The three pillars of project management are: project objectives, resources, and time. Project management involves the balancing of these pillars. For example, a team could increase resources in order to reduce the time it takes to meet objectives, or the team could extend the time for project completion to reduce resources and still meet objectives. The champion and team need to understand the flexibility that a project has for each pillar. Read the rest of this entry »

Six Sigma deployments can include the waste reduction of Lean in the execution of projects. Project management techniques need to be described in both books and Black Belt and Green Belt training at both the project and enterprise level as well. Read the rest of this entry »

In Six Sigma deployments both with and without a Lean focus a SIPOC relationship is described (Supplier, Input, Process, Output, and Customer) in both books and Black Belt and Green Belt training.

For both a black box process and other processes, we can track output over time to examine the performance of the system. Inputs to processes can take the form of inherent process inputs (e.g., raw material), controlled variables (e.g., process temperature), and uncontrolled noise variables (e.g., raw material lots). For our go-to-work/school process, consider that we daily quantified the difference between our arrival time and our planned arrival time and then tracked this metric over time. For this measure, we might see much variability in the output of our process. We might then wish to examine why there is so much variability by consciously trying to identify the inputs to the process that can affect the process output. For reducing the variability of commuting time, we might list inputs to our process as departure time from home, time we got out of bed, traffic congestion during the commute, and whether someone had an accident along our route to work/school. Read the rest of this entry »

Dr. Edwards Deming (1996) emphasized that the key to quality improvement was in the hands of management. Dr. Deming demonstrated that most problems are the result of the system and not of employees. Deming used statistical quality control techniques to identify special and common cause conditions, in which common cause was the result of systematic variability, while special cause was erratic and unpredictable. Read the rest of this entry »

Books and training materials need to describe how to react to team problems, which is a major obstacle in efficient team execution, as described below. This is important for both the execution of projects and enterprise level. Teams need a roadmap for project execution. For going beyond Lean Six Sigma and the Balanced Scorecard, organizations are finding the Integrated Enterprise Excellence (IEE) system very beneficial. Read the rest of this entry »