Aaron U. Bolin, Ph.D.

When I teach lean six sigma tools and techniques, I always emphasize the importance of application. Withouth projects that produce results, lean six sigma is only another empty training program about solving problems. Regardless of what I say or do during training, the transition from student to practitioner is sometimes slow. The slowness of the student-to-pracitioner transition is partly due to my unique organizational circumstances. I am building on the ruins of a previous lean six sigma deployment. The earlier deployment team had built infrastructure to the point of critical mass; the project pipeline was flowing and beginning to produce real operational results. Then leadership changed and the effort was abruptly cancelled -- existing project teams were disbanded. The re-deployment investment for the current effort consists of one half-time black belt (me) and a small office supply budget. With those resources, I am deploying lean six sigma to a nation-wide enterprise of a few tho

As a Continuous Process Improvement (CPI) Program Manager, I really enjoy delivering training. I feel effective when I weather the initial storm of doubt and resistance from trainees: "CPI is another management flavor of the month...," "CPI is just a rehash of Total Quality Management...," "How is this different than process re-engineering (or any of dozens of brands of process improvement." After a few hours, I can literally see the conversions start taking place as very smart people realize that the processes that they manage are not smart. By the end of the training, only a few hold-outs still remain: individuals who still see no value in the techniques and tools associated with improving processes. Needless to say, I was surprised when I realized that I don't care about process improvement. Process improvement, for me, is only a means to an end. The only reason I want our organizational processes to be improved is to improve our organizational pe

As 1 of 1 employees responsible for our local Continuous Process Improvement (CPI) program, expanding awareness of and involvement in the program can be a challenge. In fact, it is even a bit more challenging because 50% of my position is devoted to other project work. Even providing training can be difficult. If I'm out of the office for several days to deliver training, then both the CPI program and my other job duties suffer. We recently took advantage of the fact that the local cadre of Green Belts were eager to exercise their knowledge of lean six sigma principles to offer a Yellow Belt course. The standard Yellow Belt curriculum that we use is two full days of instruction and is led by a Black Belt. Our team team altered the training schedule so that the course could be offered in a three half-day format. I served as the Black Belt lead instructor, with three Green Belts sharing the instructional duties. The re-worked schedule and the abundance of instructors worked won

Unfolding the Napkin: The Hands-on Method for Soliving Complex Problems with Simple Pictures by Dan Roam (list price: $20.00; 2009 Penguin Group). Dan Roam is really cool; I really enjoyed this book. Yes, the pictures are kind of corny. Yes, the examples are kind of cartoonish. Yes, the exercises seem like they are from kindergarten. But somehow Roam has taken corny, cartoonish, kindergarten tasks and turned them into something really useful. I read this book and enjoyed it, but I didn't get the full value of the content until I went back and worked the exercises. Though I don't remember what SQVID stands for or any of the other organizing schemes that Roam uses, I really did learn something from his very original presentation of simple visual thinking tools. In the process of working through the exercises in the book, I distilled the complexities of my work into four intuitive pictographs. My boss at the time hated these pictographs for some reason, but the value of the pictog

Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear by Frank Luntz (list price: $24.95; 2007 Hyperion). In Words That Work , Luntz provides a glimpse into the world of the professional wordsmith. Without question, he brings sufficient credibility to write on this topic authoritatively. His experience crafting and re-crafting messages for the wealthy and powerful is well known --- he's considered among the best in the business. And that is what really irritates me. Luntz describes the scientific process of manipulating the message for maximum effect. In essence, he's bragging about manipulating you and manipulating me. There is something really troubling about the idea that the content of a message is ultimately less important than the packaging. My minor irritation disappeared rather quickly though, because I realized that the information and techniques he described were absolutely critical knowledge. If only to avoid being the dupe of the next advertise

Thinking in Systems: A Primer by Donella H. Meadows (list price: $19.95; 2008 Sustainability Institute). Donella Meadows is a genius. Rather, she was a genius; she passed away before this little gem of a book was published. I didn't know her or her work personally, so it is probably more conservative to only comment on this one little book --- which I thought was brilliant. Meadows delivers exactly what she promised: a primer on systems thinking. She digs deep enough and provides wide enough coverage to provide a strong grounding in the topic with a style that should be understandable for most readers. Where it is important, Meadows provides an adequate treatment of the nuts and bolts in a non-technical and enjoyable to read narration. Although hardcore systems modelers and programmers might find this primer simplistic, I found the simple explanations, integrated delivery, and concise package beautiful. I've read through some of the highly technical volumes about systems

Analytics at Work: Smarter Decisions, Better Results by Thomas Davenport, Jeanne Harris, and Robert Morrison (list price: $29.95; 2010 Harvard Business School Publishing). Analytics at Work  is billed as a how to guide for managers to "effectively deploy analytics in their day-to-day" operations (from the inside cover). Though I enjoyed the book, I don't believe that a reasonable person could say that it lives up to the promise. Instead, Davenport and his co-authors provide a very general framework that lacks the advertised day-to-day details required for deployment. I found the book to be interesting and quite useful from a "oh, I hadn't thought of that..." perspective. However, I'm not sure that there is much original material here beyond the general framework -- most of which was presented in an earlier work by the same authors. Though I wouldn't recommend this book for serious analytic how-to, it would be a good read for someone seeking a gen