Defining Lean Six Sigma to the frustrated and questioning public

At a recent networking event I was presented with not one, but two people who were challengers of Lean Six Sigma.  Initially, I was taken aback:  how can you NOT be a supporter of a proven methodology that increases efficiency and saves money?   I, a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, decided to ride in on my intellectual white horse to educate these people and bring them into the fold. 

                The first person told me flat out, “I am not a fan of Lean Six Sigma.”  Hmmm.  When I questioned him, he explained to me that he was a busy program manager, and a superior manager enlisted him to transform the organization with LSS processes, and to compose a training plan to educate the whole company.  This person was anointed as the LSS Champion for his organization, and yet had never taken an LSS class in the first place.  He also told me about how difficult it was to get company approval for the changes he was instructed to make.  As I peeled away the layers of his frustration, I questioned him, “Is it Lean Six Sigma you don’t like, or is it the internal politics of your company?”  BINGO.  I hit the nail on the head.  Lean Six Sigma wasn’t the problem, it was the scapegoat.  Any LSS practitioner could read this paragraph and understand that the approach for instituting Lean Six Sigma in that organization was not one that was particularly well thought out.  Score one for me!  I successfully defended Lean Six Sigma to the first nay-sayer I encountered.  That was easy!  I am awesome at this!

                The second interaction I had with a fellow networker that night would not be so easy.  He had had some exposure to Lean Six Sigma and knew it was process-driven, and occasionally, process-heavy.  He asked me if the emphasis on process stifled innovation.  I wasn’t stumped, but I was definitely pensive….I know that Lean Six Sigma optimizes current processes and current results.  Design for Six Sigma (a philosophy applied at many manufacturing enterprises) attempts to lay strong ground work before new processes or projects begin…but could it really stifle innovation?? 

                This colleague sent me a link to a speech given by professional business analyst Simon Wardley at the last O’Reilly OSCON (Open Source Convention)*.  The speaker had some excellent points about business and processes.  The core of his discussion was that any company has a mass of activities, all at different stages of their lifecycles.  Activities at the beginning of their lifecycle are chaotic (dynamic, uncertain), eventually are transitioned to a phase of linear behavior (repeatable, standardized, predictable).   He explained that today’s new, chaotic activities [innovations] are the profit center of the future…today’s linear activities provide profit for today.   I was completely on board with the speaker up to this point.

                The speaker touts the “fantastic” (his quote) impact on Lean Six Sigma on the linear activities:  these activities are in fact repeatable, and standard.  I agree, as most case studies we discuss in our classes feature processes today, products made today, measurable results for today.  The speaker then says, bluntly, that , “Six Sigma absolutely sucks when you try to manage innovation because it seeks to reduce variation.”      I went back and listened to this sentence no less than three times.  Do you see a word missing in this sentence?  I do, and it made all the difference. 

                I suppose the speaker has a point (albeit crass) that overlaying a philosophy that reduces variation atop of this trial-and-error stage of activities would be counter-intuitive.  However, if the speaker led his sentence with the word LEAN, it would have made his argument  completely baseless.  Lean is the corollary, the partner, the precursor to Six Sigma.  The words are not synonyms.  Together, positive results can be achieved in chaotic AND linear activities. 

                Lean is a separate beast  from Six Sigma, as its focus is waste reduction (not reducing variance).  Lean comes first in verbiage and business improvement.  Lean addresses what we call “low hanging fruit” and can clear the way of extraneous waste to create a healthy environment for innovation and growth. 

                Perhaps if the speaker understood Lean and its partnership with Six Sigma, he wouldn’t have been so eager to throw the whole philosophy down the drain.  By his example, Six Sigma’s only utilization is at one end of the business lifecycle.    Hundreds of powerful companies wouldn’t have woven Lean Six Sigma practices into every facet of their corporate cloth if it was only useful in one part of business.  Understanding and correctly using the tools of Lean and Six Sigma (which was lacked by the speaker) and having corporate support and participation (lacking in the first networkers’ company) are critical to success.   Wrongly defined or mistakenly applied, though, and these tools earn a poor reputation….and that is just too bad. 

*Link to speech:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Oyf4vvJyy4&start=12:58

Measuring the impact of Mikel J. Harry

I recently attended a networking event with “Laura Ermini, Lean Six Sigma Black Belt” on my name badge.  Most people were familiar with the title, if not the methodology behind it.  As I started to explain it in a small group, someone blurted out, “The Toyota method!”  Yes, Toyota Production Systems (TPS) is a piece of the Lean Six Sigma methodology.  It’s not the whole idea, but it’s a start.   I could have mentioned “TQM” as a philosophy which was replaced by LSS, but I opted not to….my captive audience was on the right track with TPS, I wasn’t about to derail their interest by mentioning the oft-abandoned TQM.

A few days later I sat with my mentor, a Master Black Belt, at a library discussing ways to update Yellow Belt training material.  A young girl, I’d say early 20’s, heard us talking and engaged us in conversation.  She was a graduate student, studying business.  The Master Black Belt mentioned LSS methodology, of which she was somewhat familiar.  One of us mentioned the name “Mikel J.Harry” to her, but it rang no bells.  This was no fault of the student, it is just a name and method that no one had ever explained to her.

Lean Six Sigma is as much magic as it is new:  neither.   The TPS/Lean piece came from the invention of the auto loom in the late 19^th century.   Six Sigma, as far as statistics and a 4- or 5-step outlined process, came from post-WWII Edwards Deming and Joseph Juran.   As separate pieces, both have merit and value.  These pieces together, however, are a 1-2 punch.  Two pieces, when partnered together, provide results that seem to be greater than the sum of the two separate parts.   Mikel J. Harry turned the key and opened the door to an incalculable number of business improvements – and I don’t believe anyone will be able to measure the impact he has made.

Mikel J. Harry is more than a metaphorical “doctor” who cured a patient or provided a surgical improvement.  Those people, though important in business and medicine, touch a few projects, or a few companies in their careers.  Even if this person improved 100 projects over the course of a career, it still wouldn’t match the contributions of Harry.  Would one be so bold as to say Harry’s presentation of LSS was like a scientist finding a cure for a disease?  It can’t be denied that Harry’s accomplishments cured many maladies within business processes.  Finding a cure for a disease is revolutionary, but still it is only one single disease.  This would be an appropriate monnicker if Mikel Harry’s intellectual invention touched only one industry, say manufacturing.  But even a scientist finding a cure for a disease isn’t a fitting metaphor for the work of Michael J. Harry. 

I liken Mikel J. Harry’s contribution to business as Joseph Lister’s contribution to medicine.  Joseph Lister, yes, the same root as “Listerine”, introduced surgeons to washing their hands, wearing gloves and sanitizing instruments.  Today, we see those practices as “no-brainers”, but in mid-nineteenth century medicine, that was not the case.    Lister’s sterile hospital did not save simply 1, 2 or even 100 patients, this practice touched an infinite number of patients.  The practice of sanitizing did not help only one kind of patient (say, ones suffering from hemophilia or polio), but rather patients with every disease,  in every corner of the world.  Joseph Lister’s  field research, observations and installations of these “new” practices have become the “norm”. 

Mikel  J. Harry is to business as Joseph Lister was to medicine.   Harry didn’t just contribute to one project or one industry:  his influence continues to reach projects and companies of all sizes, over multiple industries, yielding results of tiny to mammoth financial and industrial repercussions. 

 The student at the library didn’t know the name Mikel J. Harry, and I doubt she would have known Joseph Lister.  Her life is better from Lister’s advancements, and one can hope that someday she is introduced to LSS, so her business education can be equally enriched.  Ironic, isn’t it?  The core of our practice is “measurement”, but yet we will never be able to fully measure the impact of our contemporary pioneer, Mikel J. Harry.

by Laura Ermini, Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, October 9, 2010