Lean Six Sigma

Lean Six Sigma Certifications and Standands

Steven Bonacorsi — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 20:54:24 -0400

Recently was asked a common question by hiring managers:

"How would you select the best candidate for your requirement?

With the current economic crisis, Companies are aggressively focused to continuously improve their operations in becoming Lean with a lot of cost reduction programs. The talents they prefer are mostly with Lean or Six Sigma background. If you would weigh the strength of the candidate, would you hire a person with his expertise is more on Lean or 6 Sigma? Why?

Most of the expert practitioners are certified or has an extensive project exposure on implementing Lean or 6 Sigma. How would you assess that the person is good in his field of expertise and can deliver the best result amongst other candidates?"

Here's my response, and while variation exists amonst the various belts, these are what most leaders are measuring solid skill levels:

I recommend a certified Lean Six Sigma Black Belt (CLSSBB) or Certified Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt (CLSSMBB).

Experience for CLSSBB should include:
- 4-5 week classroom Instruction
- Min 1.5 years as full time BB; 2 yrs preferred
- Passed Exam with Certificate - they can produce the certificate
- Min 5 completed BB projects; where 10+ is preferred
- Min 5 led Kaizen events; where 10+ is preferred
- Education should be at BS degree; where Masters is preferred
- Green Belt coach - Projects coached should be min 10; 20 preferred
- White Belt/Yellow Belt/Green Belt training as a co-lead min; and as lead preferred. Class size should be 10-30 and they should have a min of 2 waves under their belt; 4+ preferred
- DFSS Training of 1-2 week min + 1 project min (3-5 preferred) optional but preferred
- Tool/method experience should include: Charters; Value Stream Mapping; Measurement System Analysis; Statistical analysis (regression/gage R&R/Anova/Chi-Sq/Control Charts/Process Capability/5s/Cause and effect diagram/Pareto/Setup Reduction/Pull systems/ work control systems/standardize work/Kanban/control plans/team effectiveness/layout design/DOE/takt rate
-Should be able to produce project case studies that show operational and $ results; various functional expertise (cross-functional preferred)

Experience for CLSSMBB should include:
- all of the above for BB + min 2 MBB projects (large/complex); 5 preferred
- Minimum 1 wave of BB training as co-lead + 1 wave as lead; 3-5 BB waves led preferred
- Demonstrated skills in curriculum development
- Coached a minimum of 10 BB thru project completion (20+ preferred)
- Min 2 years in MBB role; 5+ preferred
- Experience in Project Identification; Selection; and Prioritization workshops
- Led 5+ Kaizen as MBB; 15+ preferred
- Tools/Methods: SMED; Replenishment Pull; Simulation; Deep understanding of statistical tools/ various software experience (Minitab/IGrafx/JMP/crystal ball/risk/etc...)/Tollgate experience; Deployment Plans; Metric report-outs; Leadership experience
- Can produce certification of passed MBB exam
- Training includes an additional 4-6 weeks as MBB

Warm Regards,

Steven Bonacorsi, MBB / Vice President
http://www.linkedin.com/in/StevenBonacorsi
603-401-7047
Skype: sbonacorsi
sbonacorsi@comcast.net
http://xonitek.com/docs/XSCMain.asp

Please add your comments to my opinion above as well as any builds to the measuring stick of the Lean Six Sigma Certifications and Standand.s

Failure Is the Highway to Success: Getting It Right

Steven Bonacorsi — Wed, 27 May 2009 15:58:09 -0400

Many times, regardless of how well we plan, some things just fail. Maybe it's a webinar or a meeting presentation that was well prepared for, but suffered technical difficulty; maybe a savings plan losing nearly half of its value in today's recession. These challenging situations define our days, but our responses to them determine our future success.

While some curse and yell, others see failures as opportunities. Poet Maya Angelou writes, "I've learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he or she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights." Failures can either destroy or advance our goals, but it's our response to them that truly determines the outcome.

Thomas Edison experienced repeated failures. His true success was not his invention of the light bulb, but rather his tenacity to use failures as a means to gain new information and new perspective. The most successful employees are the ones who have the persistence and optimism to learn from difficulty and to use what they learn to re-imagine, re-create, and re-experiment. They are the ones who have learned to be positive and who consistently hunt for opportunities. As the economy struggles to recover, successful organizations will reinvent their futures by focusing on these opportunities.

Ways to Fail Forward

Regardless of your brain chemistry or genetic makeup, you can begin learning from your mistakes today rather than continuing to slip up or fall behind. As some of you may know, I refer to this as an "After Action Review". To get started, follow these tips:

Accepting responsibility makes learning possible.
Don't equate making mistakes with being a mistake.
You can't change mistakes, but you can choose how to respond to them.
Growth starts when you can see room for improvement.
Work to understand why it happened and what the factors were.
What information could have avoided the mistake?
What small mistakes, in sequence, contributed to the bigger mistake?
Are there alternatives you should have considered, but did not?
What kinds of changes are required to avoid making this mistake again? What kinds of changes are difficult for you?
How do you think your behavior should/would change if you were in a similar situation again?
Work to understand the mistake until you can make fun of it (or not want to kill others that make fun).
Don't over-compensate; the next situation will not be the same as the last.

Humor and Courage

No amount of analysis can replace your self-confidence. When you've made a mistake, especially a visible one that impacts other people, it's natural to question your ability to perform next time. But you must get past your doubts. The best you can do is study the past, practice for the situations you expect, and get back in the game. Your studying of the past should help broaden your perspective. You want to be aware of how many other smart, capable, well-meaning people have made similar mistakes, yet went on to even bigger mistakes...I mean successes, in the future.

One way to know you've reached a healthy place is your sense of humor. It might take a few days, but eventually you'll see some comedy in what happened. When friends tell stories of their mistakes it makes you laugh, right? Well, when you can laugh at your own mistakes you know you've accepted it and no longer judge yourself on the basis of one single event. Reaching this kind of perspective is very important in avoiding future mistakes. Humor loosens up your psychology and prevents you from obsessing about the past. It's easy to make new mistakes by spending too much energy protecting against the previous ones. Remember the saying, "A man fears the tiger that bit him last, instead of the tiger that will bite him next."

So the most important lesson in all of mistake-making is to trust that mistakes are inevitable; if you can learn from those current mistakes, you'll also be able to learn from future ones. No matter what happens tomorrow, you'll be able to get value from it and apply it to the next day. Progress won't be a straight line. However, if you continue learning, you will have more successes than failures, and the mistakes you make along the way will help you get where you need to go.

A Culture of Failure

One thing you hear amidst the current economic mess is that some banks and companies are "too big to fail." This is the idea that if a mega-corporation (such as AIG) goes down, the repercussions are so enormous that other companies will fall in its wake possibly bringing down the whole financial system with it; thus, an argument for tax-payer bailouts, right?

In relation, science is built on a culture of failure. Think about this. Scientists make observations, compose solutions, experiment, fail, learn from their failures and try again. Scientific breakthrough wouldn't be possible without failure. Funding for research is predicated on extremely high rates of failure. Ask a successful person what they learned on the way up and they'll likely talk about how they dealt with their failures, not their success.

Getting it Right

Here are some tips on getting things right when things start off wrong:

Create and support a workplace culture that encourages employees to look for opportunity in every event. While organizations value effort, innovation and intent, they should also celebrate non-conventional and non-conformist perspectives. Occasional failures show that employees are pushing performance to the edge. After failures, managers should encourage employees to focus on the positive; this creates a culture that is open, free-thinking, and believes, "Yes, we can."
Focus on exponential, not incremental, opportunities. Direct your discussions of opportunities toward significant, not average, results. "Light" performance is unacceptable. Consider opportunities that have the potential to be "game changers." Successful organizations know that nothing lasts forever; therefore, they must continually reinvent themselves.
Commit time and effort to help employees not only learn their strengths, but to use them to develop opportunity-thinking. Each of your employees has the potential to be great at certain things. Encourage them to use their intrinsic talents to deliberatively hunt for opportunities in the areas they have the greatest insight.
Actively solicit input from employees. Leaders who ask "big" questions and take the time to listen to responses can discover new perspectives, facts, ideas and dreams from customers, employees and vendors. Try asking questions that begin with: "How about ...?", "What if ...?", or "Tell me about ..." Assess what you hear and share it with your team to expand the hunt for opportunities.
Share success with everyone. While it's easy to openly share and celebrate successes, companies should also communicate failures in a way that inspires employees to re-think, re-define and re-invent. As successes are shared with everyone and failures are seen as a way to improve, employees will take more idea-risks.

In an intellectual workplace, innovation, inventing and opportunity hunting must be core expectations of all employees.

Some people are discouraged or angered by failure and change. Others see it as an opportunity for greater success. Not only can the hunt for opportunities increase your success, but it may help you invent the next product that makes people's lives better.

Mr. Robert Clarke's leadership experience began while serving as a Platoon Leader with the US Army. From there Mr. Clarke carried other various roles, each complementing the previous, such as Executive Officer, Company Commander, Battalion Logistics Officer, and Battalion Operations Officer. Mr. Clarke utilizes this invaluable leadership experience to build his group into a synergetic fighting force. Contact him at clarkerw@xonitek.com.

What the Leader Needs To Know: The New Rules of Talent Management

Steven Bonacorsi — Tue, 19 May 2009 13:43:13 -0400

According to a recent survey by McKinsey & Co.¹ only 12 percent of the CEOs of large companies (i.e. revenues greater than $1B) and 17 percent of those of smaller companies view talent management as their single most pressing business concern. At the same time an IBM study² reports that 80 percent of CEOs have set their primary objective as "revenue growth." To achieve that growth, 90 percent say they will need to transform their company to be more flexible and responsive-especially to meet new customer requirements. Half of those say they must execute the transformation in two years.

In sum, the majority of CEOs believe we're in a growth environment, but succeeding in this environment will depend on execution of a strategic plan and transformation. Yet only a small minority see talent management as a top concern. Why is talent management not a major concern? We believe many CEOs and other senior executives operate under assumptions such as: even with the economy doing better, the employment market is still a tough one with limited opportunities.

Let's consider the perspective of today's highly talented professionals and effective leaders. In the last few years they've learned:

Ethical/regulatory issues in their company or industry can undermine personal opportunities and rewards
There is no stigma to being laid off or out of work
Talented employees often volunteer for a downsizing and choose to invest six months in life outside of their careers
Highly talented people can find a new position relatively quickly (according to DOL statistics median, unemployment is less than 12.5 weeks)
All things considered, it is often better to take a new opportunity than stay in your current position

In short, more than ever, talented people know that they have mobility and opportunity regardless of fluctuations in the economy. In a real sense, the relationship of highly talented people to their company may be more akin to that of a contractor rather than an employee.

In this environment, the minority of CEOs concerned about talent management may have a significant advantage. They may build loyal workforces that outperform their competitors. Outperform them in profitable growth, customer loyalty and employee engagement.

How to Leverage Talent Management

If you understand that people make the difference in strategic planning and business performance, we'd suggest you take the following five actions to retain your top talent:

Model talent's impact on the bottom line
Require visible leadership development
Challenge your best people with your best opportunities
Develop the common weaknesses
Demand accountability

Let's look at each of these in turn.

Model Talent's Impact on the Bottom Line

At the end of the day, your goal, indeed your obligation, is to meet or exceed your business objectives. In good times investing in people seems logical and can be done on faith. But it's in the tough, challenging, competitive environments where how and where you invest can really make a competitive difference. In challenging environments you will likely only make decisions that you can prove have an impact. So make sure you have rock-solid proof of how talent management drives business performance. That's the only way you can stay the course in tough times. Making the case for driving business performance via talent management is a relatively simple and inexpensive process.

Cornell University's Professor Gary Fields coined the term "bottom-line human resource management." In his view, truly strategic human resources starts with the targeted business performance results and determines what investments and actions will achieve them. Rutgers University's Professor Mark Huselid has proven since the mid-'90s that human resources impacts the financial performance of the enterprise. Modeling and measuring the impact of human resources-more specifically talent management-on business results is entirely possible and has been for quite some time.

Nothing will convince your management and leaders that you will stay the course more than documenting the ROI from talent management.

Require Visible Leadership

People work for people-not brands, not strategies, not ideals. Your leaders are your organization to your people. Yes, you have to pay competitively whether you employ scientists, bankers or engineers. However, that will only get you talented people, not retain talented people.

When people see management exemplifying leadership on a regular basis and see them behave in alignment with your business performance strategies and corporate values they become confident and committed. When leaders are invisible, people not only lose confidence-they become cynical.

Visibly effective leaders are approachable leaders. People feel comfortable coming to a leader when they are dealing with a tough situation. People rarely go to strangers with problems.

Finally, effective leaders can spot warning signs and take steps to correct them before they become problems that decrease performance.

Make sure your leaders are out in front of your people-not behind their desks.

Challenge Your Best People With Your Best Opportunities

"I wouldn't give you this assignment if I didn't know you could pull it off." These words often follow assigning someone to a difficult if not impossible situation. There is nothing wrong with giving a talented individual the opportunity to grow a tough business or manage a difficult client group-as long as it's not a pattern.

Great people want great opportunities. They want the chance to take a new concept to market or to go after a relationship that clearly has great promise. They want the excitement of being able to use their skills and abilities to really leverage a situation. Like an athlete, they want to know what their peak performance is when everything is in their favor. They want to know how great a competitor they can be.

A Fortune 100 company widely respected for its talent management recently uncovered a problem. A group of high performance/high potential individuals were consistently being deployed to "trouble shoot" business units that were floundering. Indeed, they were almost always successful at turning around the assigned situation. Unfortunately, they were leaving the company with increasing frequency. The reason was quite simple-they wanted an opportunity to show what they could do. Not another opportunity to show they could fix someone else's mistakes.

If you give great people great opportunities they will stay and grow your business.

Fix the Common Weaknesses

Most companies have a common leadership weakness or two that spans the organization. In some organizations leaders don't know how to coach. In others decision-making is slow and cumbersome. In some internal competitiveness saps the resources and energy needed to win in the marketplace. The truth is most organizations have some such common weakness.

The common weakness is visible to your most talented people. They see it and begin to realize no matter where they work the leaders who they work for and the leaders who work for them will have this common flaw. It will become the one frustration the talented person can't see a way around. The reason they may first consider an external opportunity.

Develop your leaders to remove a common weakness and your business will perform better and your most talented people will stay longer.

Demand Accountability

Talented people work hard to win. They are willing to take risks to win. What they are not willing to do is put their performance or even careers at risk because other people aren't being held accountable.

Your best people expect everyone to contribute and perform reliably. They expect everyone else to do so as well. They understand that sometimes people make mistakes and fail to meet targets. What they don't understand is when people are not held accountable for poor results.

In addition to results, talented people are becoming more and more concerned about other people's behavior. They've seen the damage that a few irresponsible or unethical people can cause to a company-indeed, to an industry. To the talented person, there is no excuse for such behavior. Equally there is no excuse for failing to deal with it.

Talented people want to work in an organization where everyone, including themselves, is held accountable for results and achieving those results by adhering to a core set of values and ethics.

Embed accountability in your organization's culture and you'll attract and retain talented people.

At the end of the day you must compensate talented people fairly for the value they provide. That's a necessary but not sufficient factor in retaining people.

To retain talent you need to grow and transform your business provide an environment where your best people can perform at their peak. Give them great opportunities. Develop strong, supportive leadership they can rely on. Hold people accountable for performance and ethical behavior. And as with all investments, demonstrate the impact of talent management on your enterprise's financial performance. Then stay the course.

¹McKinsey Global Survey of Business Executives 2004 ©, 2004 McKinsey & Co., Inc.
²The Global CEO Study 2004 ©, 2004, IBM

First published for Flanagan Consultants, LLC.

Gain Recognition for your Organizational Excellence

Steven Bonacorsi — Mon, 04 May 2009 20:36:07 -0400

The Global Six Sigma & Business Improvement Awards - www.tgssa.com - present you with a great opportunity to win recognition for the great work that you and your business excellence people are delivering to your healthcare organization, your patients and community.

"We are extremely excited to have received this recognition from WCBF for Best Emerging Business Improvement. I believe this terrific award recognizes that customers can depend on our ability to live our mission statement every day with on time delivery, lowest industry turn times, customer service of exceptional value, service and products of the highest quality. Also, I'd like to compliment WCBF for their excellent recognition program."

Robert Weiner, President and Chief Executive Officer, PAS Technologies

Now in their fourth year, the Awards are given to the most outstanding organizational achievements through the deployment of business improvement programs. To-date honours have been given to a total of 30 organizations across the globe.

The Awards are judged by a panel of independent business improvement experts and practitioners. Each entry will be judged on the merits of the program implementation and results achieved against the organization's strategic objectives.

There are three types of awards categories for which you can enter:

Organizational (6)- for organizational-wide business improvement excellence deployment
Business Excellence (7) - for one business process excellence project within your organization
People (4) - for individual excellence within your organization

There are also five Special Awards to highlight unique achievements from across all the category entrants.

Please visit The Global Six Sigma & Business Improvement Awards website - www.tgssa.com - to access the full list of categories and the rules of entry. You will also find there the case studies from the winners in 2006, 2007 and 2008 along with best practice examples of award winning entries and tips and techniques for making your entry stand out in the competition.

The closing deadline for this year's program is Friday June 5^th, 2009. The Awards Ceremony will be held in conjunction with WCBF's Global Six Sigma, Lean and Business Improvement Summit in Orlando, FL on Wednesday October 14^th, 2009. For information on the Summit please go to www.wcbf.com/quality/5099.

I look forward to your participation in this exciting and growing Awards program and please do contact me if I can provide further information as you prepare your entry.

Kind regards

Flora Hamilton

The Global Six Sigma and Business Improvement Awards

W: www.tgssa.com

E: flora.hamilton@wcbf.com

The Heritage and History of Lean Manufacturing

Steven Bonacorsi — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 13:19:46 -0400

�??History is more or less bunk.�?? - Henry Ford

One cannot overlook the cross-fertilization of ideas and technology across industries. Factory visits are not a new invention. The Springfield Armory, attributed by historians as the birthplace of �??The American System of Manufacture�?? (early mass production of interchangeable parts), entertained visitors in the early 1800�??s. The US Government even suspended patent rights on armory methods for a time to improve adoption of these new methods.

By default much of the history about �??Lean�?? manufacturing has surrounded the auto industry, with Ford and Toyota listed as the major players in the development of Lean. Learning the historical context should help you understand the principles. Their results were not the results of some secret formula or eureka moment in which they received divine inspiration. They both had significant competition in their early growth years, and had no obvious or outstanding advantage over their peers. One hesitates to use the term �??Urban Myth,�?? because many of the legends surrounding Lean are �??Industrial Strength.�?? While dispelling myths, the original reason for the research was to clarify the �??Whys�?? behind the evolutionary nature of TPS (Toyota Production System); it was not created in a vacuum. If we don't recognize the history and understand the application, we may be doomed to repeat this learning curve indefinitely.

Both Toyota, and Ford -- primarily for his success of the Model T -- could be classed as depending upon both luck and skill. �??Toyota�??s manufacturing system looks as if it were deliberately designed as a competitive weapon; it was created gradually through a complex historical process that can never be reduced to a managers�?? rational foresight alone.�?? Most readers are more familiar with the most recent Toyota and its fame

as the developer of Lean; Toyota points to Ford as their primary inspiration. This history is a reflection of their journey from obscurity to prominence.

Ohno�??s reflection in 1950, that Toyota took about 9 men to produce as much as a single man in the US auto industry. �?? By 1965, Nissan and Toyota had already matched or surpassed the productivity levels of American automakers. After the mid-1960�??s, productivity in Japan doubled in real terms as sales expanded. By 1980, Japan had replaced the United States as the largest automobile producing nation in the world, in technology as well as production volume�?��?? The history of the Japanese auto industry overtaking the American auto industry mimics Nature, where the victim has been overtaken before sensing the danger.

Coincidence plays a much larger part in history than most people realize. Nassim Taleb, a professional trader and mathematics professor, has written two books on this subject. In Fooled by Randomness, he examines what randomness means in business and in life, and why human beings are so prone to mistake dumb luck for consummate skill. And The Black Swan; a black swan is a highly improbable event with three principal characteristics: it is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random, and more predictable, than it was. Similar to a Perfect Storm.

If you are completely candid with yourself, you will soon discover how much your discoveries hinge on contingencies. Every now and then, when you happen to combine both boldness and skill, you may be able to exploit a few of the lucky situations that arise. But skill alone will not be enough, for much of the novelty in creativity is decided only when you are bold enough to thrust at chance.

One view that has been popularized represents Toyota as working against all odds. This is interpretation does not hold up when doing comparative analysis against their peers in Japan, or any of the other businesses in war-torn areas following World War II.

On a local level, they were as connected to the power structure as any industry in their region could be, and had a number of lucky breaks which others did not.

Ford had attracted to his factory a core of perhaps a dozen or a dozen and half young, gifted mechanics, none of whom had developed set ways of doing things. Encouraged by Ford, this group carried out production experiments and worked out fresh ideas in gauging, fixture design, machine tool design and placement, factory

layout, quality control, and materials handling. In a sense, the Ford production engineers took what was best from each approach to manufacture and overcame limitations to these methods by adding their own brand of production techniques.

This is not unlike Toyota�??s collective absorption of technology from any source available. How much of this strategy was deliberate on the part of either company is debatable; however, the results are proof of concept. In their most formative stages there was an active effort to ADOPT any best practice from any industry and actively keep looking, not accepting single results. The next stage was to ADAPT the best practice to their specific environment, even multiple versions which would match each process. ABSORB -- they actually applied the information that they had learned. The last stage was to ANALYZE. Using the �??Lessons Learned�?? format they evaluated the performance and modified where possible to improve. Their next step was to adapt again, and again. This cycle works best when there is continual input from external sources. An analogy would be the merry-go-round on the children�??s playground. It stops if not continually pushed.

United States Recession - What the Data Tells Us

Steven Bonacorsi — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 16:15:31 -0400

Maybe because we had seen such a long period of prosperity, the current economic recession is causing inordinate panic. The media is helping this panic with headlines such as "Economy shrinks at fastest pace in 26 years,�??

�??Over One-Third of Americans Believe Nation in a Depression,�?? and �??Wall Street tumbles to 1997 levels on bank, recession fears.�??

It�??s important to read beyond the headlines and remember that recessions are actually a normal part of the business cycle. Recessions do have a valuable purpose in that they clear away weak companies and force people to spend less and save more. While this recession appears to be lasting longer than a normal recession, history has shown we will eventually emerge to a
new period of economic growth and the stock markets will eventually recover their losses and hit new highs.

It�??s easy to forget that we have had 7 recessions since 1967. While this recession may seem �??different�?? for various reasons, it is important to remember that recessions usually have �??different�?? causes or related events new to our history. Let�??s take a look at a few for example:

1973-1974 Stock Market Crash and 1973 Oil Crisis (1973-1975) lasting 2 years

In the 694 days between January 11, 1973 and December 6, 1974, the Dow Jones Industrial Average benchmark lost over 45% of its value.1
The unemployment rate jumped from the 5% level to nearly 9% in about a year and a half.2
The Arab members of OPEC declared they would no longer ship oil to the United States and other countries if they supported Israel.3
In 1972 the price of crude oil was about $3.00 per barrel and by the end of 1974 the price of oil had quadrupled to over $12.00.4
In the United States, the retail price of a gallon of leaded regular gasoline rose from a national average of 39 cents in 1973 to 53 cents in 1974.5
The New York Stock Exchange shares lost $97 billion in value in six weeks.6
Inflation jumped from 3.4% in 1972 to 12.3% in 1974.7

Early 1980�??s recession (1980-1982) lasting 2 years

The unemployment rate reached 10.8%.8
Bank failures reached a high of 42, and in the first half of 1983 an additional 27 banks failed.9
In 1984, the Continental Illinois National Bank and Trust Company, the nation's seventh-largest bank failed. Members of Congress felt
Continental Illinois was "too big to fail." In May 1984, federal banking regulators were forced to offer a $4.5 billion rescue package to Continental Illinois.10
415 savings and loan associations in the US failed.11
In 1979 inflation reached 13.3%7 and the Prime lending rate jumped to 21.5% by December 1980.12

Early 1990�??s recession (1990-1991) lasting 1 year

By 1989, over half the Savings and Loan banks had failed, along with the FSLIC fund that was created to insure their deposits.13
Early 2000�??s recession (2001-2003) lasting 2 years
By the end of 2001 the S&P 500 average price-to-earnings ratio was 46.50, well above the historical average of 15, and it was thought that �??earnings didn�??t matter�?? in the valuation of stocks.14
The NASDAQ lost 78% of its value following the collapse of the Dot-com bubble.15
From March 2000 to October 2002 technology companies lost $5 trillion in market value.16
After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks the Dow Jones Industrial
Average suffered its worst one-day point loss and biggest one-week losses in history up to that point.17
Unprecedented accounting scandals at companies such as Enron and Worldcom.

While no one knows for sure when this current recession will end, we do know that typically the stock markets recover before the technical end of a recession (usually 6 months before the end of the resession) and that on average, the stock market earns 38.6% in the 12 months following the trough, or bottom, of the market.

Of course, no two recessionary periods are exactly alike. Some were driven by equity market bubbles, significant corporate earnings deterioration or oil price shocks. And since the beginning and end of a recession cannot be accurately called until well after they occur, it is all the more difficult to predict how the markets will perform before, during, and after any subsequent recession. Unless we find an unusually accurate crystal ball, it is important to maintain a broad asset allocation in your plan to survive, and ultimately thrive, through a recession and post-recessionary market.

Sources
1 finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=%5EDJI&a=00&b=11&c=1973&d=11&e=6&f=1974&g=d
2 www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat1.pdf
3 state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/dr/96057.htm
4 wtrg.com/prices.htm
5 eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/txt/ptb0524.html
6 latimesblogs.latimes.com/uptospeed/2008/07/the-gas-crisis.html
7 ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/cpi/cpiai.txt
8 nytimes.com/2009/01/10/business/economy/10jobs.html
9 www.fdic.gov/bank/analytical/firstfifty/chapter1.html
10 www.fdic.gov/bank/historical/managing/history2-04.pdf
11 www.fdic.gov/bank/historical/history/167_188.pdf
12 wsjprimerate.us/wall_street_journal_prime_rate_history.htm
13 useconomy.about.com/od/grossdomesticproduct/p/89_Bank_Crisis.htm
14 www2.standardandpoors.com/spf/xls/index/sp500pe_ratio.xls
15 investopedia.com/features/crashes/crashes8.asp
16
qctimes.com/articles/2006/07/17/news/business/doc44bb0a1ab97ce159604273.txt
17 crn.com/it-channel/18815610

If you have any questions or would like to discuss how you can benefit from this situation please feel free to give Eric a call at 603-391-0512.

Eric Ellis CRPC(R)
Financial Advisor
Ameriprise Financial Services, Inc.
5 Bedford Farms, 3rd Floor | Bedford, N.H. 03110
Office: 603.668.1273 Ext. 512| Fax: 603.668.1304
Direct: 603.391.0512 | Mobile: 603.520.1216
Eric.M.Ellis@ampf.com
ameriprise.com

Learning Lean: How I used "common sense" to manufacture widgets for TI Automotive

Steven Bonacorsi — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 12:18:40 -0400

I will confess that spending an entire day in a seminar is not my favorite way to pass the time. Yet, I spend a fair amount of time trapped in seminars, waiting for someone to say something that's more than marginally interesting. This is pretty much what I thought I'd be doing when I was invited to spend the day at a lean manufacturing seminar that TI Group Automotive Systems (the former Bundy Corp. and Walbro Corp.) was holding for its employees. So I showed up early in the morning, hoping that I could get what I need and sneak out. I even skipped breakfast to put myself in a "lean" mood. In retrospect, I was wrong about two things: (1) This wasn't another boring seminar. (2) You should eat breakfast if you're going to spend the day working in a simulated factory.

In A What?

Lori Casiano, plant manager at the Bundy Hillsdale, MI, facility, is also TI Automotive's lead trainer for its Common Sense Manufacturing (CSM) program. That's right: it's not called "Lean Manufacturing," and there's a good reason for this. As Jim Davis, president of TI Group Automotive Systems explained to me, the word "lean" tends to make people think too much and buy too many computers. He prefers to keep things simple, and that's where Casiano steps in. Under her guidance, we (approximately 35 TI Automotive employees from different departments and disciplines, and I) set up a "plant" in a conference room and ran through three production shifts. Every possible position in the production scenario was represented, from the customer and the plant manager to the production workers and the truck driver.

In the first shift, we operated in a "traditional" push system: we built widgets in batches to maintain inventories. Each workstation performed one procedure on a widget, then material handlers took it to another workstation. In the second shift, we were allowed to "improve" our production process by whatever means we wished, but we still had to build in batches and push product. In the third shift, we completely overhauled the plant to produce the widgets using a CSM pull system.

Why?

For the cynical know-it-alls in our group (I won't name names, but if you want a hint, look at the third name on our masthead), the big question before we started the simulation was "Why not just read about this stuff in a magazine to learn it? That's how I learned about lean." The answer, I learned, had a lot to do with doing, not just knowing. To wit, Casiano didn't go into lengthy explanations of the vocabulary before we began the simulation. Once the simulation started, all the vocabulary and textbook understanding in the world didn't matter as much as being able to apply common sense to our specific situation did. Furthermore, the vocabulary is much easier to master once you've completed the simulation. Ergo, the simulation is more effective than a lecture. As Davis says, "This is not a linear exercise." It must be experienced. (Not to mention that for those few souls like myself who hate lectures, a simulation is a lot more fun.)

So What Happened?

As the old saying goes, "There's more than one way to skin a cat." Casiano explains that no two simulations play out the same, but every one that she administers has certain similarities:

The first shift is, at best, chaotic. It results in poor productivity, an unhappy customer, and the plant manager is usually hated by the employees and/or fired.
The second shift is less chaotic. Workers always figure out a way to produce more widgets and better satisfy the customer, but inventory goes sky high. The plant is more productive, but loses even more money than the first round due to excess inventory.
The third shift proves the point. By implementing a just-in-time system with kanbans (the starting point for CSM; this is based on the universally accepted model of lean manufacturing: the Toyota Production System), productivity increases, inventory is eliminated, the customer is delighted, and the plant makes money.

The differences from simulation to simulation are in the implementation. Different groups of people choose to organize their simulated plants differently. But every group finds a way to implement CSM effectively in the third shift. That's a key point: there is no single "right" way to become lean. This is because CSM/lean focuses on the cause, not the effect. If the process is improved, so is the outcome; there are always many ways to improve the process.

This principle, however, can be a major stumbling block. Many manufacturing people have a hard time trusting in a lean philosophy enough to forget about the numbers and focus on improvement. "Problems are good!" Davis says, because they give you opportunities to fix what's wrong with your organization. The alternative to fixing problems is usually to "work harder" at the problem in the same way as you were before. In manufacturing, this usually means adding production capacity (either machinery or workers) which is used to build more inventory. This is what we did in the second shift of our simulation. It appeared to work great, except that the cost of all that inventory prevented us from making any profit. On the surface, things looked good (at least they looked better than before!), but the inventory was hiding waste.

Eliminating waste seems like an obvious enough goal, but waste can come in so many different forms that its elimination is a never-ending process. This is kaizen. Inventory in itself is waste, but so are rework, down-time, setup time, poor communication�??even the failure to take advantage of the skills of workers can be considered waste. Perhaps the biggest lesson in eliminating waste that we learned from the CSM simulation is that much of material handling is waste. Since handling raw materials and work-in-process doesn't add any value to the product, it's not helping create profit. Therefore, we streamlined the flow of widgets through our plant by measuring takt times and rearranging our production line so that we were handling in-process widgets a lot less. Our other great accomplishment in eliminating waste was using jidoka. We designed fixtures at each workstation to assemble and check the parts for quality as we built them. Therefore, none of the parts that we made had to be reworked (and we satisfied our QS9000 requirements).

"So What?"

What do you say to the skeptic? It's easy to reject the entire notion of lean or CSM based on the grounds that it's irrelevant because, "We don't do that here," or "We don't need to do that because we're making money anyway." To this Davis and Casiano reply with one word: "Customer." The CSM simulation makes "The Customer Is King" a very easy philosophy to understand. The pull system forces each step of the production process to regard the operation immediately following it as its "customer." Responsibility for customer satisfaction is thus spread throughout the manufacturing process. Among production workers this leads to a higher sense of ownership in the work and a higher level of satisfaction in the job. These are good things; they lead to better productivity and further improvements in the production process.

When you follow the process, from customer to customer to The Customer, it becomes fairly obvious why lean works so well in achieving customer satisfaction and profits. To understand this relationship, consider the first rule of the auto industry. My high level sources explain it quite simply: "Make money." This, by definition, gives The Customer a cocky swagger that is to be respected, as the customer is the one paying the bills.

Get It

While the simulation was by no means a comprehensive education in lean (that's why TI Automotive follows it up with a second in-plant workshop), it made the pieces of the lean manufacturing puzzle fit much more tightly together in my mind. While Davis and Casiano didn't pen the concluding statement below, I think they'd still have given me that diploma if I had written it on my post-simulation quiz.

All companies get lean in one of two ways: Either they get lean and make a lot of money or they get lean because they don't make a lot of money.

TI Automotive's "Common Sense" Glossary

Jidoka: A system to ensure quality, whereby machines are built so they can only produce quality parts.

Just in time: Parts are made per the customer's order, one at a time, not in batches.

Kaizen: Continuous improvement, meaning eliminating waste and non-value-added work. "There is always a simpler way."

Kanban: A visual pull system. For example, a rack might contain four variations of a part. When a part is pulled from the rack for a customer, the operator builds another identical part to fill the empty spot in the rack.

Push system: The way McDonald's has always operated (prior to their "Just for You" program) is a traditional "push" system. They make lots of burgers and stock them under heat lamps. When you order, they give you a burger from stock.

Pull system: Wendy's is a "pull" system. They don't make burgers until they're ordered. When you order, they make your burger from the raw materials.

Takt time: The allowable time to produce one product at the rate the customer needs. Each workstation in a production line should perform its operation within this time.

About the Author: By Jeff Sabatini

Source: http://www.autofieldguide.com/articles/109907.html

5s - Organizing Your Business in Tough Economic Times

Steven Bonacorsi — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 21:38:58 -0400

What is 5s?

u A Lean tool developed by the Japanese �?? Toyota Production System (TPS)

u Foundation for continuous improvement �?? Must exist before improvement maturity can occur

u 5S Process creates an organized, clean and safe workplace

u When 5s is achieve, then anyone can distinguish between normal and abnormal conditions at a glance

u 5S involves employee participation

Why Implement 5s?

u Implementing 5S across the organization will

n Install a continuous improvement mindset

n Improve employee productivity and efficiency

n Eliminate Non-Value Added activities

n Create a robust foundation for Lean Six Sigma

What Are the 5s Steps?

u Sort: Clearly distinguish needed items from unneeded items and eliminate the latter; Sort means that you remove all items from the workplace that are not needed for current tasks.

n It does not mean that you only remove the items that you know you may never need.

n It does not mean that you simply arrange things in a neater fashion.

If you sort, you only leave the bare essentials �?? �??When in doubt, throw it out.�??

u Identify potential unneeded items:

n Is this item needed?

n If it is needed, is it needed in this quantity?

n If it is needed, does it need to be located here?

u Place �??Red-Tags�?? on those items that are not needed

u Evaluate and deal with unneeded items

n Move unneeded items to a red tag holding area for a period of time �?? this area must be created

n Dispose of immediately �?? Sell, Relocate, Throw Away

u Set In Order (also known as Simplify): Keep needed items in the correct place to allow for easy and immediate retrieval. Set in order means that you arrange the items that are needed in the area and identify them or label them so that anyone can find them or put them away. The key word is �??anyone�??.

n Draw a 5S map showing the best location for files, office equipment, and materials based on frequency of use.

n Store items together if they are used together and store them in the sequence they are used

n Store infrequently used items away from the point of use

Make a place for everything using:

n Borders: Sets boundaries, areas

n Home Addresses: Tells what item belongs inside the border

n Labels: Tells what the item is and where it belongs

u Shine (also known as Shine): Keep the work space orderly and clean. Shine emphasizes removing the dirt, grime, and dust from the work area. This is a program of keeping the work area swept and clean of debris.

n Determine the shine targets �?? what are we going to clean?

n Set a schedule and assign ownership of tasks to individuals

n Create procedures for continued daily shine processes

n Set periodic equipment inspection and maintenance targets

Standardize: Standardized cleanup. This is the condition we support when we maintain the first three pillars. Create a consistent way of implementing the tasks that are performed on a daily basis including �??Sort�??, �??Set in Order�??, and �??Shine.�?? �??Do the right things the right way, every time. Document the procedures and guidelines for sorting, simplifying and organizing

n Visual controls guidelines

n Item quantity requirements

Document the schedule in which they are to be completed and reviewed

n Housekeeping standards

n Workplace arrangement methods

u Sustain (also known as Self-Discipline): Make a habit of maintaining established procedures. Sustain means that the 5S program has a discipline that ensures it�??s continued success and that the 5S mentality is ingrained in everyday work life and procedures. Don�??t let it become another �??flavor of the day�??

A Process for Implementing 5s?

1. Open the Event: Management kickoff 5S

2. Prepare the Team: Explain benefits of 5s; Teams are usually representative of the 5s area and usually 4-6 members in size

3. Get the Facts: Take pictures of current layout; measure inventory; count items; estimate value

4. Assess the Waste: Rework, Trash, Duplication; etc�?�

5. Generate improvement ideas: 10-20 minutes average �?? no more than 1 hour

6. Select the best ideas: An affinity diagram may help before making final selection

7. Make improvements: Target improvements that can be completed in less than 1 week first

8. Measure the Results: Show before and after picture, track savings in travel distances, etc..

Steven Bonacorsi is a Senior Master Black Belt instructor and coach. Steven Bonacorsi has trained hundreds of Master Black Belts, Black Belts, Green Belts, and Project Sponsors and Executive Leaders in Lean Six Sigma DMAIC and Design for Lean Six Sigma process improvement methodologies.

The AIT Group, Inc.
Steven Bonacorsi, Vice President
Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt
3135 South Price Road, Suite 115
Chandler, AZ 85248-3549
Phone: +(1) 888.826.2484
E-mail: sbonacorsi@comcast.net

http://www.theaitgroup.com

Practice Uncommon Appreciation

Steven Bonacorsi — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 02:33:57 -0400

A recent management study revealed that 46% of employees leaving a company do so because they feel unappreciated; 61% said their bosses don't place much importance on them as people; and 88% said they don't receive acknowledgement for the work they do.

Whether you are an entrepreneur, manager, teacher, parent, coach or simply a friend, if you want to be successful with other people, you must master the art of appreciation.

I've never known anyone to complain about receiving too much positive feedback. Have you? In fact, just the opposite is true.

Keeping Score

When I first learned about the power of appreciation, it made total sense to me. However, it was still something that I forgot to do. I hadn't yet turned it into a habit. A valuable technique that I employed to help me lock in this new habit was to carry a 3" x 5" card in my pocket all day, and every time I acknowledged and appreciated someone, I would place a check mark on the card. I would not allow myself to go to bed until I had appreciated 10 people. If it was late in the evening and I didn't have 10 check marks, I would appreciate my wife and children, I would send an e-mails to several of my, or I would write a letter to my mother or stepfather.

I did whatever it took until it became an unconscious habit. I did this every single day for 6 months--until I no longer needed the card to remind me.

Who Cares?

If asked, could you name the five wealthiest people in the world, or five people who have won the Nobel Prize, or the last five Academy Award winners for best actor and actress?

The point is none of us remembers the headliners of yesterday. These are no second-rate achievers either; they are the best in their fields.

But if I asked you to list five teachers or mentors who believed in and encouraged you, five friends who have helped you through a difficult time, five people who have taught you something worthwhile, or five people who have made you feel appreciated and special - that's much easier to do, isn't it?

That's because the people who make a difference in your life aren't the ones with the most credentials, the most money, or the most awards. They're the ones who care.

If you want to be remembered for being important to someone else's life, make them feel appreciated.

Appreciation as a Secret of Success

Another important reason for being in a state of appreciation as often as possible is that when you are in such a state, you are in one of the highest emotional states possible.

When you are in a state of appreciation and gratitude, you are in a state of abundance. You are appreciating what you do instead of focusing on, and complaining about, what you don't have. Your focus is on what you have received... and you always get more of what you focus on. And because the law of attraction states that like attracts like, the more you are in a state of gratitude, the more you will attract to be grateful for. It becomes an upward-spiraling process of ever-increasing abundance that just keeps getting better and better.

Think about it. The more grateful people are for the gifts we give them, the more inclined we are to give them more gifts. Their gratitude and appreciation reinforces our giving. The same principle holds true on a universal and spiritual level as it does on an interpersonal level.

I challenge you to discover ways to immediately appreciate someone in your life, starting today!

by Jack Canfield

SUCCEEDING IN TOUGH TIMES

Steven Bonacorsi — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 02:28:25 -0400

"Circumstances break men's bones; it has never been shown that they break men's optimism." - G. K. Chesterton

I've been noticing (and I'm sure you have to), while many companies and individuals might be struggling right now, that there is also a group of companies and individuals flourishing. I've also noticed there are some common characteristics found in these companies and individuals who seem to be doing well during some of these uncertain times. Here are five characteristics that stand out:

1) These companies and individuals operate from a win/win philosophy and inherently value their business relationships (customers, employees and vendors). When you understand and appreciate this principle it allows you to create and receive value both on a short and long-term basis, as well as recognize and be in line for new opportunities that begin to present themselves.

2) These companies and individuals have an entrepreneurial mindset. Although, it's true that when a boom is going on the entrepreneur is often leading the way, I've also noticed that when the water is high (things are going good), everything tends to even out (everyone seems to be doing well). But when it all starts to go south, it is then that entrepreneurs can rise more quickly and distinguish themselves. Their ability to take risks, be decisive, recognize and seize opportunity and to basically "create", allows them to find a way to make things happen.

3) These companies and individuals have an excellent work ethic and focus. In sports, if you were to ask, who in their respective sport has been a dominant figure, three immediately come to my mind - Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretsky. Beyond their remarkable ability and talent, there is also something about these three that help propel them into greatness - their fierce competitiveness and their incredible work ethic. How do you beat the most talented person in the world when they will also out work you and have a "will to win" that is not to be exceeded? Well, the same is true in business. The top performers do not get complacent. They do not rest on their laurels. And they don't decide that because they are doing well or are on top that that is good enough. Their work ethic and drive to be their personal best has allowed previous victories and momentum to carry over into more success (even in difficult times).

4) These companies and individuals have made a commitment to succeed. Making a decision is the prerequisite to all successes. As Jim says, all good things are upstream, but the natural tendency is downstream. Commitment creates the mindset that allows us to face challenges, shut out negative circumstances and discomfort and then move upstream towards our goals.

5) These companies and individuals operate out of faith. Without faith it is impossible to take risk. Without faith it is impossible to make investments of time and effort in the present hoping for a future reward. And without faith it is impossible to make short-term sacrifices on a consistent basis. Faith allows you to be free to give and be your best, knowing that the reward will manifest itself sometime in the future. Faith also allows you to find the opportunity that often comes disguised in the form of a problem or challenge. While others are "missing it" or spending their time and energy complaining, the person/company of faith is identifying and seizing new opportunities.

Question - how do you rate yourself in these five areas above? I would estimate much of where you find yourself today could be directly related to how well you have fared the past few years in regards to the five points above. The good news is today is a new day, a new opportunity.

by Kyle Wilson

Resume Writing

Steven Bonacorsi — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 15:14:52 -0400

The rules for resume writing have definitely changed the last twelve months. With over two million jobs lost in 2008, capturing your personality and abilities on paper and standing out in the crowd is more important than ever �?? and more difficult. Here are some basics to keep in mind as you put pen to paper and begin your job hunt.

It is vital to know that automation plays a new role in the hiring process. Companies now use special scanner and software packages and feed through resumes they receive in order to search for keywords and phrases. Spend those extra few minutes to customize your resume and use as much specific verbiage as possible from the ad itself. If they mention international travel, then you mention international travel too, etc.

Next, consider featuring your job objective on your cover letter and using those two starring sentences at the top of your resume to highlight your unique brilliance instead. For instance, if you have twenty five years experience and speak three languages, this is the place to show it off. Or if you've run a staff or seventy and built a million dollar business out of nothing, well, you get the picture.

Where able, quantify your resume, by adding the amount of revenue managed, saved, grew; or the number of direct reports, number of projects, and quantify projects results. Numbers help others know the magnitude of experience you have gained.

Finally, remember this �?? even in a recession, there ARE jobs out there. You may need to change industries or take on a few consulting assignments while you're looking. Spending an hour or two with a great Career Mentor is an investment well worth making in order to be sure that your focus is effective and your resume is great!

Catherine Palmiere, CPC, CTS, CSS, CEIC, CPBA, CPCC
President
Adam Personnel, Inc.
Adam Temporary Services, Inc.
Phone: 212 557-9150 ext. 208
Fax: 212 557-9348
mailto:cpalmiere@adampersonnel.com
http://www.adampersonnel.com
http://www.adamtemps.com

What are the common areas of waste in Lean Six Sigma deployment?

Steven Bonacorsi — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 17:18:05 -0400

1. Waste of Over-Training
�??Build to demand�?? is the mantra for Lean production. Yet when it comes to training employees on Lean Six Sigma methods and tools, the standard is �??teach it all upfront just-in-case you need it�??. Most Black and Green Belt training curriculums are modeled on a college or university lecture-driven course of study condensed into week long classes. These certification courses teach a deep body of knowledge organized around the Six Sigma DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control) project management model.
This approach creates waste in a number ways. First is the waste of re-learning. As is the case with physical inventory, knowledge that �??sits�?? or is rarely applied, is value lost and subject to obsolescence. In the case of Belt training, over-training creates a big demand for post-training class expert coaching and support, which adds costs and lengthens project cycle times.
Second is the waste that comes from the need to fill classes with bodies to justify the expense of delivering the training. The result is often more Belts than viable projects leading to �??make work�?? projects and idle resources.
2. Waste of Over-Analysis
If you were to think of performance improvement opportunities as customers to be served, the goal from a Lean perspective is to respond to each opportunity with just the right resources for the need. However, the norm in Lean Six Sigma deployments, is to treat all problems as equally complex.
Data, charts and statistical analyses often substitute for clear thinking, creativity and common sense. As a seasoned Black Belt commented, �??I think we are so enamored with the tools that we do statistical analyses not because it�??s needed, but because we know how to do it.�?? The end result of this �??one size fits all�?? problem-solving mentality is longer than required project cycle times and improvement opportunities left on the table because Belts are too busy �??running down the data�??.
3. Waste of Idle-Resources
Even at the peak of its popularity in the late 1980�??s companies using TQM (Total Quality Management) rarely achieved direct employee participation rates of more than 10 to 15 percent. Unfortunately, Lean Six Sigma has done no better. In fact, the percentage of employees actually participating on Lean Six Sigma project teams is usually less than five percent of the total workforce.
engagement deficit in better project selection and tracking of results, the method has made it harder, not easier, for rank and file employees to participate in continuous improvement due to its complex language and lengthy training requirements.
4. Waste of Project Waiting Time
Most Black Belts will tell you that the biggest drain on their productivity is wait time: Waiting for project resources; waiting for data; waiting for decisions, etc. As a result, the most expensive resource in Lean Six Sigma deployments - the Black Belt - is often the least productive on a return on investment basis. Waiting time produces fewer project completions per Black Belt and in many cases, Black Belt frustration, which in turn creates costly turn-over.
5. Waste of Complexity and Over-Investment
A popular handbook for deploying Lean Six Sigma lists over two hundred steps to establishing a robust infrastructure for Lean Six Sigma launch. While supporting processes and tools (such as project tracking software, communications programs, Champion training and the like) have utility, they often overwhelm attention on the primary objective: Improve and sustain better performance.
By the third year of deployment, many organizations have abandoned their initial Lean Six Sigma infrastructure and moved to a leaner, more responsive one. The cost of under-utilized infrastructure is rarely accounted for in deployments but it has contributed to the perception that Lean Six Sigma is not affordable for many organizations.
A recent survey of organizations deploying Lean Six Sigma reported that most organizations achieve break even return on investment within two years. But neither these results, nor other published reports of Lean Six Sigma success, take into account the significant �??hidden factory�?? costs that accompany the conventional path to Lean Six Sigma deployment.

While Lean Six Sigma makes up for some of this
1 Waste of Over-Training
Lean Six Sigma training follows a �??teach it all upfront just-in-case you need it approach�?? resulting in low-retention and high re-learning costs.
2 Waste of Over-Analysis
Treating all problems as equally complex, requiring data gathering and statistical analysis, results in longer than required project cycle times as well as improvement opportunities left on the table because Belts are too busy �??running down the data�??.
3 Waste of Idle-Resources
Lean Six Sigma has made it harder, not easier, for rank and file employees to participate in continuous improvement due to its complex language and lengthy training requirements.
4 Waste of Project Waiting Time
Waiting for project resources, data and decisions can make the most expensive resource in Lean Six Sigma deployments - Black Belts - the least productive on a return on investment basis.
5 Waste of Complexity and Over-Investment
Supporting processes and tools (such as project tracking software, communications programs, Champion training and the like) often overwhelm attention on the primary objective: Improve and sustain better performance.

This blog post has been written by moderator,Ali R. Hobeheidar of the group "XING Society for Quality".

Visit the group here: http://www.xing.com/net/xsq/

Time To Retain, Time To Engage

Steven Bonacorsi — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 22:56:55 -0400

The first LeanConnections in July launched with a single article dedicated to "Respect for People." It was well received and sparked many thoughtful comments from our readers. Today, in the face of harrowing financial news and pressures on staff and leadership, many of the points addressed previously resurface in this issue where we tackle the dual challenges of retention and engagement of employees. Challenges which may be infinitely more important to address during this economic slowdown. Because if we truly believe that people are indeed our most important asset, the next 12-24 months or so are going to give us ample opportunity to clearly demonstrate that belief.

Adam Zak said, "I earn my livelihood helping companies of the Lean persuasion recruit outstanding executives to meet challenges and achieve aspirations, and I am also a vocal advocate of maintaining a stable, supportive work environment where people can grow and flourish, both personally and professionally. I believe that now is a time when such a workplace is absolutely essential in order that all business stakeholders adapt to and weather the forces that swirl around us."

Create A Highly Engaged Workforce

In that first LeanConnections we quoted Oliver Wyman consultant Jamen Graves writing in Consulting Magazine. Graves advised, "Companies that create a highly engaged workforce benefit from having employees who strongly identify with the company´s success. These employees are willing to go the extra mile; that is, to dramatically increase their level of discretionary effort, which, in turn, significantly improves overall performance. Such employees tend to take pride in their company and are willing to recommend it as a great place to work to friends and family members." I think we can all agree that these are the kinds of employees who will better carry us through our current trying times.

You may also remember that I raised the questions: "Other than for the money to support ourselves and our families, why do we really work? What´s really in it for us? And how will each of us make this very personal choice in a world where talent is the most scarce of all resources?"

As The Beatles Said, "Money Can´t Buy Me Love"

An engaged, respectful (and respected) team delivers the goods for employees, management, customers, shareholders and everyone else with a stake in the success of your Lean enterprise. In ordinary times, it works because people want to make it work. In times like these, it works even harder because it never becomes just a process; it remains the key to living and working together successfully. It´s the foundation that underlies the salaries and benefits we pile on top.

While I generally try to avoid using sports analogies, this one may be apropos in the current business climate. Imagine yourself in top management of an NFL team and the season has just ended. Whether you won the Super Bowl or finished at the bottom of the standings you have some important personnel issues to deal with. Because no matter where you finish in a given year, you´re always trying to improve. As a Chicago football fan I´ll be one of the first to testify on that. And that means deciding which players you must retain at all costs. Calculating whom you could afford to lose. And maybe most importantly, identifying skilled position performers and rising stars who might become available, or could be persuaded to change teams under just the right conditions.

That´s the current state your "team" is in at this very moment. If you are an industry leader, it´s an excellent time to secure this enviable position for years to come. Or, if you are committing yourself to come out of these economically turbulent times poised to charge to the top, now may be the best opportunity you will ever have to retain and recruit your way to greatness.

Either You´re Building, Or You´re Rebuilding

Last February, Maximize Possibility Blog spelled out "4 Tips for Hiring During an Economic Slow Down." Their four rules are summarized as follows:
1. Be choosy, numbers are on your side - so broaden your selection horizons to include criteria other than just experience and education. Look at things such as passion for your industry, cultural fit within in your organization, and the presence of soft skills such as strong interpersonal communication, empathy, and likeability.
2. Beware of the "low-bid". While it may be tempting to hire an individual for the perceived payroll saving they promise to offer, doing so usually costs more in the long run. Bottom line - pay your team members what their positions are worth.
3. Wait for the best talent possible - While economic downturns are generally short lived, time is on your side. Hiring anything less than the best talent you can afford will ultimately rob your organization of possibility and profits.
4. Match candidates to the right jobs. It is absolutely critical that you insist on hiring team members who are a good fit for the position based on their unique behaviors, values, and personal talents.

But it´s not enough to build or rebuild your team. You have to inspire them to achieve great things.

Work And Life: A Balancing Act

In a recent posting on ERE.net, "A Work Strategy for a Good Life: Attracting and Keeping the Best" by Kevin Wheeler, the author addressed issues of work/life balance, paying particular attention to differences between generations. "I can´t think of any organization that has not had to change policies or at least address its employees on the issue of work/life balance. Perhaps it emerged because more Gen X employees moved into leadership positions and were more aware of the precariousness of employment and about how quickly corporate can swing from breakneck hiring to layoffs. But whatever the causes, the issues involved are core to whether people accept offers, stay with an organization, or decide to work for themselves."

But why should this matter only to those within Gen X? Doesn´t everyone want to know that his or her role is making a difference? That they´ve accepted some risks and solved problems? That they have been part of something larger than themselves and were in some way instrumental in the success of that something? If you asked your employees to what degree they felt engaged, how would they answer? Would those responses be truthful? Would they be the answers you expected?

Other work/life factors also play into improving the mindset of your team members. A Deloitte Consulting LLP report entitled "Retention Strategies during Difficult Economic Conditions" provided some additional insights. "Companies are wisely trying to ease the strain on employees by improving their work environment. Many companies are implementing or expanding work force programs that are designed to make balancing work and family easier. These include flexible work schedules, telecommuting and compressed workweeks. While these programs won´t put dollars in employees´ pockets, they can go a long way toward helping employees view their company more favorably, making them less likely to leave."

Human Sigma: Six Sigma Meets Human Nature

Many Lean practitioners will relate positively to a relatively new, emerging idea, Human Sigma - I know I do. It´s a branch of Six Sigma focused on improving employee-customer interactions. I learned more about it in a recent article on isixsigma.com, "Strengthening the Employee-customer Interaction," by Peter Sherman.

Human Sigma is an approach to management that recognizes human nature and uses that knowledge to achieve three objectives:

To manage and motivate employees
To accelerate their development
To engage customers´ emotions

Proponents of Human Sigma believe that "emotionally satisfied customers contribute far more to the bottom line than rationally satisfied customers. The key is to strengthen the employee-customer interaction," wrote Sherman. In order to measure any company´s Human Sigma score, Sherman referenced a book by John H. Fleming and Jim Asplund. Human Sigma: Managing the Employee-Customer Relationship, which established a rudimentary measurement formula. The authors surveyed employees and customers with a series of 12 questions for each audience, measuring employee engagement on the one hand, and customer satisfaction on the other. Answers on a five point scale ranged from 1 (= no agreement) to 5 (= extreme agreement).

In my view, the addition of IT, R&D or other technical expertise to the list of required CSO qualifications is progress, but it still doesn´t take the role far enough. And that´s because these executives seldom stray from their familiar territory and into the operational excellence arena.

Four Core Principles Of Engagement

1. Manage by outcomes, not behaviors - In other words, although the end remains constant, the means to achieve that end will inevitably vary between individuals.
2. Liberate, don´t legislate - The most dramatic increases in productivity occur when companies allow workgroups to choose their own initiatives and focus on them. Anything that makes employees passive viewers instead of active participants in the employee-customer encounter is counterproductive.
3. Engagement is for everyone - The ability to capture the heads, hearts, and souls of employees and instill an intrinsic desire and passion for excellence.
4. All politics is local - Companies cannot dictate employee engagement from corporate headquarters. They must manage engagement locally. To this end, the local manager is the single most important factor in local group performance.

Does this sound like a game plan for more effectively engaging the teams up-and-down and all across your organization? How would your internal and external customers benefit from this level of focus on team member engagement? Would your business stand a better chance for successfully maneuvering its way out of this economic storm?

These Times Require A Culture That Sustains All Employees

As cited in the first issue of LeanConnections, Frank Brown of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) was quoted in Harvard Management Update on the importance of building a culture of retention. "In good markets and bad, there are always opportunities for top performers. The real trick is creating a culture that sustains all employees, and engenders a positive response to questions like these:

Is my work valued?
Does my opinion count?
Are new ideas welcomed?
Are people treated with respect?
Am I evaluated and rewarded on my performance?
Does leadership act with integrity?"

The challenge for those of us in the Lean Community is to embrace and explain the true nature of mutual respect for people - managers and associates - so all organizations can move toward a new and better way of solving their problems.

No Matter What The Economy Is Doing, Retaining And Engaging Pays Off

A current newsletter from Deloitte Consulting LLP asked the question "Cash or Talent?" Given the recently pronounced recession, "What should business leaders do in the face of the current economic crisis? Should they focus on maintaining cash or people? What should they make their top priority?"

No contest in my book, unless maybe you happen to be the Chairman of one of the Detroit Three. Engagement and retention strategies must win out because people are absolutely essential to weathering the current economic storm. But looking beyond the turmoil, these same efforts should continue to pay dividends for a long time into the future. Always remember that the people you chose to retain and engage today are the same people who will choose to be retained and engaged tomorrow. Take this opportunity to practice what you have been saying all along, that people are indeed your most important and valued asset.

About the Author:

Adam Zak is founder and president of http://www.LeanRecruiter.com Adam Zak Executive Search. His firm helps companies committed to long-term lean operations connect with lean executive talent.

American Vs Japanese Car Makers

Steven Bonacorsi — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 02:05:39 -0400

A Japanese company ( Toyota) and an American company (Ford Motors) decided to have a canoe race on the Missouri River. Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race.

On the big day, the Japanese won by a mile.

The Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat. A management team made up of senior management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action.

Their conclusion was the Japanese had 8 people paddling and 1 person steering, while the American team had 7 people steering and 2 people paddling.

Feeling a deeper study was in order, American management hired a consulting company and paid them a large amount of money for a second opinion.

They advised, of course, that too many people were steering the boat, while not enough people were paddling.

Not sure of how to utilize that information, but wanting to prevent another loss to the Japanese, the paddling team's management structure was totally reorganized to 4 steering supervisors, 2 area steering superintendents and 1 assistant superintendent steering manager.

They also implemented a new performance system that would give the 2 people paddling the boat greater incentive to work harder. It was called the 'Rowing Team Quality First Program,' with meetings, dinners and free pens for the paddlers. There was discussion of getting new paddles, canoes and other equipment, extra vacation days for practices, and bonuses. The pension program was trimmed to 'equal the competition' and some of the resultant savings were channeled into morale boosting programs and teamwork posters.

The next year the Japanese won by two miles.

Humiliated, the American management laid off one paddler, halted development of a new canoe, sold all the paddles, and canceled all capital investments for new equipment. The money saved was distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses.

The next year, try as he might, the lone designated paddler was unable to even finish the race (having no paddles), so he was laid off for unacceptable performance, all canoe equipment was sold and the next year's racing team was out-sourced to India.

Sadly, the End.

Here's something else to think about: Ford has spent the last thirty years moving factories out of the US, claiming they can't make money paying American wages.

TOYOTA has spent the last thirty years building more than a dozen plants inside the US.

The last quarter's results:

TOYOTA made 4 billion in profits while Ford racks up 9 billion in losses.

Ford folks are still scratching their heads, and collecting bonuses...

Happy Holidays

Steven Bonacorsi, MBB / Vice President

http://www.linkedin.com/in/StevenBonacorsi

603-401-7047

sbonacorsi@comcast.net

http://www.theaitgroup.com

Layoff's

Steven Bonacorsi — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 13:25:45 -0400

Lean Six Sigma is a data driven approach that can be applied to any process, including retention, lay-off's, recruitment, and hiring processes. Here is some interesting data regarding layoff's:

If your company is contemplating layoffs to trim the bottom line, consider this. According to a new study by Leadership IQ, 74% of employees who kept their job amidst a corporate layoff say their own productivity has declined since the layoff. And 69% say the quality of their company's product or service has declined since the layoffs.

Other key study findings about the state of the workplace following the layoffs include:

87% of surviving workers say they are less likely to recommend their organization as a good place to work
64% of surviving workers say the productivity of their colleagues has also declined.
81% of surviving workers say the service that customers receive has declined.
77% of surviving workers say they see more errors and mistakes being made.
61% of surviving workers say they believe their company's future prospects are worse.

Source: Leaderdhip IQ, Washington, DC

Geary A. Rummler

Steven Bonacorsi — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 15:31:43 -0400

Who would have expected that two of the leading business process gurus would die within such a short period of time. Michael Hammer died on September 3rd and on October 29th, Geary Rummler died. Unlike Michael Hammer, who was a popular public speaker and got people excited about the need for process change, Geary Rummler was the process analysts' analyst and the ultimate methodologist of business process change. He was best in small groups where he could bring his extensive knowledge of organizational change to bear on specific problems.

To understand the impact of Geary Rummler, you need a bit of history. Geary Rummler began his career at the University of Michigan in the early Sixties and then went on to manage a series of consulting companies focused on analyzing and improving human performance in organizations. When I worked for Geary, in the late Sixties, in New York, we focused on helping organizations with human performance problems. Computers had just been introduced in the Sixties and were confined to supporting back office tasks. They didn't play a large role in most of the processes that companies were concerned with. Thus, in the Sixties, process work was very aligned with psychology, training and motivation, and focused on getting the people who performed the company's work to do so in a more efficient manner.

In the course of the Seventies, Rummler refined his overall approach, and in the Eighties, he joined with Alan Brache to form a consulting company, Rummler-Brache. During the Eighties Rummler undertook a number of major consulting engagements that introduced process thinking in major corporations. It was in the early Eighties, for example, that he spent several years working on process change at Motorola. In hindsight, it's easy to see Rummler's work as the stimulus that sparked the folks at Motorola to combine TQM and process analysis to create Six Sigma in the late Eighties.

In the late Eighties, Rummler and Brache wrote Improving Performance: How to Manage the White Space on the Organization Chart, which they published in 1990. The subtitle reflected Rummler's concern that companies were organized into functional silos and that work was accomplished by processes that cut across the functional units. Thus, the major complaint of functional managers was always that some other functional unit didn't provide them with the input they needed to do their job. Nobody, in other words, managed the process as a whole - no one managed what happened as work flowed across the white spaces between functional units pictured on organization charts.

In the early Nineties, business people suddenly became interested in process in a big way. Hammer, Champy, Davenport and others began to promote the idea of Business Process Reengineering. Hammer stressed that IT made it possible for companies to undertake major revisions in the way they did work. He argued that, in the late Seventies and the Eighties, IT systems had been used to set the existing processes in concrete within the functional silos. In a memorable phrase, Hammer argued that companies had paved cow paths when what they needed to do was radically reconsider the way they did work and then create freeways.

Hammer and Business Process Reengineering dominated the business literature in the mid-Nineties and suddenly everyone was interested in how organizations could improve processes. Unfortunately, Hammer didn't offer a methodology. He had the idea that it was important to do so, and he provided lots of examples of companies that had used IT to make significant gains, but he didn't tell you exactly how to organize a process change effort within your organization. As companies and consultants looked around for help, they discovered Geary Rummler. Rummler-Brache went from a small consulting company to a much larger consulting company, and suddenly everyone who wanted specific advice was either reading Improving Performance, or reading one of several mid-nineties books that derived from Improving Performance.

An IBM researcher took Rummler's courses and was so impressed with the power of Rummler-Brache diagrams that he created an IBM process methodology called LOVEM. The acronym stood for Line of Vision Enterprise Methodology. The "line", in this case, referred to the swimlane line at the top of a Rummler-Brache diagram that divided the customer from the process and allowed the analyst to see exactly how the process interacted with the customer. I personally gave a copy of Improving Performance and the LOVEM documentation to Grady Booch when he and others were drafting UML, a software methodology, to assure that swimlanes were incorporated in UML activity diagrams.

In a similar way, companies suddenly became more interested in other technologies from the Eighties, like Six Sigma, structured diagramming methodologies like the Air Force's IDEF0, and in Professor Scheer's ARIS methodology. During this same period, dozens of new books were written combining ideas that Rummler had developed over the course of the Seventies and Eighties with new approaches derived mostly from IT.

Geary Rummler was primarily a methodologist. He thought in practical terms - he wanted to define the steps and techniques that managers could follow to improve the performance in their organizations.

First and foremost he conceptualized an organization as a system. For Rummler, the ultimate process was the organization that took people and plans and materials and produced products or services for customers. From there, he proceeded to take the organization apart, as one would a fine watch, noting how the different elements functioned to produce the desired performance, and determining how they could fail and how they could be fixed.

Different individuals who have learned from Geary will, no doubt, consider different elements of his approach as being most important. Here is my own quick survey.

Geary began with an overview of the levers one could move to improve organizational performance. He created the matrix shown in Figure 1 to illustrate how they all tied together. He divided organizations into three levels--an Organizational level, a Process level, and an Activity or Job Level. At each level, he argued that you needed to define goals and measures, indicate what was to be done, and determine who was responsible for making it happen.

Figure 1. Rummler's Three Levels Framework

To help performance improvement teams, Geary then created models to help with the analysis of each of the levels. At the organization level, he created a relationship map (often called an organization diagram), which is pictured in Figure 2. The relationship map reflected Rummler's deep concern with a general systems view of an organization and his insistence that process improvement could only be driven by those with a broad, top-down understanding of the way the company worked.

The organization diagram wasn't a formal picture, but a working map of the organization. I have watched company teams spend hours examining a company organization map to assure that they have the flows correctly defined, and have heard executives exclaim when it became obvious that the company was doing something that was wasteful or inefficient.

Once the basic inputs and outputs of the organization were understood, Rummler urged the teams to define the basic value chain that took the inputs and produced the outputs. At the highest level, Rummler organized the core processes within a company value chain into three broad categories, 1) processes that imagine and Create the product or service, 2) processes that produce or Make the product or service, and 3) processes that sell or Deliver the product or service. This division of the overall value chain into three major processes was the starting point for a more detailed analysis of the process level.

Figure 2. An Organization Map

At the process level, Rummler used what people in the Nineties termed a Rummler-Brache diagram. Today, most readers would probably call it a swimlane diagram. (See Figure 3) In essence, Rummler modified traditional workflow diagrams by introducing three important innovations. First, he introduced swimlanes to indicate what department or individual was responsible for specific processes. Then, he added a top lane where he showed how the process-in-scope interacted with the customer of the process. Finally, he added lanes below in which he showed external support processes. He often listed software systems in support lanes to show how specific activities used particular systems. When used to map a large-scale process, a Rummler-Brache diagram made it obvious just where the process interacted with the customer, exactly where inputs came in from other processes, and, most important, where processes were handed off between one department and the next.

Rummler was never very concerned with the semantic details of the swimlane diagram. The diagram wasn't intended for software developers; it was created to help business managers and employees figure out how their processes worked and how they could be improved. Geary always thought it was more important for business people to feel comfortable using the diagrams to capture their processes.

Today's BPMN diagrams are a direct descendent of Rummler-Brache diagrams. The BPMN core notation can be used by a business analyst to help a group of business people describe how their As-Is processes work and to generate To-Be processes. Later, software developers can extend the core diagram with additional notation to specify a process description that can be used to generate a software system.

Figure 3. A Rummler-Brache swimlane diagram.

At the Job or Activity level, Rummler relied on a Human Performance System model that focused process analysts on the types of things that could impede or improve employee performance. (See Figure 4.)

The Human Performance System model goes back to Rummler's earliest concerns with how to analyze tasks and structure jobs. As I suggested earlier, in the Sixties, this was the primary concern of process improvement, and Rummler's work here derived from the behavioral psychology models that were currently popular. Geary was one of the founders and a past president of the International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI), and this professional association remained his main organizational allegiance throughout his career. In the course of that career, Geary gradually stimulated the organization to shift from its initial focus on training and development to a process-oriented approach that embraced the Human Performance System, which is now a key technology maintained by ISPI.

The Human Performance System model suggested that when you looked at a specific person working at a specific task, you began by asking five sets of questions. You asked what the task was designed to achieve and how it was measured. You asked if the performers knew what they were to do and if they had the resources to perform the task. You asked what consequences resulted from the effort. You asked if the employees got feedback that let them know if they were performing correctly. And, finally, you asked if the employees had the skills and the knowledge required to perform the task. To operationalize this diagram, Rummler provided worksheets and checklists to assure that analysts asked the right questions.

The methodology courses that Rummler taught always reflected his concern with learning, and he took training performance analysts just as seriously as he took improving the work of employees within other business processes.

Figure 4. Rummler's Human Performance Model

In addition to looking at employee performance, Rummler also insisted that we always look at the performance of the employee's manager as well. Many of the elements of the Human Performance System model, after all, are not under the control of the employee. For example, it was the manager or supervisor that provided employees with information about the success of their work, or let them know if work they had done needed to be redone. Similarly, it was the manager who defined the job to begin with and made hiring decisions. Figure 5 illustrates Rummler's basic management model.

In essence, Rummler always thought of a process, and then immediately thought of a coupled element, the management process, that planned and controlled the process-in-scope. (At the process level, on a Rummler-Brache diagram, the management process is always represented by the swimlane and identified by the name of the swimlane.)

Figure 5. Rummler's Management Model

In separate work, Rummler developed models that showed how management responsibilities flowed down through a hierarchy of managers, from the individual responsible for the value chain to the supervisor responsible for specific, low level activities. And he always maintained that 50% of any process improvement effort should be focused on improving the way the process was managed. He often remarked that "if you put a good performer in a bad system, the system would win every time."

I remember talking to Geary in the Eighties, just after he had returned from a study trip to Japan in which he had visited several famous Japanese companies to see how they were managed. At the time, every business magazine was filled with stories about how good Japanese manufacturing was. I asked Geary if the Japanese had really discovered something new. He assured me that they hadn't - that they were doing just what he had been suggesting US companies do for the past twenty years. "The difference is the management culture," he told me. "US executives still think it is all about money and that people are only a resource to be manipulated. The Japanese executives, on the other hand, understand that people are fundamental - that it's all about people. They really organize to constantly improve human performance and get the results that US companies could easily get if they had the same attitude."

I remember how upset Geary was with Reengineering -- even though it turned Rummler-Brache into a very successful company. He thought that Hammer had jumped into something he didn't fully understand and proposed changes so disruptive that they were bound to fail. He was even more upset when Reengineering turned into an excuse for massive layoffs. It was just further proof, as far as he was concerned, that senior management didn't understand the importance of people.

This overview hardly scratches the surface of Geary Rummler's contribution to our field. Hopefully, however, it suggests how his work predated, and now permeates, modern approaches to business process change. If you want to study Geary's early work, Improving Performance is still available. To my mind, his later book: Serious Performance Consulting According to Rummler, published in 2004, is even better, and should be required reading for anyone who wants to help his or her organization improve its performance.

Ultimately, Michael Hammer had a larger impact on the process movement. He made business executives really think about the importance of business processes for the first time. He certainly convinced everyone that IT systems were changing everything and that processes needed to be redesigned to take advantage of what IT systems could do.

Rummler's contribution was subtler - he taught two generations of process analysts the tools of their trade and how to think about business process problems. The systematic methodology described in his books embraces all the elements needed to achieve superior organizational performance. Throughout his life, Geary just kept working to create an elegant overview that would integrate all the elements and form the basis for systematic process management change.

From the day I took my first course from Geary Rummler at the University of Michigan, in 1967, he was my hero and my mentor. He convinced me I wanted to become a performance analyst and provided me with the basic tools that I have used ever since. I know he did the same for many other people active in business process work today.

When I decided to write a book on Business Process Change, I traveled to Tucson several times to discuss my ideas with him and to discover his latest insights. I was scheduled to have dinner with him this past month, but he died before we could meet again.

As with a parent, so with an intellectual mentor: You never really have time to finish the conversation. It just gets broken off and the one who is left keeps thinking of new ideas that would amuse the person, rebuttals to past arguments you have had, or other questions you would have liked to ask. And you can't; you are simply left to live with the loss.

Our Sympathies,

Steven Bonacorsi, MBB / Vice President

www.linkedin.com/in/StevenBonacorsi

603-401-7047

sbonacorsi@comcast.net

http://www.theaitgroup.com

LET LEAN SIGMA PRACTITIONERS RING IN YOUR NEW YEAR

Steven Bonacorsi — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 12:30:18 -0400

I wanted to share an excellent artcle from Brad Wyrick...

LEAN, SIX SIGMA PRACTITIONERS ARE RABBIT CHASERS

�??We cannot solve problems with the same thinking we had when we created the problem.�??

Albert Einstein

As organizations make their New Year Resolutions to their New Visions of Excellence incorporating those needed changes for growth, gaining market share and increasing revenuers; will they find themselves chasing the same rabbits by using the same tools as they did last year? Will they use the same tools to solve the same problems or better yet will they invest in Lean Sigma Practitioners that can expedite their desired end results?

Even when organizations hire or bring in Lean Sigma Practitioners the problem for many might be the reality that as the days turns to weeks and weeks into months good intentions give way to old habits. It is just easier to do it the old familiar way. However planning is essential to a vision realized and a mission backed with strategic objectives will ensure that business goals set are business goals realized. The use of the correct tools will cut the problem solving process in half.

CHEERY PICKING TOOLS WILL LEAD TO DEAD-END RESULTS

�??If you don�??t know where you are going any road will get you there.�??

Alice in Wonderland

The failure with most improvement initiatives is that organizations �??Cheery Pick�?? their initiatives, methodologies, projects and the use of the problem solving tools. They settle for the islands of isolated efficiencies that often can�??t be sustained. They forget that all business functions must support change and that low hanging fruit will only stay ripe for a season.

The question becomes; if we improve one process in the enterprise system can up stream processes support it and can stream processes keep up with it? Another question would be, will we invest the time to mature the process to receive the gains?

THE VOICE OF THE PROCESS DICTATES TOOL SELECTION

Any improvement strategy can only be realized by the critical selection of the proper tools. We must understand that whatever the industry, speed is critical to your business�??s competitiveness and health. There are more than 200 process improvement tools for organizations to choose from when looking at problems, opportunities and growth potential. These tools can help �?� any product, process or service become shorter, simpler, smoother and more stable. Lean Sigma Practitioners critically select the tools to speed up how people think together and clean up logical gaps between tool sets. Taken together, the critical thinking tools form a framework. The framework is made up of questions designed to facilitate analysis of any situation by defining specific logical needs. This framework is perfect for integrating other tools to fill these logical needs when and if their unique contribution is needed to answer one of the questions.

BIG THREE: Lean Enterprise tools reduce non-value added activities, create flow throughout the organization and reduce lead times dramatically. Six Sigma tools reduce variation in value added activities, stabilize processes and build in repeatability. The failure of most process improvement initiatives occurs when organizations are missing Critical Thinking tools. They use a small collection of their favorite tools which often don�??t uncover the root cause of the problem or fail to inform them that they simply have a decision to make. Critical Thinking bridges the gap between Reactive and Proactive decision making.

�??If you always do what you always done you will always get what you always got.�??

Incorporating the Critical Thinking Process into your tool box will reduce the time your teams spend on any project. Critical Thinking helps you to analyze the opportunity quickly and points you toward the right tools. Alice-In-Wonderland said, �??If you don�??t know where you are going, any road will get you there.�?? The question is; do you have a Problem to solve, a Decision to make, a Planning opportunity or a combination of all three? Spending time up front defining the purpose, focus and process will save you enormous amounts of time and effort down the road.

Symptoms of the need for improved critical thinking include: difficulty with (or avoidance of) complex issues, long meeting times with complaints of lack of progress or going in circles, frustration when attempting to influence others, and failure to agree or develop optimal, highest quality actions.

PRACTITIONERS ARE NOT BORN BUT ARE DEVELOPED THROUGH TOOL USE

If you are struggling to achieve breakthrough improvements, are uncertain about which improvement approach to adopt �?? or are relying on traditional TQM tools; a seasoned Practitioner will help to harness the synergy of Lean and Six Sigma with the speed of Critical Thinking. This will enable you to achieve fast, dramatic improvements in translating abstract desires from the Voice-of-the-Customers into concrete specifications and organizational requirements. Leaders will use this data to transform the strategic goals and processes in a way that delivers value to the end user.

Critical Thinking gives people a new and dramatic boost in thinking effectively and efficiently. These new principles offer tangible solutions to drastically cut the percentage of waste and to improve quality, productivity and profitability. Properly applied, Critical Thinking will provide you a quicker return on investment.

CHASING THE RIGHT RABBITS

The question become; �??If you chase the rabbit down the wrong hole with the wrong tool-set how long will it take you to get on the correct road? How much did it cost the organization, how much time was spent and how many of your employees fell into the rabbit hole of disappointment? Let it be known that Lean-Sigma Tools that are critically thought out will never be the reason to make the employee your �??Low-Hanging-Fruit�?? but they will become assists for your increased capacity.

Lean Sigma Practitioners uses measurement driven methodologies and powerful root cause analysis to address problems in the organization that have been eluding management for years. Let Lean Sigma Practitioners ring in your New Year with critical tools to help ensure many successful years to come and pave your strategic road map to a true Vision backed by proper Tool selection.

Brad Wyrick, President

Wyrick Enterprises

949-461-0279

www.wyrickenterprises.com

**************************************

Happy Holidays,

Steven Bonacorsi, MBB / Vice President

www.linkedin.com/in/StevenBonacorsi

603-401-7047

sbonacorsi@comcast.net

http://www.theaitgroup.com

Perfect Networker

Steven Bonacorsi — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 14:24:53 -0400

I've been asked by many how to succeed in social networking. I share this blog in an attempt to help you be more succesful on this site and in networking.

The Art of Relationship Marketing through Online Social Networking Platforms

1. Let's start with why a PerfectNetworker would invite someone to be more successful. Well an invite to the site abundant with networkers is an act of contribution. You should invite networkers you know to be professional whether through first hand experience or from their reputation.

2. Welcome anyone and everyone when they enter the site, how can you assess who is a good contact or who is not. How do you feel when you are made to feel welcome?

3. Those that respond are more apt to understand the principles of networking, which is communication and contribution.

4. Always put the ball in their court. This is a commitment. Conversation should remain light but sincere with nothing being sold, and only an offer to help should be your sincere stance.

5. At some point through birthdays, weekly contact, etc. there should be enough rapport that you will either be welcome to share what you are looking for or more than likely they reciprocate the offer to contribute to you. I find this is about a 3 month time period. Many do not have the patience or determination, but I assure you the reward is worth the wait.

6. Read the Go-Giver, it really is about being a sincere contributor to others' success. As Zig Ziglar says help enough people achieve their dreams and your dreams will be achieved as well. Or maybe it was, "If you want to achieve your dreams, help others achieve theirs". You get the idea.

7. Learn about the people you wish to do business with, and the acceptance of this friendship will return dividends to you because people want to refer people you like and trust (Bob Burg).

8. Remember birthdays and take a moment to wish random "Perfect days" to those you have lost touch with.

9. Meet for a one on one or a phone call when the rapport dictates you would be welcome and trusted to contribute to them. The rest really takes place rather naturally.

10. Don't worry about stats, effort, or those that don't reciprocate... don't keep count, just have fun helping others and that will be fun by itself.

11. Having a photo expedites the rapport by light years because the person you are communicating with feels there is a human on the other side

What are others thoughts on what make's a Perfect Network or at least some positive tips on what to do or not do on social and business networking sites?

What best practices have you used to network at a recruiter?

Warm Regards,

Steven Bonacorsi, MBB / Vice President

www.linkedin.com/in/StevenBonacorsi

603-401-7047

sbonacorsi@comcast.net

http://www.theaitgroup.com

How do I create interest when cold calling?

Steven Bonacorsi — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 16:58:38 -0400

It's not knowing what to say that makes most people fear cold calling. Here, coach Sophie Robertson outlines five ways to start a conversation.

Robertson, now the director of Younique Coaching, says that back when she started recruiting in 1990 - at the beginning of the last recession - her daily target was 30 cold calls, much higher than most consultants have today.

She was well known among her colleagues for constantly being on the phone, and was always being asked how she managed to engage so many strangers in conversation and keep them talking.

Regardless of the market conditions and your call targets, she says, "you still need to know how to start a phone conversation and what to actually talk about."

It helps to have empathy with your prospects, she says.

"Just put yourself in your potential client's shoes. It's a busy day, you have so far had five other recruiters call you. They all sound the same - that is, they are calling you because they have to, not because they have anything to say to you specifically. What's your mood like when the sixth cold call comes through?"

Robertson says there are some basic ways to break this cycle for your client:

Make them laugh. - this is a sure icebreaker. If you are funny, use it and make a joke.

For example, if the prospect asks you to send some information, see it for the fob off that it is and make a joke: "When you receive the information, will you file it under 'B'? 'B' for bin?"

If you are not (and Robertson says she falls into this group) then laugh at yourself.

When asking for the client visit, put the purpose in perspective: "When we meet, at least you can decide whether you want to deal with me or not!" Robertson says this has always gotten her a visit. "People are nice. They even say: 'I'm sure that's not the case'."

Make them feel special. Make the prospect feel that you are calling them because you have a reason, not because you have to make your marketing quota.

"Hi, I'm Jo from Company X. I'm calling you because one of my candidates has expressed interest in your company".

Tell them something they don't know. This requires you to read, listen and absorb information, Robertson says.

"Hi, I'm Greg from Company X. I wanted to call to see how your employees are taking the news on the possible upcoming merger with xyz?" Robertson says you will be amazed how often the employees are the last to hear what's going on. "You become their funnel to news."

Make them curious about you or your service.

"Hi, I wanted to call you because we recruit for a few companies related to your industry and wondered whether you might be a potential client for us." This also works with "companies in your area, street, building, competitors" etc.

Respect them and their time. "Hi, I'm Nicole from company X. Have I caught you at a good time?"

If they say 'no', ask when is a better time, and ensure you call back at that time, Robertson says. "If they say, 'I have two minutes', get to the point!"

"Lastly, but importantly, always have in mind what you want from the call," Robertson says.

"Be very clear when you pick up the phone what your purpose is - for example, a client visit, job order or referral. Remember you are more likely to get what you want, if you set your sights on it!"

What is ERROR PROOFING??

Steven Bonacorsi — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 02:48:04 -0400

There are five categories of error proofing:
�?� Fail safe devices
�?� Magnification of senses
�?� Redundancy
�?� Count down
�?� Special checking and control devices

Fail Safe Device methods:
�?� Interlocking sequences -ensures the next operation cannot start until the previous operation is successfully complete.
�?� Alarms and cutoffs �?? are activated if there are any abnormalities in the process.
�?� All Clear Signals- is activated when all remedial steps have been taken.
�?� Foolproof work holding devices �?? ensure that a part can only be located in one position.
�?� Limiting mechanisms �?? are used to ensure that a tool cannot exceed a certain position or amount.
�?� Magnification of senses is used to increase the power of human, seeing, hearing, smelling, feeling, tasting and muscle power. Some examples are optical magnification (such as a comparator) and specific viewing aids with pictures and specific accept/reject criteria.
�?� Redundancy is the use of additional activities as a quality safeguard.
�?� Multiple identity codes -such as bar and color codes are used to prevent mix-ups.
�?� Audit review and checking procedures -assure that the plans are being followed.
�?� Design of verification �?? utilizes special designs, such as holes for viewing to determine if the product or process is performing satisfactorily.
�?� Multiple test stations �?? may check a number of attributes such as those occurring on a high-speed production line.
�?� Another category is counting down which structures sensing and information procedures to parallel the operating procedures in order to check each step. The most familiar example of the category of error proofing is the launching of a space vehicle. It has also been effectively used in surgical operations and in welding.
�?� Special checking and device controls- an example is the computer checking of credit card numbers whereby invalid numbers are rejected and instant feedback provided.

There are five error proofing principles:
�?� Elimination
�?� Replacement
�?� Facilitation
�?� Detection
�?� Mitigation

Elimination of the possible error occurs when the process or product is redesigned so that the task is no longer required.

Replacement is a change to a more reliable process

Facilitation occurs when the process is made easier to perform and therefore, more reliable.

Detection occurs when the error is found prior to the next operation.

Mitigation minimizes the effect of the error.

Note: Without stable processes where output can be accurately measured. It would be non-value added to implement this tool at this time.

Steven Bonacorsi

www.linkedin.com/in/StevenBonacorsi

603-401-7047

sbonacorsi@comcast.net

http://www.theaitgroup.com