Six SigmaTroubleshooter Vs Problem Solver

Troubleshooter Vs Problem Solver

Arun was a Regional Head for Channel Expansion & Relationship for a white goods manufacturer. This year he received an award for outstanding performance for a record appointment of new channel partners (distributors and retailers) in a region that was considered as a weak territory for the company. The CEO said that this was a recognition of his problem solving skills. 

It all started last year with the company setting an ambitious target to expand its network. In the first 2 quarters, there wasn’t much break through in the channel appointment. Management decided to move Arun from another region to drive this goal. Arun is known as a messiah in the company. Whether it is revenue, market share growth, network expansion, new product penetration, he is known for miraculous improvements. He could turn deserts into oases. His patrons say he’s very systematic and focused. While his critics claim he micromanages things. Nonetheless, as predicted, within the remaining 2 quarters of the FY, Arun swiftly throttled the appointment of dealers and distributors, thereby exceeding the original annual target set, which at the end of 2nd quarter looked un-accomplishable. Management’s aspiration was nothing more than achieving half the annual target set in the beginning of the year, with only 2 quarters in hand. So messiah proved his metal again!

What did Arun do differently?

• He put a progress tracker in place
• He broke the partner appointment process into various milestones
• He ensured there is a daily review of all district appointment managers against the milestones.
• In the reviews, he will dig deeper and deeper into cases where there was doubt of closure.
• He personally spoke to prospective distributors and even visited a few in person
• He increased the local media advertisements calling for partners to join.

Though all this might sound very intrusive, the fact is he got it done!

All is not rosy about Arun. There is one minor problem in our Messiah. Whenever he is done and moves to another role or area, all the old problems crop up again. Arun used to take pride in this, that once he leaves things fall flat. He was sure this is a way to let the management realize his value. 

Was Arun really a good problem solver? Or is he a trouble-shooter?

Trouble-shooter	Problem Solver
Always fixing the performance is his/her goal	Defines what is really the problem to be solved
Provides short term fixes	Identifies the root causes of the problem
Focuses on improvement in output	Validates system level root causes with facts or data
Doesn’t openly share insights & only emphasizes on prognosis	Shares his/her findings & insights with others
Works in silos & uses his charisma as a leverage	Engages the stakeholders on ground to provide eradicate the problem permanently
Usually gives quick fixes as such solutions give results faster	Puts permanent solutions that are sustainable
Cadence is limited to his tenure	Create cadence to sustain the improved state beyond him
Keeps his team in suspense, fear & pressure	Makes it a Team Oriented Problem Solving (TOPS) approach

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I will allow you to decide where Arun fits better.

After all, he never examined why this territory had low network penetration? What is the perception of existing and prospective channel partners about the brand? Are existing channel partners profitable and satisfied? Is channel partner attrition a problem? What is it that the competitors are doing differently than us? What is the deficiency of channel management team in this region?

At best, he is a good mercenary.

More importantly, not everyone who gets things done are problem solvers. Simply put, true Problem Solvers leave everything a little better for others than they found it!

Is there a difference between Six Sigma and Lean Six Sigma?

Lean and Six Sigma are close cousins in the process improvement world and they have lot of commonalities. Now we will talk about the difference between Six Sigma and Lean Six Sigma.

Six Sigma uses a data centric analytical approach to problem solving and process improvements.  That means, there would be time and effort in data collection and analysis. While this sounds very logical to any problem solving approach, there can be practical challenges.

For example, some times we may need data and analysis to be even prove the obvious. That is lame.

On the other hand, Lean Six Sigma brings in some of the principles of Lean. Lean is largely a pragmatic and prescriptive approach. Which implies that we will look at data and practically validate that problem and move on to prescriptive solutions.

Thus combining Lean with Six Sigma, helps in reducing the time and effort needed to analyze or improve a situation. Lean will bring in a set of solutions that are tried and tested for a situation. For example, if you have high inventory, that Lean would suggest you to implement Kanban.

Lean is appealing because most often it simplifies the situation and that may not be always true with Six Sigma.  However the flip side to Lean is that if the system have been improved several times and reached a certain level of performance and consistency, Lean can bring out any further improvement unless we approach the problem with Six Sigma lens, using extensive data collection and analysis.

Looking at the body of knowledge of Six Sigma and Lean Six Sigma, you will find that Lean Six Sigma courses following tools:

• Cost of Poor Quality
• Lean Principles
• Definition, Origin, Principles & Goals of Lean
• Value, Value Stream, Concept of Muda(Waste) & Categories of Waste
• 7 Types of Wastes, How to Identify them, & Waste Identification Template
• Value Stream Mapping (VSM), Symbols, Benefits & Procedure
• Push System, Pull System, Single Piece Flow, 5S, Kaizen, SMED, Poka-Yoke
• Types of Poka-Yoke – Shut Down, Prevention, Warning, Instructions
• Heijunka & Visual Control

Is Lean Six Sigma still relevant?

In the age of AI and ML, where everything is getting automated, why would any one need an approach will can improve the process.  Yes, mostly processes are set to become automated and that means they are already optimized. Will there at all be a need or scope to improve them any further?

Lets now look at how digital transformation is going and its adoption across sectors:

• Internal acceptance and adoption is slow for digital transformation technologies and expected ROI remains an aspiration
• People have come to realize that Digital Transformation is a journey and not a ‘fix it and forget it’ model.
• Digital Transformation is a continuum of iterative improvements leading to big transformation and so even when it is digital change, they have to move step by step
• People are not going to go away and hence success of such transformation will reside largely on how people behavior change is addressed and technology change will take care of itself
• Every employee will have to have a keen eye for improvement and find ways to transform the business.
• The only differentiation between competition and you, is how you will react to a situation, because your competition would have the same technology advantage as you. That means, change is constant and your employees have to look for newer ways of doing things and technology is just an enabler

Lean Six Sigma is a way to challenge status quo, a way to solving problems and make improvements.

With AI and ML, neither will the need to challenge status quo or solve a problem or make improvements go away. In fact they will become even more challenging. That would mean, the need for Lean Six Sigma tools and techniques will be all the more important.

No Digital transformation commences without a good As-is analysis. The tools and techniques used for performing this are tools used in Lean and Six Sigma. Similarly, identifying how much improvement can be brought about requires going to the root of the problem. Technology solutions that are superficial will only add to the complexity and not simplify the business.

Thus even skills needed for Digital Transformation are part of Lean Six Sigma body of knowledge.

To be very specific, Lean Six Sigma Certifications will definitely be an added advantage in days to come which are dominated by AI, ML and Digital transformation.

Six Sigma has evolved as a management discipline for improving processes, and providing customer delight. Some organizations like GE had adopted Six Sigma as their management philosophy. So, Why Six Sigma? Why not follow other approaches like TQM, SCM, COPC, ISO, etc. Let’s understand why many organizations choose Six Sigma over other approaches; and how they benefited. There are 3 key salient features of Six Sigma that are noteworthy:

• Customer Centricity
• Process Orientation
• Fact Based Decision Making

Customer Centricity

While the emphasis on building business processes to meet customer requirements was first proposed by Joseph Juran & Edward Deming (fathers of modern Quality movement);  it was taken seriously only with the advent of Six Sigma. Gathering the Voice of Customer and translating these requirements into product features, aka Quality Function Deployment (QFD), were loosely used in TQM. Whereas, in Six Sigma Voice of Customers (VOC) is the starting point. Operational measures and performance measures (KPIs) are built based on VOC. These measures are called as CTQ (Critical To Quality). Customers’ needs constantly change. Such changing needs mean that processes also need to adapt and evolve. Six Sigma enables achieving this adaptation. While creating a new product or service line; the entire system is built to meet customer requirements. Such an approach is called as Design for Six Sigma (DFSS).

Process Orientation

Six Sigma builds strong process orientation within the organization. In Six Sigma, virtually every department, activity, or task is perceived as a process in itself or process step. What does that mean? It means a lot! Every process produces few outputs, and in turn; requires few inputs. Outputs are consumed by Customers (internal or external); and inputs are provided by Suppliers. Such visualization is called as SIPOC in Six Sigma. This helps organizations to move away from the mind-set of fixing people when things don’t work; to fixing processes. In order to improve the outputs of any process or department, its process steps and inputs needs to be improved, and sometimes suppliers need to be educated. People are never penalized in Six Sigma! Traditionally many industries & functions are regarded as ‘people’ driven. For instance, industries such as Hospitality, Entertainment & most service lines and functions such as HR, Marketing, Sales, Admin. Six Sigma organizations treat these as just another process. As a result, the dependency on individuals is also reduced. Organizational silos are challenged and processes are simplified. Driving strong process orientation across the organization has resulted in unbelievable tangible and intangible benefits to customers and organizations. GE is a pioneer in driving process orientation in its Financial Service businesses.

Fact Based Decision Making

Once organizations establish process orientation; access to data and factual information will increase. This presents the next big opportunity for organizations. Across levels, organizations are dependent on their managers to take right decisions. Most often, these decisions are punctuated by decision maker’s bias and personal intuition. Wrong decisions are costly and usually borne by the organization. Six Sigma’s bouquet of tools enables data or fact based decision making. This means the overall management is much more efficient and accurate. DMAIC, an acronym for Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control, is a method used for solving problems. There are over 50 qualitative and quantitative tools which are part of DMAIC. These tools can be applied in several stand-alone situations too. These tools enable data or fact based decision making. At a personal level, an individual practicing Six Sigma over a period time is more efficient and effective than her peers. This has direct impact on career and growth prospects. Thus Six Sigma is a powerful approach which is not only beneficial to organizations; but also to individuals. If you are interested in Six Sigma Certification Courses, visit our products page. Click here

All it means is that your change management ability is a direct measure of your success. In other words, timely launch of new products/services in desired quality and price are going to determine your success; apart from the cultural change aspect. So whether you want it or not, good project management skills are essential in today’s business to survive and win. Without digressing on other pre-requisites of good project management, let’s focus on one of most important but rarely focused area. There are several project management techniques and tools available, such as: CPM, PERT, and Critical Chain. Immaterial of the base on which these models are structured, out of my experience, everything finally boils down to predicting the time duration for a task and delivery as predicted. In small organizations (less than 10 employees), it is more of coordination, multi-tasking, and communication that will determine if a task can be completed as predicted. But with organizations involving a few hundreds of employees, it is all about how resources and efforts are synchronized. There may be lack of knowledge of what is to be done next, on who owns which piece, how & when to escalate, and lack of clarity on authority & decision making. Additionally, unlike big organizations, smaller companies will have to manage with inexperienced and understaffed scenarios. So to make life easy for everyone; if processes associated with project management such as supply chain management processes, finance processes, clearly defined inter-department service levels and authorities, etc., are established well; it will help the organization deliver projects in time. Isn’t this what ‘Process Orientation’ is all about! Strong Process Orientation: one of the key foundations of Six Sigma is responsible for success in most project based industries. Mathematically also it makes sense to focus on process orientation. For instance, consider the PERT model in which the PERT Time (Task duration) is a function of Optimistic Time (OT), Most Likely Time (MLT), and Pessimistic Time (PT). When OT and PT are wide apart, it means that it is not possible to predict the task duration accurately. In other words, the process on which the task is dependent has high variation. Such a process leads to higher PERT Time. When all the tasks of a project have widely spread OTs and PTs, the overall project duration itself will be high and unpredictable.

As a business analyst you are often expected to act as a bridge between a functional domain and the business stakeholders. Business analysts must be great verbal and written communicators, tactful diplomats, problem solvers, thinkers and analyzers. Though you have been extensive training in project management and related areas, using systematic business and management tools such as graphical analysis, data distribution & visualization, statistical discovery, etc are considered to be difficult by many Business Analysts.

Fortunately Lean Six Sigma, which is process improvement methodology provides many of the tools that can  be handy for Business Analysts at one place. It comprises of statistical tools and techniques along with visualization tools.  There are many tools such as Visual Analysis & Data Discovery tools like Fish-bone, 5 why, in scope-Out scope, Box plots and analytical tools like MSA, Descriptive Statistics, Variation, Correlation and Regression. They are explained in brief as under: Visual Tools: There are many tools which a business analyst will learn from Lean Six Sigma Green Belt Certification. We’ll talk about few Visual analysis tools from Lean Six Sigma in brief as under:

• Fish Bone Diagram also called as Cause and Effect Diagram helps to reach the root cause of any business issue. The important characteristic of this tool is to categorize the issue into 6 different aspects like Men, Machine, Material, Measurement, Method and Mother Nature (Environment). This will help the analyst prioritize the problem and solve the problem in a systematic manner.
• Another tool for root cause analysis is 5-Why which involves repeating the question “Why” where each question forms the base of the next question and this will go on until the root cause is found. All the questions and answers of the 5 Why, are placed on a sheet of paper with the help of which the analyst can view the whole picture in a single page.
• Box plot is a quick way of visualization of data and is represented in the form of box & whiskers. It helps in scrutinizing and comparing sets of data which demonstrates the variation in the sample data set.
• Statistical process control (SPC) is method of measuring and controlling KPIs of any process. AKA control charts, this helps to proactively identify issues from data. It is a great tool for continuous monitoring of process parameters both in service and manufacturing processes.
• Run charts are similar to control charts and suggest shifts in the process over a period of time and points out special factors which influence the process variability.
• FMEA stands for Failure Modes and Effect Analysis which is an approach to identify all possible failures in any process. Like doing analysis of how and where we can fail so as to take precaution before even starting the implementation of any project. This is a very important element for the success of any project which will help a business analyst in his/her daily management.

Analytical Tools: Here are few examples of data discovery analytical tools that a Business Analyst will learn from Six Sigma.

• Quite often Business Analysts struggle with poor data quality. MSA aka Measurement System Analysis is a Lean Six Sigma tool  used to evaluate that whether the data collection method, the instruments/source used for measuring and whole measurement is precise & accurate or not. This is also used to ensure the integrity of data used for analysis and gauge the effects of errors in measurement used to make decisions taken for product or processes.
• Descriptive statistics includes the assessment of central tendency and measures of dispersion in the any data set. Further it helps to identify skewness, kurtosis, outliers, and specific patterns in the distribution.
• Analysis of Variance abstracted as ANOVA is a statistical hypothesis test used to identify significant factors that cause a particular business issue. The biggest the merit of such advanced statistical methods is in confidence & credibility that a Business Analyst can provide to the leadership and management on his analysis and conclusions.
• Correlation & Regression are similar tools used to establish a relationship between the two business variables such as revenue and capacity. By validating such relationships, the Business Analyst can bring out significant insights to the management.

A business analyst having Green Belt Certification shall have a comprehensive understanding of Lean six sigma and shall be able to apply its tenets to their daily work. The principles of Six Sigma are so widely applicable that employees getting trained are highly valued and aggressively sought after. Lean Six Sigma Certification will be a stepping stone for professionals to a higher level as you avail expertise in different problem solving tools and techniques of Lean Six Sigma.

As we all know that there are different levels of certification in Lean Six Sigma and these levels have been associated with “Belt” titles. It’s a very obvious question that why the levels here have been associated with the titles used in Martial Arts? That is because of the association of discipline and rigor in Lean Six Sigma similar to the martial arts. You would find four commonly used belt titles in Six Sigma Certification and they are Yellow Belt, Green Belt, Black Belt and Master Black Belt. However, the most basic level in Lean Six Sigma is sometimes called as “White Belt”. A White Belt understands the theoretical aspects but virtually no application knowledge of the Lean Six Sigma concept. One could say this is an entry level awareness program. Let us understand one by one, the four belts mentioned above.

Have you ever confronted a situation doing hard work the whole day and at the end you realize that most of the time had been given by you and your team to the Non Value Added things!  

DFSS and DMAIC are two of the methodologies commonly used by organizations to implement. Six Sigma. Organizations with well-developed Six Sigma programs also run DMAIC and DFSS projects concurrently.

Feature	Description
Focus	DMAIC: Improving the existing products and services or processes. DFSS: Developing new products and services or processes or redesigning them.
Nature of the project	DMAIC: Projects are easier and faster and provide early gains. DFSS: Projects take longer to implement and benefits are visible only in the long run.
Process	DMAIC: Projects are related to manufacturing, transactional processes, or enabling processes. DFSS: Projects also include product design.

Checksheet for Process Design in Manufacturing Organization

Following are some of the important steps involved in Process Design in Manufacturing Organizations. It can also serve as a check sheet if you are commencing process design in your organization.

• Process flow design for various products
• Decision of in-house manufacturing Vs sourcing
• Plant layout with processes (cell manufacturing as per lean principles)
• Workstation design
• Assembly automation tools selection
• Tooling RFP generation
• SPM RFP generation
• Material handling Design
• Capacity planning – equipment capacity, labor and storage
• Process cycle estimation using industrial engineering
• Project manage the implementation of process design
• Facilitation of machine capability (dependent on tooling design, but we’ll facilitate)
• TAKT time delivery and output optimization
• Labor training on assembly activities
• 5S and material handling standard establishment
• Establishment of quality standards (incoming, in-house and final product)

Following are some of the important steps involved in Process Design in Service Organizations. It can also serve as a check sheet if you are commencing process design in your organization.

• Current state assessment
• Business process definitions
• Agreement on service levels, measures of success and operations metrics
• New process design
• Technology integration
• Process documentation
• Project manage the implementation of process design
• RFP for technology up gradation
• Process pilot
• Process training
• Establish governance mechanisms
• Process reviews/audit mechanism

• What works for large enterprises may not work for mid size organizations! The business transformation professional need to understand what approach suits your organization!
• Business Transformation professional will need vast experience in leading or handling complex change in in different situations across atleast few different sectors and corporate cultures.
• The Business Transformation professional should stay focused on delivering measurable and sustainable results.
• For Business Transformation to be sustainable, the professional leading the change should approach it holistically, rather than as a mere process change. Aspects such as leadership on-boarding, internal mass-communication campaigns, long term transformation roadmap, up-skilling, process re-design, data analysis, automation, process training, on-going process audits and regular reporting should all be integral part of the Business Transformation. If the transformation is of a very large scale, then the entire program office (PMO) should be managed the Business Transformation team.
• The Business Transformation professional should be a hardcore change agent at heart. One who is used to working by rolling up his/her sleeves.
• Now, that’s not just it. He/She has to understand ‘Strategy Execution’, “Digital Business Model’ & ‘Customer Experience’ well enough to make your business transformation efforts futuristic and fruitful.
• Business Transformation professional shouldn’t thrust any specific methodology such as Lean, Six Sigma, Theory of Constraints, Balance Score Card, TRIZ, etc. Instead, use he/her expertise in these areas to do what is relevant your business!