Company Politics and Six Sigma by Peter Peterka

No grouping of human beings is without some amount of politics. Managing deployment of Six Sigma in your organization will unavoidably run into some personal issues and conflict. However, with deft handling of the personal and political issues that come up, along with patience and perseverance, your Six Sigma deployment will not get derailed.

Political factors that can affect a Six Sigma project include personal resistance to change, inflexible company policies, and incompatibility with existing organizational methods and goals. Not surprisingly, all of these factors also affect business processes of any kind. They are not unique to Six Sigma. This is one of Six Sigma's strengths: realistically acknowledging the way politics work in an organization. Six Sigma is not just number crunching. It understands the importance of and encourages the involvement of people throughout and at all levels of the organization working together toward a common goal. Six Sigma encourages planning, communication, and openness about processes, procedures, and information.

Many people see change, any change, as loss?a loss of their power or a loss of the security of the old way of doing things. Thus, people are prone to defend the old way, out of habit and out of unease. They wonder how change will affect them and what exactly happens behind the scenes and if they don't know, become apprehensive. This is a problem that can be overcome through communication. Six Sigma successes require clear and open communication at all levels. Any change in an organization will meet some resistance, either intentional or just from inertia. When management can effectively communicate that it is behind that change and can communicate the positive aspects of the change, resistance and ?turf? politics can be countered and overcome.

Another problem is people who disregard the value and power of Six Sigma and consequently, they are reluctant to support Six Sigma projects. To the uninitiated, Six Sigma may appear similar to or simply an evolution of other quality programs. There have been so many quality improvement fads over the years. It is not surprising that people are now a little jaded. Others may see Six Sigma as solely another cost-cutting or productivity enhancement fad. This is a short-sighted view. Six Sigma is neither a fad nor just another quality initiative. It is a ?way of life.? It is a multi-level, cyclical movement toward continual process improvement. The quality improvement fads sell themselves as cheap and easy quick fixes. The reality is that there are no quick fixes to significant process improvement. Six Sigma understands that; it is not a simple quick process. However, the right Six Sigma training and information will help people to understand that Six Sigma is significantly different; it is a robust continuous improvement strategy and process.

Once projects are begun, Six Sigma projects can become a battle of wills for control over which strategy, approach, or tool is used. Team meetings can devolve into arguments over which measurement to use, how it will be calculated, which charts will be generated, whether to use DMAIC or DMADV, etc. Six Sigma is not about making things more difficult. It is about using common sense to make things easier. It is certainly about recognizing that there is more than one road to improvement and more than one right answer to a problem.

In overcoming political problems, the leadership of senior management is critical. Successful Six Sigma programs are built on a solid organizational foundation. The organizational structure and system needs to be clearly identified and communicated to the entire organization to successfully implement Six Sigma Quality. Becoming a Six Sigma organization doesn't just happen. Planning and training goes into setting up a successful Six Sigma organization. Employee roles and responsibilities must be established and clearly communicated to all. For many companies successful in Six Sigma, the key factor has been the direct involvement of their top leaders.

Six Sigma is about getting everyone involved. A Six Sigma project forms a team of people who work together to identify problems and develop solutions. Such teams are not isolated teams rearranging the world for everyone else to live in. These teams are serving the organization by employing the skills and tools they have learned to increase quality and reduce defects. Instilling the team concept along with expert training will go a long way toward solving potential political troubles in your organization.

Peter Peterka is a Master Six Sigma Black Belt for Six Sigma us and has implemented Six Sigma in a variety of organizations. For additional information for Six Sigma Training and Six Sigma Consulting please contact Peter Peterka at http://www.6sigma.us/.

joseph@sixsigma.us

What is 6 Sigma?

You may have noticed the increase of discussion and publication about a topic called 6 Sigma. However, what isn't as obvious is what 6 Sigma actually is. First created by Motorola, 6 Sigma is an intensive, highly focused, and greatly effective quality control strategy. Its primary goal is to maintain the performance of an organization virtually error-free.

When measuring the performance of a company, its Sigma level is given. Traditionally operated businesses will usually be found running at a 3 or 4 Sigma performance level, even though their rate of problems per opportunity usually falls between 6,200 and 67,000 per one million.

On the other hand, an organization running at 6 Sigma will instead see an average of only 3.4 problems per million opportunities. This tremendous difference can make the difference between success and failure in a market where the expectations of customers rise as quickly as the complexity of today's products and processes.

Surprisingly enough, however, 6 Sigma - though considered an entirely new and innovative strategy - does not involve any new technologies, theories, or techniques. Instead, its foundation is methods that have existed for a long time and have proven their efficacy time and time again. In fact, 6 Sigma disregards a large amount of the density of traditional Total Quality Management (TQM) in favor of a much more direct, common sense-based, and practical mindset.

Unfortunately, though, after lifetimes of learning, training, and thinking in traditional ways, the more reality-based 6 Sigma does not come naturally to many people. To compensate for this issue, specially trained, proven individuals, known as 6 Sigma Black Belts, have become available to assist organizations using their proficiency in the application of the 6 Sigma strategy.

Of course, all this is not to say that everything about 6 Sigma is obvious and simple. In fact, some of the techniques utilized by the Black Belts are quite advanced, and require state-of-the-art computer technologies.

Fortunately, these tools can be applied to quite an easy performance improvement model, frequently referred to by 6 Sigma Black Belts as the Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control Model, so that any business can apply 6 Sigma to its own processes.

Now that you know what 6 Sigma is, it's time to find out how you can improve the function of your own business and maximize your potential through practical and realistic quality control. The strategy has worked wonders for Motorola, and is currently growing its successes with organizations around the globe.

Craig Setter is a certified Master Black Belt for Aveta Solutions - Six Sigma Online. Six Sigma Online offers online six sigma training and certification classes for 6 sigma black belt, green belt, yellow belt, lean and DFSS courses. They have an extensive customer list including such companies as Pfizer, Microsoft, UPS, Bank of America, and State/Federal Governments. For additional information in regards to Six Sigma or to see how Aveta Solut

Six Sigma Online Education

Six Sigma is a management methodology that makes use of data and statistical scrutiny, which provides companies with an ability to identify consumer needs and design a consistent and high-class method to meet those requirements. Simply put, it is a process devised to increase productivity and reduce costs. The statistical term 'Sigma' is a measure for determining how off beat a process is from its set standards. This method is known to have no more than 3.4 defects per million opportunities and is a pioneer in data driven decision-making. Various companies all over the world have integrated their policies with Six Sigma's disciplined structure to attain optimum competence. The process not only scrutinizes a company's existing systems and performance but also suggests changes to make it perfect.

Advantages Of Online Learning

Business owners and executives look for training sessions on Six Sigma in order to understand the concept and implement it. However, it becomes difficult for many of them to spare time from their hectic schedule to attend the sessions and hence prefer online training. The benefits of online training are as given below:

• Online Six Sigma training provides flexibility to students to commence and end the course according to their individual schedules. They have an option of taking the entire course in small sections to acquire better absorption of the subject.

• Online training facilitates students to learn from the comfort of their home thereby eliminating traveling expenses and travel time.

• When the entire course is listed in front of the students, they can take their pick of topics. They can omit those topics that they find easy or already have knowledge about and continue with the others only. This helps leveraging time and aids students in investing more time on difficult subjects.

• Online lessons offer practical tips that are relevant to real work issues, which help learners in applying some of the strategies as they are learning them.

• Typically, online sessions offer an immediate evaluation and feedback on a student's performance during a lesson.

• When discussions take place online, learners from all over the world can participate at the same time and share their views. This allows each participant to gain a new perspective towards a particular problem.

• The course matter includes audio and multi-media slide shows, practice conferences, online simulations, quizzes and exams.

• All students registered for the online Six Sigma course have individual access to earlier student projects and informative templates.

Course Specifications

There are various levels of courses for each group of personnel such as courses for senior management, for functional / process managers, quality leaders and for associates. Each course has specific highlights pertaining to the particular needs of the learners. For instance, a senior manager Six Sigma schedule will involve program overview, real examples of triumphant business strategies, financial benefits of implementation, list of application areas and the Six Sigma tools required. On the other hand, a functional or process manager's course will include Six Sigma methodology, concept, tools and necessities to translate senior management's tactics into objectives and actions.

Six Sigma Levels

Six Sigma certification is divided into various levels such as Six Sigma Green Belt, Six Sigma Black Belt, Six Sigma Master Black Belt and Design for Six Sigma. To register, a learner has to fill up the Six Sigma application form, choose a payment method, select the course they want to opt for, and provide an E-mail address so that course timings can be coordinated with online instructors. As soon as students complete their registration procedure, they are supplied with a registration number. As and when the learners complete a chapter, they can mail the documents to their personal Six Sigma instructor for evaluation.

Tony Jacowski is a quality analyst for The MBA Journal. Aveta Solution's Six Sigma Online ( http://www.sixsigmaonline.org ) offers online six sigma training and certification classes for lean six sigma, black belts, green belts, and yellow belts.