Priming the Project Pump: Lean Six Sigma on a Shoestring

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 thousand people. Needless to say, priming the project pump has been slow
going. My strategy has been to convert existing initiatives into LSS-like
projects, invite recently trained students to participate on these
initiative teams, and openly acknowledge that our re-deployment strategy is
"bottom up bootstrapping". By bottom up bootstrapping I mean pulling the
deployment effort up by its own bootstraps with small, local, quick win
efforts that generate assets to reinvest in lean six sigma.

I just produced the first quarterly re-deployment report in January 2012. So
far, we are on pace for what I planned in terms of training but slightly
behind what was planned for project work.

Comments

  1. AnonymousJune 20, 2012 at 9:12 PM

    nice blog thanks for sharing this information.

    Six Sigma

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. UnknownJune 26, 2012 at 3:25 PM

      Nice information on ROWE, I had been looking for this for a while now and how it effected lean six sigma, very well written, much appreciated.
      I am working on a project these days and am in need of as much help as I can find, this helped!Lean Six Sigma Training

      Delete
    2. UnknownAugust 8, 2012 at 12:14 PM

      Thanks for your comments. As you know, we are more like farmers planting seeds waiting for them to grow before harvest. Some seeds take root and others do not.lean six sigma

      Delete

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