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Overview of the New Six Sigma: Align, Mobilize, Accelerate, and Govern

Under the framework, training deployment begins with a process that enables the organization and the requisite leadership team to understand their current performance gaps, agree upon their improvement targets, and develop a scorecard if none exists. When a scorecard exists, the preferred approach is to derive a deployment scorecard from an existing business unit scorecard that establishes the outcome-based metrics that will guide the deployment and allow leaders to review deployment progress against their desired business results (Figure 2.3).

Align

In the case study, Alignment was realized during a four-hour session with the general managers responsible for the targeted population.

The managers received productivity analysis and benchmarking data that demonstrated the performance gap, and a facilitated activity led them to agree upon sales productivity standards and customer satisfaction goals. They then listened to analysis that demonstrated a direct link between the key drivers of both productivity and customer satisfaction and the recommended training implementation strategy. By facilitating the session with the leadership team, the training project team members successfully established results-based metrics linked directly to their sales strategy. Strong leadership support and a sustainable funding strategy resulted.

Mobilize

Having achieved leadership Alignment, the framework suggests that Mobilizing participants by deploying them in empowered teams serves as the surest path to effective implementation.

The key to mobilizing teams is to follow three principles (Figure 2.4). First, establish what the relevant team structure will be such that team members have the ability to make the necessary decisions and take the actions to operationalize the training being implemented. Once the teams are identified, their work must be recast wherever possible as customer-focused team efforts. (For example, ask what customers are we trying to impact and how will our training positively impact that customer.)

Second, organize team efforts into projects with clear charters, agreed-upon success criteria, and an understood management review process. The charters spell out the desired outcome and the primary activities that will lead to those outcomes in one-page documents. Success criteria establish timeframes and link the team efforts to the leadership scorecard. The leadership team communicates the process for reviewing team progress against the milestones and success criteria.

Finally, wherever possible, deliver team training on a just-in-time, as-needed basis rather than against a preset schedule. To achieve this, training must be tools-based and constructed in modules, and not necessarily dependent upon live, expert instructors. By using these principles, we enable teams to become energized, focused, and motivated to rapidly apply the training that they are receiving.

In our case study, the teams formed with a focus on specific accounts and charters, and performance goals for each account team were developed early in the process. The workshops as well as the review processes were facilitated to encourage teamwork with these account teams.

Accelerate

Once the leadership team is Aligned and the teams are Mobilized, action learning can Accelerate the overall effort, campaign planning, and clock management (Figure 2.5)

Action learning, a methodology that will be explained in the next section, ensures integration of individual and project goals with training and coaching activities. Campaign planning applies basic project management principles to the implementation plan; the campaign plan details, in a project management format, the teams that have been targeted, the nature of their charters, their expected results, and the timetable under which each team is expected to complete its training and achieve its desired results. Based on an understanding that teams lose their motivation to change if their efforts fail to bear results within 60 days of the launch of those efforts, clock management causes the campaign manager to chunk team projects into 60-day deliverables and then drive the leadership team to rigorously review the teams against those deliverables at the appropriate milestones. Acceleration, therefore, is achieved through application of good project management and proactive, timely intervention of facilitators, coaches, and leaders.

Within our case study, the Acceleration principles were applied by holding the account teams to the action plans and detailed timelines developed and embedded in their account plans. Rigorous account review sessions ensured achievement of the timelines.

Govern

Governance is a key piece of the New Six Sigma because it ensures that executives own the success of the projects (Figure 2.6).

Visibly making senior leaders accountable for projects and systematically reviewing project progress using the DMAIC