Chapter 3: Other Process Improvement and Quality Methods

Lean Process Management

methodologies designed for reducing waste in a process. - while originally developed for reducing waste in a manufacturing environment, the ideas of Lean Process Management can be applied to any process that involves the movement or creation of goods or services. - Focuses on continuous improvements, like Six Sigma. - Also like Six Sigma, Lean is more about an overall culture of quality than a single quality event.

Rummler-Brache

- a process improvement approach that seeks to affect positive change in processes and organizations by using a set of practical tools to address business issues and process problems. Created by implementing bits and pieces of methods that incorporated Lean and Six Sigma elements. Foundational component is called the Nine Boxes Model Approaches Improvement in 6 phases: - Improvement planning - Definition - Analysis and Design - Implementation - Management of process - Processes are turned over to daily teams

Rummler-Brache approaches improvement in six phases:

1. Improvement planning. During the first phase, leadership and subject-matter-experts commit to making improvements and begin to identify opportunities for change. 2. Definition. During the second phase, project goals and scopes are defined and teams are formed to create improvements. 3. Analysis and Design. Teams use analysis to understand the current problem and to define and validate workable solutions. 4. Implementation. Teams implement process changes. Depending on the type of change, this might include programming changes, retraining staff, changes in machinery or equipment, or policy changes. 5. Management of process. Teams monitor the process during and immediately following the change to ensure improvements function as planned. 6. Processes are turned over to daily teams. Management of the process is turned over to daily teams, often with some type of control in place to ensure continued success.

List the 8 Key Elements of Total Quality Management (TQM)

Ethics Integrity Trust Training Teamwork Leadership Recognition Communication

Advantage and disadvantage from The Customer Experience Management Method (CEM)

The advantage of CEM is that organizations are able to deploy customer-facing tactics across the enterprise, which often results in enormous gains in customer satisfaction, loyalty, and spending. A disadvantage of this method is that traditionally inward-facing departments, such as human resources, legal, and accounting, often have a difficult time implementing customer-focused cultural change.

Advantage and disadvantage to using JumpStart

The benefit of JumpStart is that it lets teams create and implement small-scale solutions quickly, often providing problem resolution the same day. It also lets teams identify issues that need to be addressed in a more comprehensive project environment. One disadvantage of using JumpStart alone is that changes are sometimes made on a wait-and-see mentality, which is safe for many inner-team changes but often dangerous for department or enterprise-wide processes, or for making changes to processes that are closely tied to regulatory or compliance rules.

What are the three phases to Scrum?

The pregame. - Development teams analyze available data and business requirements. They use this information to come up with the concept for the new product or upgrade. Often, this involves translating business and process concepts into computer and technical concepts. The game. - Teams begin to develop the product via programming sprints. Sprints are smaller phases of development that are completed in sequence, usually with a review and validation of the work before moving on to the next sprint. By validating work during development, teams are able to create working products faster. The postgame. - Even though validation occurs during development, teams still have to follow quality assurance, testing, and change management procedures. Quality preparation for product release is handled in the final phase.

True or False: One of the ways that Lean is similar to Six Sigma is that it is concerned with continuous improvements

True

When should you use Six Sigma over other process improvement methods?

When facing the unknown When problems are widespread and not defined When solving complex problems When costs are closely tied to processes

Kaizen

a Lean continuous improvement tool that translates to "change for the better." The purpose of every change in a Kaizen environment is to eliminate waste and/or create more value for the customer on a continuous basis.

Total Quality Management (TQM)

a continuous approach to quality that served as one of the first formal methods enacted in business environments in the United States. Originally developed in the 1950s, but saw widespread use in the 1980s. While Total Quality Management programs were often somewhat lackluster when it came to results, the method was an essential stepping point to current improvement and quality methods such as Six Sigma. Required 8 key elements: - Ethics - Integrity - Trust - Training - Teamwork - Leadership - Recognition - Communication One of the biggest advantages of the TQM mentality is that it began to force organizations to see themselves as one entity rather than a number of loosely related entities or departments. - Many organizations were run via heavily siloed departments. One department often did not understand what another was doing, which caused a great deal of rework and waste. - Thanks to TQM, organizations began to take enterprise approaches to decision making, quality, and customer service. Business leaders started to look at companies as a series of linked processes operating toward a single end goal.

Nine Boxes Model

a foundational component of the Rummler-Brache approach to process improvement. - The model is created by a matrix of three performance levels and three performance dimensions. Performance levels are the performer, the process, and the organization. Dimensions are management, design, and goal. When placed on a grid, the levels and dimensions form nine boxes.

The Customer Experience Management Method (CEM)

a process improvement approach that combines some process improvement tools with customer relations management. - takes an outside-in approach to process improvement, focusing on what the customer wants or needs and how each process in an organization serves that need. - The primary purpose of CEM is to align processes throughout an organization with customer satisfaction goals. As such, even processes without a direct relation to customers are defined in terms of customers. - Like Six Sigma, CEM relies heavily on data. Organizations can't make determinations about customer goals and the success of processes without collecting and analyzing customer feedback.

JumpStart

a process improvement method that is a fast-paced method for identifying problems and solutions in a single session. - JumpStart can be used within almost all of the other methods described in this book (Lean, Six Sigma, TQM, BPR, CEM) as a way to spark discussion regarding processes or to identify possible solutions. - Can also be used as a management tool for helping teams come to tenable solutions outside of project environments or in the absence of project resources. - Because JumpStart doesn't take the time for rigorous verification or statistical analysis on its own, teams should not use this method to enact sweeping changes or attempt to improve processes that could seriously impact customer experience or the bottom line. - JumpStart doesn't work to define the problem: the group is close enough to the issue that they already know what is wrong. Instead, the group spends several hours brainstorming root causes for the problem and coming up with possible solutions.

Scrum

a project development method specific to Agile programming endeavors in technical departments. Scrum is used when teams want to create new technical products or integrate new developments on existing products within a short time frame. Usually a very tight completion timeline for programming, Scrum projects last between two and four weeks. Scrum was developed as programming and development teams needed a way to meet continuous technical design and improvement needs from other departments without substantially increasing programming, testing employee hours, or hiring more technical staff. Features three main phases: - The pregame - The game - The postgame

Business Project Reengineering i.e. business process redesign

a quality process approach that is not continuous (unlike Lean, Six Sigma, and TQM), it is less concerned with incremental quality wins and more concerned with a radical change across an entire organization or process architecture. - most often concerned with the technical processes that occur throughout an organization (systems, software, data storage, cloud and web processes) - Because of the intense integration of automation and computer elements into processes with BPR, organizations that enter BPR endeavors have to rely heavily on both inside and outside technical resources. - BPR initiatives can be costly, which is why they are often deployed only when an organization expects exponential gain or has determined that current processes are obsolete or badly broken. - Most projects go through planning, design, and implementation phases.