I was asked this question during a recent interview with the Lean Management Journal, and it really got me thinking about the journey I’ve been on throughout my career that has led me not only to consider lean six sigma as part of a bigger picture, but also how it can have a huge impact on an organization’s business execution model.
So, my first encounter with Lean was whilst I was working at Marconi in the 1990s, where the focus was very much on the reduction of time and the implementation of Kanban for our overall production management approach. I soon began to learn more about the concepts of the wider Toyota Production System, which really taught me about the interdependency between concepts for daily management and longer range ideas for objective realization and policy deployment, like Hoshin Planning.
But it wasn’t until I became head of operational excellence at Marconi that it really became clear to me that no single method, when used in isolation, would be an effective means of driving a project. Looking back, I wish I knew then what I know now – that in order to create a complete alignment of goals, further methodologies need to be built, and a Six Sigma approach needs to be combined with Lean to work effectively.
It was this realisation that became the driving force behind my belief that Lean is a critical part of Business Execution.
The most effective organizational infrastructure needs to recognise the importance of cascading goals through Hoshin Planning, of driving projects at different levels, of interpreting progress and of forecasting success. And as well as being recognised, these elements of execution need to link together.
I really believe that organizations need to know how to link policy deployment with project execution methodologies like Six Sigma, and operational improvement processes like Lean, with measurement frameworks, like the Balanced Scorecard to create an integrated cycle of Business Execution.
Today people are managing the deployment of strategy and the management of goals through spreadsheets and individual strategic planning and appraisal cascade documents, as well as using all sorts of different methods to capture KPIs. There is a lot of heavy lifting involved in trying to understand all the information and everything is completely fragmented which means people have no way of knowing whether work throughout the organization is actually driving and delivering against the set objectives. Business Execution helps to close up the planning and execution cycle, turning Lean and Six Sigma into critical tools in the execution process.
To read about my Lean journey in more detail, read the full article here.
