Event Wrap-up “Lean Six Sigma & Politics”

From the record number of people registering for this dinner event, the organizer knew the interest and expectation were high on this topic "Lean Six Sigma & Politics". Dr Alastair Muir delivered an engaging session, meeting or exceeding 97% of attendees' expectation.

The presentation started off with a video capturing the comments from team members involved with a continuous improvment project at the City of Calgary. The team knew their way of doing things were dated and they needed a change. Project Sponsor convinced the organization to move forward and the consultant created an environment for the team to be effective. The team's approach were defining the problem, understanding the problem by breaking it down to very detailed tasks in a large spread sheet, data collection and analysis. The team's pride and ownership were evident from the video presentation.

This project brought together 2 departments in a very large (City of Calgary) organization - Transit and Supply Management. The project started with Rules, Roles and Relationship definition. Understanding the problem through brainstorming is very important when departments are working in silos. Dr. Muir said bringing the team to the same room for brainstorming was a challenge but was also key to the success. It felt like "blamestorming sessions" at times.

The problems were grouped into categories and prioritized. The team brainstormed on potential solutions. After assessment, Action Plans were developed.

Why do some good ideas fail to have the anticipated impact?

GE : CAP, Change Acceleration Process

E=Q*A
E=effectiveness of the solution
Q=Quality of solution
A= Acceptance

Leading change requires the creation of a shared need (why are we here?), mobilizing commitment, resistance is real and must be managed. Making change last, monitoring progress, changing system and structure. Dr. Muir illustrated this with a virtual warehouse example.

In Conclusion:
* Understand your stakeholders (customers)
* In government, effeciency and productivity are the CTQ, not $
* Company strategy can be vague - dig deep
* Processes are non-linear
* Consider risk element and mitigation
* Responsibility is distributed
* Political pressure is real
* Growth is slow

It was incredable to see how Dr. Muir could pull the team together and successfully applied Lean Six Sigma methology in such a diversed organization.

Last but not least, the orgnaizer apologizes for the limited parking at the Canadian Danish Club which caused frustrations to many of the attendees. There were 4 events at the Club that evening. The lesson learned was to check what other events were happening at the club before booking.

Wishing you all a safe, happy and Quality holiday season, see you in the new year.


Wang Lee Lau
ASQ Executive Committee