Change management is a structured approach to transitioning individuals, teams, and organizations from a current state to a desired future state. In project management, change management refers to a project management process where changes to a project are formally introduced and approved.

While that is a fairly accurate statement, you should be aware of the underlying behaviors that result from making a change and how that directly impacts your role as the change agent.

My Politically Incorrect Definition of Change Management

Change Management – The process of communicating that the norms are no longer acceptable or profitable and the comfortable clique must be broken up.  It involves the use of tools to identify who’s on board with making the change and who’s not.  These methods will help you identify how to make changes less painful for those people who are like Linus from the Peanuts and still want to hang on to their security blanket of the “status quo”.

My definition may not be listed in any bestseller on Amazon.com, but it addresses issues that are key drivers in the change process.  Often times changes are made to realize a cost savings.   The current process has become too expensive, too complex, or simply takes more time than the customer is willing to wait.  The reasons for change usually fall into those three categories.  However, the reasons people are resistant to change are more complex and predictably irrational.

As the change agent, you have to develop an understanding of the psychology of change.  It’s relatively easy to make a change on the CNC program for a turret press, if you have the technical knowledge.   Trying to get another human being to change their behavior or develop an openness to change is by far more difficult.

It is possible to be a very technically competent, but lack the skills to motivate people to change.  That’s why I don’t completely agree with the Wikipedia definition.  There is some emotion involved in change management, so let’s take the next few posts in this series on change management to talk about how to beef up our EQ or emotional intelligence.

You have tons of papers from your gigantic post it notepad of the things to do.

Some of them you can easily do yourself, but other items you need other people to do.  How do you feel?

Knowing that you will need to request the assistance of others can be a challenge in itself.  Initially, I found myself with a number of reminders on my Outlook calendar to remind other people to do stuff for me.  That was when I realized that I had become a Professional Nag.  I even had systems set up for nagging.  Recurring appointments, strategically placed memos, and a running laundry list of things to nag about in the morning meeting.

Sustainability is one of the most difficult of the Five S’s - I must admit.  Because the fact of the matter is that defects don’t ever completely die.  They just lay dormant until the moment when old habits creep in or gaps form in training new people to follow the new process.  So you must remain vigilant in observing processes to ensure they are supporting the vision of the change initiatives.

So how can you AVOID being a Professional Nag?

1. Be more sensitive to others schedule

You may not realize this, but the person you are nagging may not see your task as being that important.  I mean that relatively speaking.  If their boss has been breathing down their neck about the new product launch, whatever you asked for is going to take a backseat.  It’s best to get some information on upcoming projects, prior to the event because you may need to reschedule if this task is critical to successful implementation.

2.  Confirm Instructions

You will be surprised that the item you are asking about does not get done because of a lack of instructions.  Don’t ever assume that the person knows exactly what you need or even has all the resources available to get it done.  Tactfully ask if further assistance is needed.

3.  Take the Dr. Phil Stance

Sometimes the language we use in your messages (especially email) can be offensive to others or not convey your intended tone.  You may be using the get this done or else tone, which isn’t very motivating at home or at work.  So try a different angle.  Meet with the person face-to-face to just try to find out what’s going on in their life and world.  Maybe there is something you can do for them to release some pressure off of them.  That will be a segueway to ask for them to complete your task.  It’s like professional bartering.  We all have different strengths and weaknesses.  Make them an offer to help and they will be grateful.

I hope you can grasp that the bottomline is to simply be more human.  We all have our own circumstances and limitations we are dealing with.  Once you are aware of which direction the river is flowing, you can swim with the current rather than against it.

Monique

this video tutorial will show you how to use the statistical software package, SigmaXL, to design a 3-factor experiment for a catapult competition.  You may recall this exercise that is commonly used as a learning project in statistical quality control courses.  Our goal is to identify the process drivers that significantly impact the process output.  The Pareto charts generate will indicate the most significant factors and rank in order from most to least significant.  We want to find the best settings for our catapult that will consistently launch a ball a distance of 100 inches.  Watch VIDEO to see demonstration. . .

Audio Transcript

In the midst of economic opportunities, it is important to take time a formulate a game plan on how to do more with less. Now, more than ever consumers are becoming increasingly more narcissistic and want their buying experience to revolve around them. The truth is that businesses would do well to differentiate themselves from the competition by catering to this need. People want to feel like what they are buying is of high quality, affordable, and that no one else on the block or the planet for that matter, has on like it. From Courture gowns, to platinum-colored M&Ms that read, “My Life Would Suck Without Lean“, consumers are obsessed and in fact expect to have a wide variety of choices that exude their style and sense of individuality.

How Can Businesses Keep Fresh?

The first thing you can do is evaluate virtual touch points on your website. Customers are not just searching for jewelry, but rather custom jewelry.  Does your website reflect the fact that you offer custom jewelry?  If not, it’s time for a makeover.  The checkout process is also a point to review.  Does your customer get a range of options to customize their purchase?

Make Components Interchangeable

Often what can hold you back from smoothing out your lead time for made to order product is the design of the actual components.  Take time to zero in on how each part fits together.  Do you have universal connections, such as common hole sizes and drill patterns?  Standardizing can reduce the need to have a large number of unique components and simplify training for assembly.  Interchangability is key to keeping up with demand and designing for Six Sigma quality.

Deliver an Experience that Sells Itself

Once you overcome the technically challenges, it is important to understand the value that you are delivering to your customer.  Marketing your made to order products will be easier than ever.  A happy customer will be busting at the seems to tell someone else about their experience.  A story you won’t have to spend a dime to tell because the consumer will tell it for you.  In a flat world that is becoming more comfortable with free social media tools - everyone has a voice and can connect with friends, family, and business associates in an instant.  What would you want your customers to say about you? 

“I just bought this boring shoe that everyone else has.”

“I just made my own shoe with my own name on it and NO ONE else has one like it!”

Don’t miss out on your opportunity to win this ultra-light, super-sleek Apple laptop.  I’m entered to win. . .Are you entered?

Well, you have no time to waste - Contest ends June 30th, 2009 at Midnight EST

Winner will be announced July 6th, 2009

For more information on the Go Mobile Contest – Visit www.eighthourjourney.com

Here are four reasons why you should start a continuous improvement blog.

1. Connect with Multiple Locations: In order to avoid feelings of isolation, you can have a common platform to share successes, stumbling blocks, best practices, or benchmarks.  Within a large organization it may be easy to become disconnected from locations in different times zones.  Your company blog can be a medium for collaboration as well as a tool to help reduce variation in standard operating procedures. 
2. Develop Unity in the Organization:  As Forrest Breyfogle III teaches at Smarter Solutions, there should be two levels of planning within the organization – Enterprise planning and Project Planning.  Enterprise planning is the 10,000 foot view of the organization or the high level processes.  The project level is more of the functional, daily operations planning.  Whatever you are working on the project level should be directly tied to key enterprise level strategic goals and objectives.  The enterprise level metrics should be the same for the project level.  Everyone should be focused on the same goals.  Communicating on your blog would be an easy way for satellite locations to get direct feedback from corporate to confirm that you are indeed working on the right things, at the right time, and avoid project duplications.  Employees can stay up to date by subscribing to company RSS feeds via email.
3. Upload Training Materials:  With business process improvement projects you will map out new standards of work or establish new procedures for a particular function of the organization.  When you present project updates or tollgates, you will be responsible for releasing the details of the changes implemented.  Keep stakeholders and process owners in the loop of new expectations by posting the new standard work on the blog.  Get instant feedback to ensure the message was understood and clearly communicated.  Videos are also a great way to format training and accommodate multiple learning styles.  This training will also archive your steps toward meeting strategic goals and objectives.
4. Shareholder Value:  Publicly traded organizations can benefit from blogs by keeping shareholders up to date on improvements and having a medium to evaluate their return on investment.  You will always have to submit SEC filings, but what a better way to add value to the relationship than by providing a multimedia portal for two-way, transparent communication.

WordPress.org  is an excellent place to start to get your own continuous improvement blog started today!

I would love to hear your feedback on this post – Does Your Organization Currently Use a Blog?

stands for Failure Mode and Effects Analysis. This DMAIC tool is used to evaluate risk in a process. FMEA will help to improve the quality and safety of work tasks. Using this SigmaXL template will allow you to document a baseline for improvement and provide compelling data to confirm a need for changes to the current process. Detection level is critical to quantify the cost of poor quality. You would never want to pass on a defect to a customer or create an environment that puts employees at a risk of injury. FMEA encourages a proactive approach when used to assess risk in newly designed products or processes. This tutorial demonstrates how to use SigmaXL software to record before and after risk levels. View video for more information on this technique.

Used in DMAIC Phase(s). . . .

• Analyze
• Improve
• Control

To learn more about Six Sigma certification or to view a course demo, visit the Six Sigma Training page.

This morning the most recent entry in my Lean Six Sigma news feed was the following Spokesman Review story:

City adds job to promote efficiency

Six Sigma overseer will cost $120,000

Staff writer, Jonathan Brunt, goes on to state

“As city leaders craft plans to lay off dozens of employees to meet an expected shortfall in next year’s budget, they decided Tuesday to create a new high-paying job responsible for overseeing ideas to save money.

The Spokane City Council approved the position – at a cost of about $120,000 a year in pay and benefits – that will promote government efficiency based on Lean Six Sigma, a business-efficiency program popularized by General Electric and other companies. “

My concern is that he describes Lean Six Sigma as a “business-efficiency program.”

What’s wrong with that description?

Lean Six Sigma is a systematic approach to identify, measure and reduce (if possible, eliminate) variation or waste in a process.  The business system should operate to produce profit.  If you are spending more than you are making you won’t have a business.   After the non-value added activities are elimated or reduced the Lean methodology gives you the tools to then focus on adding value to process.  Unfortunately some companies fail to understand this and bail before they get to this pivotal point.  What people fail to realize that there is usually so much waste in the process that you forget to go back and add value later.  This fallicy has led to layoffs being touted as Lean initiatives, which is far removed from the truth.  I think Ron von Stekelenborg said it best this morning on Twitter.

@leanstekel Cost-cutting is like cutting into fat as well as muscles; lean only removes fat 

I do find it refreshing that the Council voted 6-0 in favor of hiring a business process improvement manager.

How is the term “efficient” misused?

I think the term efficient is abused or misused when individuals neglect to quantify and define quality metrics.  Unfortunately, some use the term and never qualify with relevance or a description.  To give you an example you might think of a process such as an online checkout transaction. 

The organization might have reviewed the process and determined that the current process frustrates an overwhelming majority of clients, citing too many clicks are required to complete transaction.  The critical to quality metric should be defined as the number of page clicks required to complete checkout.  So, if you improve the process such that it now requires one click checkout rather than six clicks.  Then yes, that is a more efficient approach and a value to the customer.  It’s relative to the process and can be expressed as a number.

Another example that comes to mind is that say a mobile phone manufacturer wants to reduce the complexity of assembly by reducing the number of unique components for a design.  So instead of having one unique part for every digit and character on a phone, you may decide to develop on complete keypad.  If you previously had 18 unique keys and the keypad drops you down to one unique component, then you reduced the number of unique components by 17. 

So, again I would not describe this effort as just efficient.  I have defined the metrics that are critical to quality and express the improvement in terms of the metric not blanket, vague statements like, “It’s more efficient”.  Without a number, I’m not going to take your word for it that it’s more efficient.

Although, Brunt may have butchered the true meaning of what is Lean Six Sigma, he did a much better job of later citing in example of an efficiency improvement in the following statement,

“Danek said Six Sigma has already made the city more efficient, leading the city to streamline its approval process for contracts that don’t require City Council support from an average of 29 days to 10 days.”

During your next meeting or discussion, don’t let colleagues get away with labeling something as efficient without evidence.  What is the ocular proof or is it just smoke and mirrors jargon?

I want to hear what you think.  Leave a comment below.  Do you think the term “efficient” is often misused and abused?