Operational Excellence Blog
Weed Out Waste with Lean Process Analysis
Lean Process Analysis is an essential tool for rooting out waste in Lean Six Sigma, Lean, and Kaizen events and process improvement projects. Whether you work in manufacturing or service, this tool is applicable because waste can be found everywhere, in any process....
So Much Data, So Little Time: Revisiting DMAIC Methodology
As a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, the measure phase can be full of potential data. How does the DMAIC methodology help us skim through it, spot the significant data, and focus the team? Recently a student called and described their own struggle to identify what data to...
Why Sigma Measurements Matter
Transactional and service-based organizations have widely adopted Lean Six Sigma as a valuable methodology for process improvement. These organizations see results using the DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control) methodology and tools such as project...
Creativity and Innovation
Today, companies understand that in order to stay relevant and be successful, they must continuously improve. Improvement will take out-of-the-box thinking and a culture that welcomes creativity and innovation. Creativity and innovation are not one and the same....
Common Agile Tools and Techniques
Common Agile Tools and Techniques by Stephanie Herman and Dr. Michael Crawley An Agile approach to project management aims for early, measurable ROI through iterative delivery of product increments that involves the customer throughout the product development cycle....
Agile and Project Management
Agile and Project Management by Stephanie Herman and Dr. Michael Crawley With the popularity of Agile for managing projects, there is growing confusion about what that exactly means. Is Agile an approach? A method? A practice? A framework or a toolkit? If you choose...
Tackling the Top Business Trends of 2022
The holidays are in full swing, offering us opportunities to connect with our families and friends…maybe too many opportunities! Amid all the hubbub, remember that it’s OK to take a break and focus on yourself. A holiday break—even with toes in the sand—can be the...
How to Protect Your Career from Automation
You thought the homework was over. You finished school, learned professional skills and launched a career. But today, the half-life of a skill is less than five years, meaning you’ll need to continually learn new skills. Plus, organizations are rapidly turning to...
Boost Retention and Slash Costs with Virtual or In-Person Blended Training
Reducing exposure and cutting costs while providing meaningful interactions with colleagues and instructors is a challenge for organizations as we enter this post-pandemic world. Fortunately, through the creative application of technology and expert instructors,...
Learn, Earn & Share with Digital Badges
“Three little letters after my name.” That’s how a friend described the master’s of public administration she earned after years of juggling family, career, and education. I immediately wished that her MPA came with a digital badge. I wanted to give her the power to...
Exciting Things on the Horizon
2021 is full swing and with it, expectations for what lies ahead. There are exciting things on the horizon for Acuity Institute. I recently interviewed Chris Edwards, SVP at MindEdge, about their acquisition of Acuity Institute and the opportunities it will provide...
Giving Thanks
In the crazy year of 2020, many organizational leaders have tremendous gratitude for their teams. They have seen their team members rapidly pivot their processes and plans. And as we near the end of the year, we want to show our appreciation and further incentivize...
Establishing a Foundation of Change
Successful workplace changes require a foundation that provides direction, sets expectations and establishes accountability for results. To achieve adoption, the focus has to be about the people—not the dollars. It’s the employees and impacted departments or business...
System Factors for Managing Resistance to Change
There’s nothing worse: You’ve implemented an improvement and it is running into resistance. This unwillingness to adopt the new way (resistance to change) is like a tug of war – who will win out? As the project leader, you may feel that resistance represents the...
Setting Up Your Project Team For Success
Teamwork plays a vital role in the success of any organization. Specifically, being able to work as a team contributes to the success of Lean Six Sigma projects and continuous improvement efforts. Team performance is about reaching the potential of each individual as...
Getting the Miles out of Design of Experiments
One of our Master Black Belt candidates recently submitted her Design of Experiments for her Applied Statistics assignment. It was such a great story that I wanted to share it with you. What is Design of Experiments (DOE)? Design of Experiments is a useful tool in...
Lean vs Agile
Lean vs Agile When teaching our Lean Professional class, I am often asked, “How is Lean different from Agile?” Lean and Agile are both operational excellence methodologies, and they both have the common goal of efficiently delivering the client’s most important...
Improvement Opportunities for Lean Six Sigma
2020 has arrived! It is time to start initiating strategic plans and operational goals for the new year and beyond. You might be wondering whether Lean Six Sigma might be beneficial. Can it really work on the challenges you are facing? The answer is most likely, yes!...
Achieving Your Lean Six Sigma Program Benefits Goals – The Rule of Thirds
With the new year approaching, I am meeting with many clients to discuss their Lean Six Sigma Programs for next year and one question that many are asking is, “How do we determine how many Lean Six Sigma projects to do in order to achieve our project benefit goals?” ...
Lean for Service
Last week, I was on the plane heading out to facilitate for one of our Financial Service clients. The gentlemen sitting next to me asked about my trip. When I said I was going to teach Lean to a financial service team, he replied, “Lean for a Bank?” My response was...
What Does a 10X Return on Investment Look Like?
When you think of increasing anything by tenfold, it can be overwhelming and intimidating. Maybe you were having one person over for dinner, but now you are having 10 people. It certainly changes things and can seem like a difficult task, however in Operational...
Operational Excellence vs. Continuous Improvement
The word improvement in operations means different things to different people, some define it as lower operating cost or reduced inventory while others describe it in terms of increased efficiency or better quality. The process of achieving improvement in an...
Lean Six Sigma Blended Learning – Getting the Most Out of Your Training Investment
Many of the potential clients I meet have the same dilemma; they need to get more of their team equipped with Lean Six Sigma training needed to drive operational excellence, they want to have their teams attend onsite training, but they need the time, investment, and...
Using Process Maps and Value Stream Maps
I am often asked about the difference between value stream mapping and process mapping. Which is better? Which one should I use? Your project may benefit from either or both tools. So, let’s look at each of them and their benefits to your next project. Process...
Applying the Y=f(x) Formula to your Lean Six Sigma Project
I was recently meeting with one of Acuity Institute’s Lean Six Sigma Black Belt students. Her workplace project was heading into the measure phase and she was looking for some guidance on how to approach it. Our conversation led us to the formula Y=f(x), it is a...
Project Tollgates – They’re Worth It!
Summertime is here, at least for those of us in the northern hemisphere, and with summer comes the summer driving season! Families load up in the car to head to vacation destinations and along the way they might come upon a toll road or two. Times have certainly...
Assessing Your Response to Change
You have probably experienced some level of change (personally or professionally) in the not-so-distant past. In fact, most of us experience change every day, maybe there is construction on your regular route to work so you have to drive on unfamiliar roads. Maybe it...
Sustainability for the Long Term
One of the biggest challenges that Continuous Improvement Programs face is sustaining the program long term. How do you keep everyone from the front-line team members to the Senior Leadership committed to a culture of continuous improvement over the next 30 years?...
A Look into Lean Six Sigma for Healthcare
People and process are still the main components in customer satisfaction and overall quality business performance. Many healthcare operations have turned to the continuous improvement methodologies of Lean and Lean Six Sigma to make a difference. And the good news?...
The Master Black Belt World is Your Oyster!!
“So, what is it that you do?” This is a classic cliché we’ve all heard a zillion times in business social settings. I find it interesting to watch the reactions of people and listen to their responses, particularly those less familiar with Lean and Six Sigma, when I...
What kind of Power and Influence Do You Have?
Most of us have heard the quote, “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. However, as a root cause analysis kind of guy, there’s something deeper than that and that’s why I ascribe more to the notion brought forth by the late 20th-century...
Silly Rabbit Field Trips Are for… Adults!
George Bernard Shaw, the legendary Irish playwright, is credited with the quote, “Education is wasted on the young”. Sadly, Shaw’s sagacious statement seems to be becoming increasingly prevalent in today’s culture. As educators, we must find ways to engage adults and...
Maximizing the SIPOC for your Lean Six Sigma Projects
One of my favorite lean Six Sigma tools is called a SIPOC diagram. The SIPOC is one of the most valuable tools in the Operational Excellence toolbox. It typically can be completed in less than an hour and helps us understand who our customer is and how the value flows...
Data Collection and Lean Six Sigma Projects
A critical component to Lean Six Sigma’s success is data collection. In today’s business environment, data is easily accessible, but you may find that when it comes to your project, you are data rich and information poor. I have worked with project leaders that have...
Selecting candidates to lead your Lean Six Sigma Projects
Selecting candidates to lead your Lean Six Sigma projects is a critical step in ensuring that your projects provide the benefits they are intended to provide. Overlooking the importance of this step can lead to slow progress and incomplete results. Candidate selection...
Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt Certification – The Key to Getting Everyone Involved.
Most potential clients I meet with ask the question, “Where do we start?”. Truth be told, that’s quite the loaded question. The reason is there are so many variables to answering this question; the company’s readiness for change, the amount of support for the...
How does mindset fit into the work of Change Leaders?
Recently Laura Goodrich attended a webinar hosted by HFS Research. The webinar discussed Robotic Process Automation (RPA). “HFS introduced research done with 100 C-suite executives. It was encouraging to see research supporting that a widespread displacement of...
Making the Change Mindset Connection
I recently sat down with Laura Goodrich to discuss the impact that an organization’s change mindset has on the change curve was discussed. This blog post summarizes the discussion and examines change mindset and the correlation between managing change and your...
Creating a Mindset for Change
As we kick off a new year we are excited to introduce changes to Acuity and our blog. After 15 years, Brent Drever is transitioning his role here at AI. He said: “I am transitioning my role to Stephanie Herman, who is now Acuity’s Managing Director. Stephanie has been...
How do you improve efficiency in Lean Six Sigma projects?
Many of the Lean Six Sigma projects that we work on focus on improving efficiency within an organization. To improve efficiency, we must understand what is inefficient. Through Operational Excellence methodologies like Lean and Lean Six Sigma, we can determine how...
How do YOU start a Lean Six Sigma project?
I’ll be honest – from time to time I struggle with starting Lean Six Sigma projects. Most people are surprised to hear this. After all, I have made my career by working with thousands of Lean Six Sigma Green Belt and Lean Six Sigma Black Belt project leaders in Lean...
How Does Operational Excellence Define Effectiveness and Efficiency?
In Operational Excellence, whether you’re using Lean or Lean Six Sigma, our goal is always to improve products, services, and processes. I often think of it as striving to be better all the time, but Operational Excellence can holistically encompass effectiveness and...
Beware of Over-The-Shoulder Customer Service
In Lean Six Sigma, one thing we always practice is making connections. Customers are the foundation of a successful business so it’s important to treat them well. Good follow through with our customers that makes real connections is the key to success. Unfortunately,...
Are you the bottleneck on the project?
A common challenge that every Lean Six Sigma project faces is unexpected obstacles along the way that can destroy project deadlines, increase cost, and reduce return on investment. Now the question is: why do Lean Six Sigma projects get delayed? As Lean Six Sigma...
Yes, United Airlines can deliver exceptional customer service
Over the past 20 years, my career has taken me all over the world, I’ve flown hundreds of thousands of miles. I have used stories that I have from traveling with airlines, and United Airlines in particular, to teach thousands of Lean Six Sigma practitioners, such as...
The #1 Communication Killer
A significant challenge that Lean Six Sigma project leaders face is managing key stakeholders. Stakeholders fall into two categories: stakeholders that influence our work and stakeholders that are impacted by our work. The first set of stakeholders is often made up of...
Is your Lean Six Sigma Project Looking for the Needle in the Haystack?
The main goal of Lean Six Sigma is to solve business problems. Typically, I’ve seen problems present in two ways. First, you might see a bunch of errors or defects crop up. You will need to solve these errors to overcome them and move on. Second, you might see an...
Top 3 Drivers to a 100x Return on your Lean Six Sigma Projects
With Operational Excellence our goal is often targeted at a 10x return on investment of the training and coaching services provided to our project leaders such as Lean Six Sigma Black Belts, Lean Six Sigma Green Belts, Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belts, Lean Professionals,...
Can you Implement Operational Excellence like your Competitors?
Operational Excellence - The process of adopting Lean Six Sigma within an organization usually starts with one question, “Who has made Lean Six Sigma work for them?” Whether we’re talking about benefits realization, cost savings, or coming up with unique solutions to...
Is Your Way of Teaching Lean Six Sigma Outdated?
Benefits of Lean Six Sigma Online Training and Classroom Training - Blended Learning Those of you old enough to remember, think about the time when we had perfectly good working land lines and phones available on every street corner. They served their purpose well and...
It is Time to Get Unstuck
In working with Operational Excellence Project leaders such as Lean Six Sigma Black Belts or Lean Practitioners, I have observed many that were moving along in their Lean Six Sigma projects quite well, then one day they find that they are stuck. It may be that they...
Is Change Personal in Business?
Resistance to Change When discussing, business people often advise others to “not take it personally”, however when dealing with change in business it may be worth taking a second look to see if in fact the issues with change resistance are indeed personal. What you...
What is the Cost of World-Class?
Occasionally I get requests from clients who want the best Lean Six Sigma training course available and won’t take anything less. When I then ask how they plan to use the Lean Six Sigma tools and techniques, they aren’t sure because they don’t really understand what...
Looking to Champion a Lean Implementation?
The practice of eliminating waste in products or processes is something that many organizations are looking to implement. Commonly known as Lean, when you “lean” or eliminate waste in a product or service, you are not only making the product or service better, you are...
Is Preparation Overrated?
The Power of Preparation People of all ages and across all industries are getting one constant message – preparation is important. It is a clear message that great minds have agreed is valuable advice, but why is preparation still not practiced routinely? For some,...
Are you ready to be a Lean Six Sigma Champion?
Organizations of every size, in almost every industry, are beginning to focus on how they can become better at applying Continuous Improvement methodologies. Why? Because organizations have the potential for incredible value and savings, employees have the chance to...
What does a good Lean Six Sigma Black Belt candidate look like?
One of the most common questions I am asked is “Who is the right person to go through Black Belt training (or any other continuous improvement leader program)?” Sometimes it comes from corporations that are looking to find the right employees to train, and other times...
How a Good Lean Six Sigma Project Sponsor Can Increase the Value of your Project
I occasionally see organizations that are excited about implementing Lean Six Sigma projects but make the mistake of neglecting the role of a Lean Six Sigma Project Sponsor. It may be that they aren’t assigned at all, or if they are, they are treated as an...
Who would you want to help you build a shed?
I have worked in the Continuous Improvement space for more than 2 decades and while many methodologies may peak with the trends in a global economy, one need has always been universal – quality project managers. Regardless of what methodology you are using, being an...
How to get an ROI from your Master Black Belt Certification
At first glance, asking an organization to invest thousands of dollars into a Master Black Belt program for one individual may seem like a stretch, unless you know how to get a return on investment for your Master Black Belt training and certification. New Continuous...
A Good, Better, and Best Approach for Project Selection
When organizations are implementing a Operational Excellence program, it is common for everyone to be excited and want to be involved in project selection – and while there is no bad way to use Lean Six Sigma and Lean – there are approaches that are good, better and...
Cultivating your Lean Six Sigma Ecosystem thru Training
Lean Six Sigma is a powerful methodology, but it cannot sustain an entire organization on its own. Organizations that have a robust operational excellence mindset tend to think of Lean Six Sigma as an entire ecosystem, one in which each person inside the organization...
Is Change Throwing you a Curveball?
It is no secret that everyone goes through change, but what is often missed is that everyone follows a similar path. While some may be more adaptable and willing to change than others, they will all follow the same roadmap on their journey through change. As...
Data Overload – What should I do with all this data?
The image of someone drowning in a mass of data is something many of us can relate to because we may have found ourselves on a project and there is so much data coming at us that it is easy to become overwhelmed. Take a step back and remember that just a few years...
Black Belt vs Green Belt – Which one is better?
Black Belt vs Green Belt Within companies that are implementing Lean Six Sigma, a common issue they face is trying to determine if they should train employees as Black Belts or Green Belts. Even for individuals seeking out their own training, it can be confusing to...
Stop Falling in Love with your Data
In today’s world, people have a tendency to fall in love with data that isn’t overly meaningful. Take for instance the focus on people to measure themselves with likes, views, clicks or other metrics. Do these numbers really tell you the true value of a person – no....
Embracing the Value of Patience
In an era of instant gratification, we lose sight of the importance of patience. Patience is simply understanding that things will happen over time. In the continuous improvement space, it is easy for a project leader to want to solve the problem immediately. They can...
Is Your Customer Service Metric a Recipe for Disaster?
We all dread the call center with phone prompts because you find yourself in the space of never ending menu options. Why do companies do this? Well for one, they are attempting to get you to the right person because they are likely measuring how quickly that person...
I Have a Good Idea Why Your Lean Six Sigma Project is Struggling
One of the more common themes I teach in Continuous Improvement workshops is how to help a Lean Six Sigma project that is struggling. From my experience most project managers focus on the mechanics of running a project and treat the change management component as...
Tollgate Review with the Lean Six Sigma Project Sponsor
When you run a Lean Six Sigma project, you generally have regularly scheduled Lean Six Sigma project sponsor meetings. In the Operational Excellence community, we typically call these Tollgate Reviews however you may know them as Stage Gate Reviews or Milestone...
What is the Optimal Size of your Lean Six Sigma Project Team?
A common question from people who are new to Lean Six Sigma, or even from seasoned Lean Six Sigma Black Belts tackling a problem in uncharted territory, is how many people should be involved in the project? There has been a lot of research on this topic and the...
The Dreaded “B” Word
We all know that person, who when asked how they are, their first response is “I’m so busy!” Then they launch into a list of all the things they have on their plate or complain about how they just can’t seem to get anything done simply because they are always so busy....
Is Your Product or Process Simple to Use?
It’s no secret that the shortest distance from A to B is a straight line, and that’s because it’s simple. However, when designing a new product or process, the tendency is to create complexity in the design. This isn’t intentional as no one needs a more complicated...
Can You Answer This Question About Your Lean Six Sigma Project
The biggest and most important question for a Lean Six Sigma project team (or really any project team) is a very simple one – What problem is the project looking to solve? Sounds like an elementary question to ask, especially for experienced teams who have handled...
Benefits of Learning Outside of your Comfort Zone
Have you ever looked at a book, article or video and thought that you would never dive into something like that because it’s so far outside of what you do in your daily life? Before you dismiss them, ask yourself if they can actually help you become better. As...
