors critical to cost (CTC) include parameters that impact work in progress, finished goods inventory, overhead, delivery, material and labor, even when the costs can be passed on to the customer. Critical to quality (CTQ) factors are perhaps most familiar to op- erational personnel since they directly impact the functional requirements specified by the customer. Critical to schedule (CTS) factors impact the de- livery time of the product or service.
Recall the earlier recommendations for metrics: the metric should be cus- tomer focused, integrated with the business strategy, and collaboratively
CHAPTER 5 Measure Stage 85
developed. It should indicate performance over time in a direct fashion, so it can be immediately processed. As discussed earlier in the text immediate feedback is most useful for process control, particularly when employees are empowered to directly respond to the information.
The usefulness of the data, however, is not merely a function of its avail- ability. A reliable, repeatable, and reproducible measurement system is needed, as described in the Measurement System Analysis section of this chapter. The measurements must have sufficient resolution to effectively detect changes in the process and differentiate between real changes and process noise. This point is further discussed in the CTQ Metrics section below.
FLOW-DOWN FUNCTIONS: BIG Ys AND LITTLE ys
In practice, it is useful to think of metrics as bigYs and littleys. The littleys are the drivers of the bigYs. Mathematically:
Y1¼function of {y1,y2,. . .,yn}
Y2¼function of {y1,y2,. . .,yn} . . . Ym¼function of {y1,y2,. . .,yn} formbigYs.
Big Ys and their corresponding little ys are defined at each level of the organization: the business level, the operations level, and the process level.
Starting at the business level, then down to the operations level and finally the process level, the littleys at each stage become the bigYs at the next stage down. While the bigYs are useful for tracking, the littleys provide the detail necessary for controlling processes and improving the organization.
This flow-down of the metrics from one level to the next provides direct linkage of the operational and process metrics to the key stakeholder big Y metrics used in the dashboards at the business level.
For example, the bigYs related to the customer stakeholders group may be as follows:
Y1¼Satisfaction score Y2¼Retention rate Y3¼Order turnaround time
Y4¼Sales revenue
The metrics at this level provide a good high-level stakeholder view, but do not yet provide the details necessary to optimize operations. It would be helpful to drill down on each of these Big Ys to understand their little y drivers.
Conversely, those at the operations or process levels in the organization can drill up to understand how their metrics relate to stakeholder value.
For example, the littleys for the customer satisfaction score (Y1) in a res- taurant chain might be:
Customer satisfaction¼Function of (service quality, culinary satisfaction, restaurant availability, price,. . .)
These business level little ys will become the operations level big Ys. Op- erations level bigYs are useful for Six Sigma project selection criteria, since they are the operational parameters that are perfectly aligned with the busi- ness level metrics.
The operational level littleys for service quality of the restaurant chain may be written as:
Service quality¼Function of (wait time, friendliness of staff, cleanliness of facility, order accuracy,. . .)
Each of the operational level littleys may be further broken down into their components in the process level matrix. For example:
Wait time¼Function of (cycle time for cooking, number of staffed registers, time of day,. . .)
This resulting function can then be used to:
Establish conditions necessary for process optimization and/or variation reduction
Provide process-level Six Sigma project metrics
Define critical metrics for ongoing process control
These flow-down functions, which relate the bigYs to their corresponding little ys, are determined through regression and correlation analysis. Data is collected through designed experiments, data mining, surveys, focus groups, and critical incident techniques. The functions allow process-level metrics to be linked to both customer requirements and business strategy.