Can your Plumber be your Contractor? (#78)


Can your Plumber be your Contractor?

Building a house takes specific skills and knowledge. Now, your contractor could also be your plumber, but it is unlikely that your plumber would be your contractor. A home’s plumbing is an extremely important part of your home, but a home’s construction consists of several more aspects. A plumber is an expert at his field, though it is unlikely he would be able to construct the entire house on his own.

It is the same thing when trying to implement Lean and Six Sigma into your company. Rationally, you would not think to ask a Green or Black Belt with very little experience to lead a Continuous Improvement Deployment; but this is usually the case.

We always want to know why students attend our Public Classes. They usually answer, “to bring Lean Six Sigma back to the organization to start a Continuous Improvement Department.” These students are considered the plumbers in this analogy. Here we can see that the organization is asking the plumber to build their house; but the plumber doesn’t even have any experience!


When you ask someone to complete a task with no experience or idea how to complete it; the task will undoubtedly go over schedule, over budget, and will likely be abandoned. Though new homeowners would have the common sense to not ask their plumber to build their entire house, organizations most likely do not have that “common sense” when deploying Lean Six Sigma resulting in a deployment that doesn’t have the expected ROI and is ultimately abandoned.

Red Flags to look for:

The New Belt equals Leadership’s New Toy
When the leadership team learns that a new belt is on staff, they are just as excited as kids with new toys. Before they know it, the new belt is asked to lead projects like installing new systems, moving equipment to new locations, or managing expansion projects. To the untrained eye, these look like normal projects. However, these projects aren’t focusing on existing process problems, they are answers to the existing problems (usually the wrong answer).

Without a solid foundation, leadership will likely choose random projects that have short term deliverables without trying to solve real projects that lead to improvements in Organizational KPI’s. Lean Six Sigma is a specific methodology that uses data to make improvements. Using data to prioritize projects leads to successful implementations and lasting improvements to the KPI’s.

Plan your work and work your plan
No sane person is going to walk out to a field and just start swinging a hammer, expecting to be able to build a house. Yet all the time organizations will give their one Continuous Improvement person a hammer, expecting a successful deployment. If they do not have a developed plan, the continuous improvement effort will have not be able to successfully improve company KPI’s, rather quick win solutions to current pains.
             


These red flags are proof that the leadership team is not educated to know that proper infrastructure must be set to create sustainable continuous improvement efforts. Asking a newly trained belt with barely any CI experience to implement Lean Six Sigma in the organization will almost always fail. This usually makes leadership abandon efforts all together, ultimately leading to the organization’s downfall.

Have you been sent to a Lean Six Sigma training with the intention to “build” your Lean Six Sigma House in your company? Let us know in the comments!

About Six Sigma Development Solutions, Inc.



We are Certified as an Accredited Training Organization with the International Association of Six Sigma Certification (IASSC)
“The IASSC Accredited Training Organization (ATO) designation validates Six Sigma Development Solutions, Inc. has demonstrated adequate management systems, courseware with a high degree of correlation to the subject matter contained in the IASSC Bodies of Knowledge, delivery schema consistent with such content and highly qualified instructors.”
We Provide Public Lean Six Sigma Green Belt and Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Certification Training Courses in 34 Cities across the globe.

Our Training Centers are located in: Albuquerque, New Mexico | Anchorage, Alaska | Atlanta, Georgia | Austin, Texas | Boston, Massachusetts | Calgary, Canada | Charlotte, North Carolina | Chicago, Illinois | Cincinnati, Ohio | Cleveland, Ohio | Columbus, Ohio | Dallas, Texas | Denver, Colorado | Detroit, Michigan | Dubai, UAE | El Paso, Texas | Fort Smith, Arkansas | Honolulu, Hawaii | Houston, Texas | Indianapolis, Indiana | Jacksonville, Florida | Kansas City, Missouri | Las Vegas, Nevada | London, England | Los Angeles, California | Louisville, Kentucky | Memphis, Tennessee | Mexico City, Mexico | Milwaukee, Wisconsin | Minneapolis, Minnesota | Montreal, Canada | Nashville, Tennessee | New Orleans, Louisiana | New York City, New York | Northwest Arkansas | Orlando, Florida | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | Phoenix, Arizona | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania | Portland, Oregon | Raleigh, North Carolina | Salt Lake City, Utah | San Diego, California | Seattle, Washington | St. Louis, Missouri | Tampa, Florida | Toronto, Canada | Vancouver, Canada | Washington, DC

We Provide Onsite Lean Six Sigma Certification Training. Some of the training's we provide are: Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, Lean Six Sigma Green Belt, Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt, Lean Six Sigma Champions Training and Lean Certifications for Healthcare, Finance, I.T, Manufacturing, Processing, Logistics, Retail Sales and Government.
SSDSI will come to your site to train for your choice of the Lean Six Sigma Certification Levels. Onsite training is more cost effective than open enrollment training when training larger groups of team members.
Benefits of Onsite Training:
The Training is focused on Your Opportunities
SSDSI uses your opportunities in class (vs. generic examples)
You will get the experience of a seasoned Lean and Six Sigma Master Black Belt who will help mentor you while completing your Lean and Six Sigma Project
You can train up to 20 employees for one fixed cost (this cost includes course ware and the instructors travel & lodging)
Our courses are full of games, simulations, and active learning to help the adult learner
SSDSI can customize the training to meet your company’s particular training needs
Call Kevin Clay at 214-731-3176 or email at kclay@sixsigmadsi.com for more information

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