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In today’s business
environment with the constant pressure to be more efficient and effective,
it can seem we never have the level of resources we think are necessary to
accomplish what we have been asked to do. For Xerox’s Design for Lean Six
Sigma Deployment, we were under a great deal of pressure to deliver our
program with a constrained budget and deployment resources. This
constrained environment created some anticipated deployment challenges but
surprisingly also created a new set of opportunities that ultimately helped
our overall deployment.
One such opportunity was
focusing on the “believers.” When we started our DfLSS deployment, our
intention was to attempt to convert Xerox managers and other personnel to
this new way of approaching their product development jobs. We quickly
realized that that was a significant task and we did not have the resources
to tackle everyone at once. We then shifted our emphasis to the believer
population. The believer population included those who were already
applying the DfLSS tools and methods, advocate managers and the previously
mentioned Pioneers who will be empowered through just training. The focus
was to take our precious resources to make these believers successful. This
included giving training preferences to those managers who were strong
advocates, supported the program and created an environment where trained
DfLSS candidates could practice their newly acquired skills. We also made
efforts to publicize those “believing managers” through a variety of
internal media, showing the positive impact they and their reports made with
DfLSS. For engineers, we documented testimonials and created videos that
highlighted engineers and the outstanding work they were doing. This gave
them exposure to their peers, immediate management and to upper management
who became convinced that DfLSS was going to help overall product design
productivity. This manager and engineer exposure enabled people who were
“on the fence” to seek out DfLSS advocates and have face to face
discussions. By making the believers successful, we made the entire DfLSS
program successful.
For the ergs of energy
expended, I believe we got an overall better payback by focusing on the
believers than if we focused on convincing non-believers. As entire
organizations, managers through engineers and technicians were trained and
practicing their DfLSS skills, there became a bigger and perceivable
performance gap between the believer organizations and those who did not.
Smart “Settler” managers and engineers would see the gap, seek out their
peers and get on board with the program. For those who choose not to
embrace DfLSS, the performance gap grew to the point where certain actions
to replace individuals were taken. In the end, we found it easier and more
productive to make believers successful than trying to convert those who did
not.
1Norman
E. Fowler, “Lessons Learned from an Unconventional Design for Lean Six Sigma
Deployment”, Morrisville, NC, Lulu Press Inc., 2008.
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