MADM 428 Final exams

Top Tips for Conducting Successful Performance Evaluations https://media.transformanceadvisors.com/pdfs/Top-Tips-Performance-Evaluations.pdf

1 2 5 3 4 Arrange the discussion by getting organized and communicating. Get organized. • Find a time and place that works for both of you. • Make sure the location is private. • Schedule enough time so you don't have to rush and are able to both speak and listen. Communicate in advance. • Let your staff know when the process is starting. • Convey your enthusiasm for the process - both the opportunity to recognize and acknowledge great work as well as the opportunity to identify mutually agreed upon solutions to challenges. • Ask staff members to prepare (see tip #5). Prepare for the meeting. • Review the staff member's activities from the entire year by looking over their file, kudos received, one-on-one meeting notes, progress on goals, and workshops or other training attended. • Make notes about accomplishments you want to recognize and coaching you want to provide. • Connect employee performance to the mission and goals of the unit and Vanderbilt, and be prepared to describe how it furthers the mission. • Create an agenda for the session that includes the items above and builds in time for you to listen to feedback. Help your staff members prepare. The most rewarding performance evaluations for both managers and staff are two-way conversations. Providing guidance to your staff member about how to prepare for the evaluation will increase the likelihood that you will have a meaningful and productive discussion. When you arrange the meetings, suggest employees come prepared to discuss: • Accomplishments during the year - what are they proud of? • The lessons they learned during the year - what could they have done better, what would they do in a future situation, and what support do they need to be successful? • Coaching and support needed - what help do they need from you in order to be successful? • Progress on goals - goals met and unmet. If they didn't meet their goals, what were the obstacles? Do they have any suggestions for overcoming the obstacles and can you problem-solve together for future success? • Professional development - would they like training, mentoring or other learning opportunities? • Career development - what are their career plans and is there something you can do to help them? Take an interest in your employees' professional and career development - it shows that you are committed to their success and enhances their overall engagement and satisfaction. This does not mean that you need to have all the answers for them or promise them that a promotion is forthcoming. As their leader, your role is simply to guide, coach, and where possible, provide opportunities to grow and develop. Helping your employee create an Individual Development Plan (IDP) is a good first step. Use optional self-evaluations thoughtfully, but keep in mind that while comparing your evaluation with the staff member's self-evaluation can generate healthy discussion and insights, using the self-evaluation as the final evaluation will not serve the evaluation goal at all. If you would like to have your employees complete a self-evaluation using the online tool (VPES), see directions for university employees and for medical center employees. Create a dialogue. • Plan to be an active listener. • Allow ample opportunities for your staff member to respond to your comments. • Remember to ask your staff member what he or she needs from you. • Work on problem-solving together rather than blaming. • Try not to respond defensively. If the staff member has an angry or emotional response, remember to: • Listen. Pause. Breathe. • Think about the emotions you are both experiencing and where they may be coming from. • Respond by reflecting back what you think the staff member is feeling. Be curious, ask questions. Kindly restate your point. Do's and don'ts. Do: • Problem-solve. • Focus on the entire year. • Be specific. • Integrate with the mission and goals of the team and Vanderbilt. • Ask for their opinions, suggestions, accomplishments, goals and needs. Don't: • Blame. • Select only recent activities. • Generalize. • Focus on actions, goals and objectives that don't connect to team and organizational goals. • Do all the talking. Top Tips for Conducting Successful Performance Evaluations 6 7 8 Use the ratings effectively. • Review and make key notes about the employee's previous evaluation, both scores and comments. Did the employee take specific actions to improve performance over the last year? • Access whether the key functions for which you use to evaluate performance remain valid measurements of the employee's job responsibilities. If not, please make notes to change the key functions for the next evaluation season? • Briefly overview the generic scoring template to re-familiarize yourself with the levels of performance measures. • If you ask your employees to complete self-evaluations, take time to evaluate their performance separately from the employee's self-evaluation. Compare your ratings with the employee's self-ratings. Make notes of alignment and differences then determine final ratings. The comments in the evaluation should reflect the supervisor's assessment separately from any employee comments that are made and agreed upon by the supervisor. Set goals -- together. Look at last year's goals. • How did it go? Let the employee tell you what he or she thinks. • Give your feedback. • Celebrate accomplished goals! • For unmet goals, talk about why not: • Was it a personal obstacle or something within control? If so, how can you encourage and support success? • Was it an external obstacle or something outside of control? If so, is there something you do to take care of the obstacle? Can you refocus on what is attainable? Set goals for next year. • Encourage your staff member to identify goals that he or she wants to work on, especially those that align with the team goals. • Ask the staff member to write a draft copy to go over with you. • Make goals SMART (Specific, Measurable, Aspirational, Realistic, Timebound). Coach to improve performance. Providing constructive feedback to your employees shows that you care about them and want to help them succeed. Effective managers address major performance issues at the time they occur, so there shouldn't be surprises at the evaluation. On the other hand, you may have suggestions for improvements to enhance an employee's overall performance, help him or her move from good to great, or more effectively align activities to the team's mission and goals. Giving constructive feedback will provide direction for the coming year and clarify expectations. How to provide constructive feedback: • Before the evaluation meeting, identify the behavior or behaviors that need improvement. Describe how the improvements will have a positive impact on the team's or organization's mission or the employee's goals, professional growth or job functions. • Provide positive feedback first. • Describe the behavior that needs improvement. • Ask the employee for recommendations to correct the behavior. If he or she suggests a workable solution, give your approval and your expectation for improved performance. If the employee is unable to offer a solution, problem-solve together. • Clarify the agreement and determine next steps. Set a time to follow up. • Reiterate positive key points from your earlier discussion. • Thank the employee and make it clear that your goal is to see him or her succeed. If you anticipate that this will be a very difficult conversation, please remember that there is training available for medical center and university leaders

Top 5 Employee Performance Metrics to Track https://www.fool.com/the-blueprint/performance-metrics/

Save as PDF Any company with employees faces the same struggle: how to measure employee performance. As a manager of teams both large and small, I've confronted this dilemma firsthand, and know it's not easy to find the best way to evaluate employee performance. The challenge is that there's no single answer. Many human resource (HR) frameworks exist for this purpose, the most common being the dreaded annual performance review. Fortunately, modern companies focus increasingly on a set of unconventional employee performance metrics with the understanding that when employees succeed, so does the company. After all, employees execute the nuts and bolts that keep a business running and meet the needs of customers. Besides, applying a purely data-driven approach to measuring employee performance is doomed to failure. Why? Because employees are people, and therefore provide intangible benefits, such as leadership and mentoring, that cannot be easily quantified. Also, as human beings, we act based on how we are incentivized. Use the wrong job metrics and employees lose motivation, which leads to direct business impacts such as reduced productivity. By providing and evaluating employees with the right set of performance metrics, you empower them to take the appropriate actions for the business and its customers. Overview: What are performance metrics? Every employee hungers to know how they're doing at their job. Performance metrics provide that insight. These HR metrics are values that track an employee's contribution and performance for an organization. The values can be measurable data points like productivity, but for many jobs, particularly those requiring soft skills such as good listening for a customer service rep, performance metrics are not always easy to quantify. Even if quantifiable data isn't available, the effort to capture these types of employee contributions in some capacity is worthwhile. Let's examine the ways performance metrics help every business. Benefits of tracking performance metrics By tracking employee performance metrics, you can effectively evaluate how your staff is doing. When they succeed at achieving performance targets, it improves the overall health of the business. When performance metrics are not met, this information provides business leaders with insights to make strategic decisions that improve the situation. For instance, I worked at a company that relied primarily on a sales force to generate revenue. By monitoring work metrics, we could forecast when sales reps were likely to fall short of revenue targets for a given month. Then, we could proactively analyze why and create solutions to get these reps back on track. Moreover, performance review metrics allow the HR team to ensure staff are being treated in a consistent manner. The metrics clearly identify how team members are performing and are trackable through HR software, so HR can properly support the team. Performance metrics also deliver many other advantages to an organization. Here are the most common benefits. 1. Sets expectations When given a chance, most people want to do well at their jobs. When an employee fails to meet job expectations, it's usually due to miscommunication. If you don't communicate work expectations, you're leaving it to chance that employees will meet them. Performance metrics clearly define employer expectations. They also allow staff to understand what to strive for and help them identify whether or not they are achieving what's expected of them. Even better, it sets a bar for motivated employees to exceed those expectations. 2. Reduces turnover When an employee quits, it's painful for a business. First, it's not cheap to hire employees. Not only are there hard costs like the employee's compensation and the time spent by the hiring manager and HR in recruiting efforts, but a business must invest in training the new hire and getting them up to speed to be fully productive. This process can take weeks or months, depending on the complexity of the job. Also, the gap left by the departure increases the workload of the other employees while a new hire is being brought in and trained. Performance metrics can help reduce staff turnover. When workers know what's expected of them, they are less likely to quit, but without performance metrics, they have no way to gauge if they're doing well. When it's time for a performance evaluation, the lack of metrics conveys a feeling that review ratings and compensation increases are arbitrary. This leads to reduced morale and increased likelihood of turnover. That's why it's important to establish and communicate clear performance metrics. 3. Improves performance A lack of performance metrics leads to complacency, both among the organization's leaders and its staff. Managers are less likely to address underperformers because there's no clear definition of why someone is underperforming. Meanwhile, team members who believe they are going above and beyond may actually be doing an acceptable job, then feel resentment when their performance review reflects that. By establishing a set of performance metrics, the team clearly sees where they're at and what it takes to succeed. The bar has been set, and staff will work to meet it. Some will even work to exceed it. When a team member is underperforming, the manager and the employee can work together to more effectively understand what's holding the employee back. Misconceptions can be cleared up, more training can be provided, or other methods of support can be applied to help the employee meet their performance metrics. Also, during the recruiting process, the HR team and hiring manager can look for people who possess the skills to meet the performance metrics. This ensures you're starting from a position that increases the likelihood of solid work performance, which translates to business success. 5 key performance metrics you can use for your business The subjective nature of businesses today can make establishing clearly defined workforce metrics difficult. A company may have remote team members whose contributions cannot be observed directly, or staff engaged in activities that are not easily quantifiable, such as managing customer relationships. In addition, to stay competitive in a technology-driven world, organizations must have an eye toward promoting creativity and innovation. All of this makes it more challenging to define employee metrics. A good approach is to identify your most important quantifiable employee performance metrics to apply to a goal-based methodology, and couple these with work metrics that encourage proactive problem solving, creativity, and innovation. In this way, you create a winning combination. Here are five employee performance metrics that allow you to do just that. Metric #1: Goal-based metrics A powerful approach to measuring employee performance is to translate company goals into specific goals for individual employees. When you align the objectives of the employee with that of the business, it defines key performance metrics that help a business achieve its targets. For example, sales reps might be assessed on revenue per employee since the goal of the team is to bring in sales. This, in turn, aligns with the overall company objective of increasing revenue. Why goal-based metrics are important The goal-based approach enables you to define a clear set of measurable process performance metrics that employees work to achieve, and by hitting them, each employee clearly contributes to the overall health of the business. Here's how to make that happen. Get to individual goals: First, align a team's objectives to those of the company. The team objectives should be based on the purpose of the team. For instance, a customer service group should be measured on factors that affect customer relationships, and since an organization wants to grow its customer count, a metric like retention makes sense. Then carve out the employee's portion of the team goal so they are clear on their individual targets. Some performance metrics examples include turnaround time for customer inquiries, average deal size for a sales rep, and number of software bug tickets closed for an IT helpdesk. Employee involvement: Involve the employee in their goal setting. This creates immediate buy-in and ensures that expectations are aligned and understood. Also, you can take in the employee's feedback and concerns to make the goals realistic and achievable. Quantifiable objectives: The goals should be specific and measurable. For example, an objective might be to launch a weekly newsletter that will have at least 10,000 readers by the end of the quarter. This goal then includes quantifiable actions to measure progress, such as growing subscribers by 5% each week until the 10,000 goal is achieved. Stretch goals: Part of the goal-setting can include stretch goals, which are targets that are not required but can motivate employees to go above and beyond. In the newsletter example, a stretch goal might be to reach 15,000 readers in the same timeframe. A tool for one-on-ones: Managers should use these goals during regular one-on-one sessions with each team member to discuss progress and the obstacles that are blocking success. In this way, the manager and employee can work together to achieve not just the individual goals, but also the objectives of the company. Metric #2: Quality The quality of an employee's work is vitally important. Poor quality can translate into lost customers or inferior products. That's why it makes sense to incorporate this as a component of employee performance management metrics. Quality metrics should align with the type of work an employee does. In a setting where productivity matters, quality can be assessed using a percentage of product defects or errors produced. For customer-facing staff, a metric like Net Promoter Score (NPS), which measures the likelihood of a customer to recommend the company, may be most applicable. For sales reps, a quality metric can involve the number of sales calls that result in a sale. Why quality is important Employees producing poor quality results can cause frustration for both customers and coworkers. Also, these employees may struggle to meet their performance goals because they don't realize that their work quality is not meeting standards. When this is corrected, they can more easily achieve their goals, so the ability to gauge a team member's work quality is valuable. Here are tips to do this. 360-degree feedback: A useful approach to incorporating quality metrics, 360-degree feedback involves a manager soliciting input about an employee from peers, subordinates, and others who had substantial work interactions with the staff member, even customers. This feedback paints a more well-rounded picture of the employee while capturing a measure of quality, which can be difficult to quantify for some roles. Manager feedback: The employee's direct manager should provide ongoing performance feedback through regular one-on-one meetings. Ideally, these meetings can occur weekly. In these sessions, the manager should highlight examples from the past week that capture what the employee did well, as well as areas for improvement. These examples serve to illustrate the employee's performance around work quality and deliver close to real-time feedback that reinforces positive behaviors. Metric #3: Effectiveness Measuring effectiveness is about assessing the employee's ability to solve challenges at work. When a company raises its effectiveness, it is better able to innovate and produce high-quality products or services. An effective employee doesn't simply complete tasks as quickly as possible; they come up with creative solutions to problems and continuously improve their performance to accomplish the best results. Many metrics can be used to assess effectiveness. Some of the most common include measuring an employee's ability to meet deadlines, to prioritize work correctly, and to achieve their goals consistently. If some staff members are clocking lots of overtime, they may need help streamlining their processes in order to complete their work in an effective manner. Why effectiveness is important Effective employees can affect the company bottom line directly in ways like reduced overtime costs. Moreover, because effectiveness can lead to unexpected benefits for the company, like streamlined work processes, it is a performance metric worth tracking. These suggestions can help. Nurturing effectiveness: Building effective employees takes time and collaboration. When an employee is new, effectiveness will be low until they get up to speed. Only then can a manager track a trend to determine if help is required. Less effective employees can get assistance from more effective peers through one-on-one coaching. Training classes can help as well. Conflict resolution: Effective employees know how to address conflict. Those lacking conflict resolution skills can be identified and coached to obtain the required skills to become effective in their jobs. Metric #4: Initiative Are your employees motivated to go above and beyond? Do they step in where needed without waiting to be asked? These are signs of initiative. An employee exhibiting initiative is one who is engaged in the business. That's why it's beneficial to measure initiative. Tracking it is not always easy. The best way is to record the times you see a team member taking initiative. The other is to solicit feedback from others on the topic. In this process, be sure to track small actions as well as the obvious ones. These can include the ability to work without supervision or stepping in to resolve conflicts. Why initiative is important As a result of initiative, customer satisfaction improves and coworkers help each other. For growing and rapidly evolving businesses, the constant change makes it critical to have employees exhibiting initiative to adapt to changing conditions. Here are tips to build a culture where initiative is valued. Set the tone: Highlight to the team that proactive problem solving is valued, and encourage team members to provide feedback when they observe teammates taking initiative. Learning opportunities: Don't penalize staff for taking initiative that results in an unwanted outcome. Instead, work with the employee to learn from the situation. Building motivation: Present individual examples of initiative to the group at team events or meetings as a way of recognizing employees and encouraging this mindset among others. Metric #5: Training & improvement Investing in your team through training programs and ongoing skills development is essential to maintaining the team's ability to continue producing great results in the face of today's rapidly changing competitive environment. Yet not all companies think to include this training investment into employee performance metrics. The way to do that is to assess if employees are using what they learned. This is accomplished by comparing their performance rating in a skill before and after the relevant training. For instance, work quality can improve after a training, so the two metrics can be correlated and used together. Another approach is to start with a baseline, like every employee undergoing the same key training sessions. The performance metric would revolve initially around how many of these sessions were completed. Then, purposefully introduce other training elements into each step of the employee's evolution from new hire to veteran worker. Throughout this process, other metrics, like productivity, employee morale (measured through internal surveys), and promotion opportunities can be used to show how the training helped your team grow. Why training & improvement is important Training boosts morale and employee confidence. Workers feel valued because the company is investing in their improvement. This morale boost leads to increased initiative from greater engagement with the job, and higher work quality, so this metric has a great influence on other metrics. These suggestions can help implement training as part of job metrics. More than a class: Training can involve techniques like shadowing coworkers; it doesn't have to only occur in a classroom setting. Applying different training approaches is particularly important in order to build up employee competency in other performance areas such as effectiveness. Training recommendations: Managers should include training recommendations in performance conversations to guide team members. Discussing which skills an employee needs and which training session that employee should attend to gain them shows concern for the worker's development and that thought was put into the recommendation. A last word on performance metrics Performance metrics play a part in the entire employee journey. During the recruitment phases, candidates can learn that performance is not simply managed but supported to ensure all team members succeed. At the hiring and onboarding phases, the hiring manager should discuss performance expectations, how to set goals, and how the manager will support team members. During their tenure, employees are given the space for continuous improvement using performance metrics as the measurement tool to identify areas of opportunity. As a result, the employee experience becomes one where personal success and performance management are in sync with business objectives. So move away from the outdated stick-and-carrot system of reward and punishment, and see performance evaluations as a daily priority. In this way, you'll build productive teams that propel a business to success.

Six Sigma Methodology Transcript

Welcome to an introduction to the Six Sigma methodology. Our agenda covers these three areas we will do a relatively quick introduction to the structured methodology that has made six sigma such a success please note that this will be a quick. Introduction and a deeper dive into this methodology will occur through the balance of this course next we will look at the trading needs and project roles for people at organizations using Six Sigma as an improvement program. At the end we will bring together many of the concepts we have covered so far in this course and provide a definition for six sigma one of the competitive advantages of six sigma is the structured methodology that should be followed for all projects this five step methodology includes define the nature of the problem measure existing performance with data and facts analyze the information to determine the root causes of the problem improve the process through elimination of those root causes control the process until improvements are ingrained. We will be going into detail on each step later in this course for now let's just take a quick look at what each to each step involves the first step is to define the nature of the problem. One big deliverable during the defined step is to create a project charter this charter needs to justify the need for a project and make the case for executive support this support includes funding for Project expenses. Voice of the customer is the term used for getting input from customers of the process the spirit is to get feedback via multiple approaches and not just from Ryan not just from random horror stories. Some examples for collecting customer input include surveys focus groups visiting customers calling customers and reviewing comment cards the voice of the customer is a critical step in the defined stage find out who your customers are what they want and what they consider important in terms of quality you want to understand requirements and expectations. Getting the voice of the customer does have one element of confusion some six sigma folks proclaim proclaimed that voice of the customer is part of defining the problem and needs to be done in step one of the methodology. Others feel that reaching out to customers is expensive and should we and should require in approved project charter. I tend to align with the cost aspect and the need for an approved charter I do like to see people develop a voice of the customer plan during the defined step another part of the defined step can be creating a Gantt chart this type of chart will show that will show the expected the ration for each of the five steps along with the estimated beginning and ending dates. For word of caution there is no agreed upon format for a project charter for this course we will use one effective approach but just be aware that other formats exist the important point is the need to use a format that fits the needs of your organization. The second step is to measure existing performance this is the this is the time to collect lots of data. One very simple approach is to track performance using a check sheet you don't need to jump to fancy software or overly sophisticated data collection. This approach works very well for a company where I worked we had complaints from production scheduling that they could not create good schedules because the demand forecast was always changing now I was in charge of the forecasting people and it seemed odd to me that every scheduler was getting dozens of changes every week the forecasting process was not that crazy. We asked the schedulers. To each create a check sheet and list the specific person who was causing them to change their schedule the request was to do this for one week. After that week of data collection we met on Monday to see who was causing all the changes. It turned out that seventy percent of the changes to production schedules were caused by requests from the manufacturing supervisors they had come to know or they had come to notify the schedulers that they had labor shortages machine breakdowns missing materials and all sorts of other issues. And when we got to forecasting we saw that only ten percent of the changes to the schedule were the result of changes to the forecast and those changes were driven by customer orders that everyone wanted to see and respond to. This use of a check sheet open the eyes for a lot of people another simple tool is called a run chart in this case you take the data from a performance measurement and track it over time. Process mapping is another way to collect information about a process you will identify the steps inputs key decision points and outputs you will get a great visual diagram of the process and everyone involved will often learn about crazy things that are done every day just to get the work done for most Six Sigma projects there will be lots of data if you have a project that is not data intense then you should question whether the Six Sigma methodology is the right approach projects with little data may be better suited for some other improvement methodology we will look closer at project selection next week the third step in the Six Sigma methodology is to analyze your information your goal is to identify root causes. One simple tool for data analysis is a histogram. You can see how that the data shows variation in this example we see that the data appears to be a normal distribution it looks like a bell curve. Another simple tool is a scatter diagram this tool shows you if a correlation exists between two measurements in this example we show the score on a final exam and the hours invested per week studying the Course materials as expected people that study more are achieving higher scores on the exam I suspect the same situation will exist for this course. Third tool for data analysis and almost mandatory for a six sigma project is is measuring the standard deviation as mentioned earlier Six Sigma projects tend to be data intensive analyzing the data to determine the standard deviation will be required most of the time the spirit of analyzing data is to help determine the root causes of the issues what is causing the variation. The analy step is about analysis but it is not complete until you get to the root causes the forced out is to improve the process you want to develop and implement solutions that eliminate the root causes of the variation one powerful concept for designing an improved process is to build in the concept called mistake proofing. You want the new process to function in a manner that prevents errors or variation from occurring. For the example on the left there are alignment guide pins to ensure the parts fit together properly for the example on the right eggs are placed and separated in a carton designed to reduce breakage The other benefit is that you can tell the carton has twelve eggs by just looking for a hole you do not have to count each egg the world is full of processes that use mistake proofing this to this technique should be considered at every point where variation could occur designing and improved process might benefit from benchmarking this involves comparing the performance of your products services or processes with other organisations you can benchmark competitors that are better than you you can and should benchmark organizations in other industries that have a similar process. Another part of the improved step is to explore best practices these might be methods used by competitors or at other facilities within your own company you don't need to reinvent the wheel if you have a poor process. Chances are you can benefit by learning about and implementing best practices the good news is that best practices will often have lots of information available without much research investment the bad news is that best practices may have too much information available and you may find wild claims about how easy and painless it is to implement the changes required the goal of the six sigma methodology is to reduce variation and eliminate defects the improved step should put into place a better process that has less variation and will eliminate most of the defects in reaching customers. The fifth and last step is to control the new process you want to insure the improvements are ingrained and become the routine. One way to control a new process is to create an unforced standard operating procedures these procedures need to help people learn and perform the new process they also need to be available for new employees that will be hired down the road I helped improve the inventory tracking process for one of the warehouses that my company we saw a great improvement in the performance measurements and everyone celebrated a job well done about three months later the measurements took a dive and all the gains got wiped out. Of course it caused an uproar and we asked what was going on it turned out that just one person had retired and the new replacement was given very poor training speaking of training a new process will often require education and training for everyone involved I worked with one company that had chaos in their shipping department a new process was developed and everyone was trained on the new procedures. But beyond the people in shipping the training was also given to the vice presidents in the front office they were trained on how to communicate with the warehouse manager and told they could no longer go running out to the shipping area and demanding everyone to stop one thing and do something else another tool used to control a process is called statistical process control this is a best practice that allows you to track performance and take action before finding yourself outside the control limits. If big requirement for the control step is to create a control plan this document identifies the important aspects of a new process how to measure performance and what corrective actions will be taken if measurements indicate all is not well. That wraps up this quick introduction to the five steps of the six sigma methodology as mentioned we will be going into detail on each step later in this course. For our next topic let's look at the training needs and project roles for people at organizations using Six Sigma as an improvement program. A concept that has become a competitive advantage for six sigma is using colored belts to designate different levels of knowledge and expertise training career curriculum and project roles are based upon four types of belts. These these terms are commonly used and generally have consistent meaning in the level of knowledge and expertise for the people who wear these belts. For high quality education you should see these types of programs yellow belts will involve a forty eight hour overview with very limited math green belts will be six to ten days with a possible project or a case study. There is some use of statistics with a focus on variation in data analysis black belts take fifteen to twenty days there is a lot of statistics and you must do a project that delivers significant benefits for your organization. And finally a master black belt takes an additional ten days here the knowledge of statistics gets very intense there is also an emphasis on the aspects of Six Sigma supporting the strategic objectives of an organization after training people with the belts will be active on Six Sigma projects yellow belts will be project team members and shop and subject matter experts green belts will be project team members subject matter experts and project managers black belts will be project managers instructors and six sigma support experts green belts will often get advice from black belts and learn about additional tools that can help with a specific project. Master black belts will be the six sigma program manager help with developing the organization strategy and be the instructors for internal courses. Besides the belts another designation in the Six Sigma world is champion these are the executives responsible for providing leadership resources and coaching during the Six Sigma project's champions must accurately select and approve projects and make sure the proposed solutions are right for the organization. A word of caution there is no agreed upon requirements for each six sigma Bell I've seen Greenbelt classes range from twelve dollars to eight thousand four hundred dollars having a green belt or black belt on your resume is still very impressive and will get you more interviews but you will need to talk about your training and experience and prove that you got value for your investment that includes or look at the training and roles you need for a successful Six Sigma program as we consider a definition for six sigma Let's review four key aspects that we have covered so far in this course. In terms of quality we have discussed the need to focus on meeting requirements or expectations relative to similar things. In terms of variation we have observed that everything varies reducing variation is the key to improvement and lacking understanding means no improvement. We have also learned that the goal of Six Sigma is to have less than three point four defects per million opportunities to have a defect and finally we have explored how the five step structured methodology of Six Sigma is a competitive advantage over other improvement programs. So let's pull it all together the focus is on improving quality by reducing variation. The goal is less than three point four defects per million opportunities by using the five step structured approach called D M A I C. or to make. We can now write out our definition Six Sigma is. A structured methodology for improving the quality of products services and processes by reducing variation with the goal of less than three point four defects per million opportunities to have a defect. The three key aspects for six sigma are the concept of defects per opportunity with defect being anything that annoys a stakeholder and opportunity in any chance to be annoying. And one more word of caution there is no agreed upon definition for six sigma there are many other definitions as six sigma is ironically highly variable in application. You can even find six sigma definitions that ignore any reference to the statistical perspective perspective that has made the program so successful we have covered these three areas a relatively quick introduction to the structured methodology that has made six sigma such a success the training needs and project roles for people at organizations using Six Sigma as an improvement program and we ended with a definition for six sigma.

Types of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0v-ke1lz5k

[Music] 00:03 in this short video I'm going to 00:05 introduce different types of key 00:07 performance indicators for the first 00:09 four types we will use a framework 00:11 called the logic model the logic model 00:14 is a framework that is helpful for 00:16 differentiating what we produce from 00:18 what we can only influence it is also 00:22 helpful for separating between elet's 00:25 that are more operational versus those 00:27 that are more strategic in nature for 00:31 every key process we spend resources 00:33 like time money raw materials and other 00:36 inputs then every process as measures 00:40 that can be tied to that particular 00:41 process the outputs of my process are 00:46 what we produce ultimately though I want 00:50 to create an impact of my work outcomes 00:53 capture that impact let's look at some 00:58 examples of these types of measurements 01:00 in real life if I'm a coffee maker my 01:05 input measurements might focus on the 01:08 coffee the water or my time invested my 01:12 process measures could have anything to 01:14 do with the process of making coffee 01:16 from the efficiency to the procedural 01:18 consistency the outputs of my process 01:22 would be the coffee itself I can have a 01:25 variety of measures around the quality 01:27 of my coffee output finally my outcome 01:31 measures will be related to things I can 01:33 only influence such as if my audience 01:36 enjoys or buys the coffee there is 01:39 certainly more value in measuring impact 01:42 and there is operations if my customers 01:44 enjoy the coffee I'm doing something 01:46 right but you really do need a mix of 01:49 both 01:49 to truly understand for 01:52 to fully understand all of the elements 01:54 of strategy execution I can then add a 01:57 few other broad categories of measures 01:59 to my story project measures monitor the 02:03 progress of our improvement initiatives 02:04 and projects who can be designed to 02:06 improve operations or strategic impact 02:09 these track things like scope resources 02:12 deliverables a project risk in my coffee 02:16 example I might have a branding campaign 02:18 to sell my coffee employee measures tell 02:22 us if employees are performing well or 02:24 have the right skills and capabilities 02:27 needed I might measure my employees of 02:30 skills and making coffee for instance 02:34 finally risk measures tell us if there 02:36 is an important change in a risk factor 02:39 that could have a significant impact on 02:41 our organization for example I might 02:45 have a risk indicator that tells me if 02:47 global coffee bean availability becomes 02:49 a problem the information that these 02:53 different types of measures provide can 02:55 be used to inform decision making using 02:57 a family of measures like this can 02:59 broadly inform your entire strategy to 03:05 learn more about key performance 03:06 indicator development and implementation 03:08 please look into one of our KPI training 03:11 or certification programs or visit KPI 03:14 org

10 Easy Ways to Evaluate an Employee's Performance https://articles.bplans.com/how-to-effectively-evaluate-an-employees-performance/

1. Level of execution "At the end of the day, nothing is more important than execution." CLICK TO TWEET At the end of the day, nothing is more important than execution. Once you've committed to doing something, do you get it done on time and at a high level? That's what people on the "A Team" do, and a startup needs A players! There is always a way to prioritize your tasks, be creative, and execute like crazy until you get it done. People who love what they do also tend to execute well. - Mitch Gordon, Go Overseas 2. Quality of work "Our most important data point is the quality of work that our employees create." CLICK TO TWEET In the world of web and hosting, our most important data point is the quality of work that our employees create. This is measured through regular review of our client deliverables, their role in client efforts, stability of the production changes/platform, best practices, and feedback from the client. - Michael Spinosa, Unleashed Technologies See Also: 15 Surprising Perks Employees Love 3. Level of creativity "Creativity is one of the most important points in evaluating employee performance." CLICK TO TWEET Creativity is one of the most important points in evaluating employee performance. How often did the employee question basic assumptions about a problem and come up with a new solution? Did they think outside of the box and successfully take risks on their own? By keeping track of the incidents of creative, well-informed risk-taking, we can identify and reward high performers in a meaningful way. - Dave Nevogt, Hubstaff.com 4. Amount of consistent improvement "The desire and effort to become better is the most rewardable quality in my eyes." CLICK TO TWEET Consistent improvement across the board is the most important factor in performance evaluation for me at Marbaloo Marketing. No employee has the capacity to be truly excellent at every evaluation point on our quarterly review form; however, every employee has the opportunity to improve each day, month, quarter, and year. The desire and effort to become better is the most rewardable quality in my eyes. - Faithe Parker, Marbaloo Marketing 5. Customer and peer feedback "An employee with good customer feedback, even one who is not making sales, can improve." CLICK TO TWEET An employee with good customer feedback, even one who is not making sales, can improve. One who has negative feedback will most likely go down in sales over time. Remember that the customer can also be any internal peer who works with, for, or alongside this employee. - Kevin Henrikson, Acompli (now Outlook iOS/Android @ Microsoft) See Also: The 5 Types of Employees You'll Find on Your Startup Journey 6. Sales revenue generated "The revenue that each employee brings in on a monthly basis reflects overall performance." CLICK TO TWEET The revenue that each employee brings in on a monthly basis reflects on that individual's overall performance. The majority of our company is made up of sales representatives, and they are measured by the total number of venues they sign up to be listed on our site, which translates into how much revenue is made from those venues. - Jayna Cooke, EVENTup 7. Responsiveness to feedback "My ideal worker would take feedback and really think critically." CLICK TO TWEET If an employee is doing something incorrectly, I don't want to hear excuses or justifications. However, I also don't want my staff member to blindly and soullessly adjust to my comments. My ideal worker would take feedback and really think critically, such that he understands why he is being asked to change. Or he has a two-way conversation with me about what is working and what is not. - Firas Kittaneh, AstraBeds 8. Ability to take ownership "An employee who takes ownership of tasks and can figure out how to get things done is an asset." CLICK TO TWEET An employee who takes ownership of assigned tasks and can figure out how to get things done is a great asset. This is very important for early stage companies, as people who take ownership can help you move a lot faster as they can overcome challenges and remove roadblocks. - Randy Rayess, VenturePact See Also: Boost Your Productivity with 10 Time Management Tips 9. Percentage of tasks completed on time "When evaluating the employee's performance, check their rate of completion." CLICK TO TWEET Each team member must maintain an up-to-date task list that they can use to monitor their deliverables and measure their progress. When evaluating the employee's performance, check their rate of completion and evaluate the quality of their tasks to ensure they are working on things that are in line with the growth of the company. - Rahim Charania, American Fueling Systems 10. Being on time and on budget "We track every project and deliverable and determine whether it is on time and on budget." CLICK TO TWEET We go by delivering on time/on budget. So we track every project and deliverable and determine whether it is on time and on budget. We consider the person responsible time as part of the budget. As long as it's both, we are good. When it's not, we discuss.

What is Six Sigma? One of the leading organizational improvement programs. https://transformanceadvisors.com/portfolio/what-is-six-sigma/

A Powerful Program Six Sigma has earned a tremendous reputation as one of the leading organizational improvement programs. It has also remained a mystery to many. A crisp definition is elusive and it seems you need to know the secret handshake in order to understand what people are talking about. But, make no mistake, six sigma is a complete program with a powerful methodology. This methodology leverages strong statistical analysis and builds upon programs such as total quality management, statistical process control, and quality function deployment. Emerging in the 1980s at Motorola, six sigma exploded in the 1990s with great success at General Electric, Allied Signal, and Honeywell. These early adopters become the legends of six sigma and saved billions of dollars in the process. For this article, I'll stick to standard six sigma. I won't muddy the waters with lean six sigma, lean sigma, constraint sigma, or some other derivative. History Lesson The beginnings of six sigma can be traced back to the early pioneers in the quality movement. These pioneers include the legendary names Shewhart, Deming, Juran, Ishikawa, Taguchi, and Crosby: Walter Shewhart developed statistical process control (SPC) and the plan, do, check, act (PDCA) process W Edwards Deming advanced a complete philosophy of quality management and the 14 points of quality Joseph M Juran evangelized the use of quality circles and was the first to apply the Pareto principle to quality Kaoru Ishikawa popularized the 7 basic tools of quality and developed the Cause and Effect Diagram - also called the Ishikawa Diagram Genichi Taguchi developed a methodology that emphasized "designing in quality" to reduce variation in manufacturing Philip B Crosby promoted the concept that "quality is free" and the need to establish a goal of "zero defects" Today's Champions Contemporary trailblazers of the six sigma phenomena include names Smith, Harry, Bossidy, Galvin, Welsh, and Walsh: Bill Smith is regarded as the "Father of Six Sigma" for developing a standard problem solving method that reduced defects at Motorola Michael Harry created a training curriculum at Motorola at the concept of six sigma roles defined as "belts" similar to the martial arts Larry Bossidy, as CEO for Allied Signal, brought rigor to the project selection process and defined a role for executives called "Champion" Bob Galvin led the way for executive engagement by launching the "Six Sigma Quality Program" at Motorola and establishing the goal tied to everyone's performance assessment Jack Welch, as CEO for General Electric, promoted six sigma by creating training centers and helping deliver over $12 billion in savings - making six sigma world famous and the "rock star" of improvement programs Jodi Walsh energized process improvement for Lexmark International by creating an effective problem solving program with coaches, problem solvers, and engaged employee teams. Quality is not an act, it is a habit. - Aristotle What Does Six Sigma Mean? To understand six sigma, you need to start with the meaning of the words. Six is easy. but more to come on that later. Sigma is the 18th letter of the Greek alphabet and is used by statisticians to designate the term "standard deviation". Calculating the standard deviation is a way to identify the amount of variation in a product, service, or process. For example, you could weigh 1,000 candy bars. The average weight could be 1 ounce, but most will be plus or minus some small amount. If there is a large amount of variation, the standard deviation will be high. Conversely, if everything is working well, there will be a small amount of variation and the standard deviation will be low. Statisticians have figured out the math and I won't go into the details here. What they have proven is that, for a normal distribution, the average plus or minus six standard deviations will be the actual measurement for 99.99966% of the total measurements. The goal is to determine stakeholder expectations for quality and then implement processes which meet those expectations 99.99966% of the time. That's what we mean by six sigma levels of quality. Caution: the math is more complex and beyond the goal of this article. But, we do need to explore one more aspect wrapped around the math. Quality is the result of a carefully constructed cultural environment. - Philip Crosby Defects Per Opportunity We just mentioned the need to determine stakeholder expectations. The specific requirement is to understand how much variation is acceptable. Going back to our candy bar, let's say we collect feedback from consumers, retailers, cost accounting, and the Food and Drug Administration. Synthesizing the feedback, we determine our candy bars need to be plus or minus 0.05 ounce, or can range from 0.95 to 1.05 ounce. We have our quality measure and now need to establish processes which can deliver! Wrong. You are not done! In six sigma lingo, a defect is anything which annoys a customer and an opportunity is any chance to be annoying. There are many other attributes, besides weight, which reflect an opportunity to annoy a stakeholder. Think about price, delivery, availability, packaging, sustainable practices, and don't forget about taste. Of course, there can be thousands of opportunities for many products, services, and processes. Six sigma uses tools such as "critical to quality" to narrow the focus to what needs to be included. Quality means doing it right when no one is looking. - Henry Ford Bring Home The Math Back to that 99.99966% we covered earlier. If 99.99966% are good, then 0.00034% are bad - the defects. 0.00034% is the same as saying 3.4 per million. Bringing home the math - the goal of six sigma is to reduce variation to the point where you have less than 3.4 defects per million opportunities to have a defect. Knowing the prior sentence makes you more knowledgeable about six sigma than most of the people you will meet at any holiday party! And knowing that sentence, means you know the first competitive advantage six sigma has over other improvement programs. Uncontrolled variation is the enemy of quality. - W Edwards Deming Competitive Advantage 1 - An Achievable Goal While the statistics can cause confusion, I suspect the ability to leverage hard data about a product, service, or process is how six sigma captured the support of executives at the early adopters. The fanatics for other improvement programs tend to proclaim unattainable goals such as zero defects, zero inventory, 110% customer delight, or organizational perfection. These over-the-top pipe dreams have never been able to rally an organization or get serious support from executives with the power to fund an improvement program. While seeking six sigma quality is an extremely challenging goal, the math makes it seem possible. You can imagine an executive saying "I understand you want to achieve 3.4 defects per million opportunities. How do you plan to achieve it?" Competitive Advantage 2 - Structured Methodology Having an achievable mathematical goal is just one benefit of six sigma. The second competitive advantage of the six sigma program is a structured methodology. It comes as a 5 step process: Define Measure Analyze Improve Control The trailblazers of six sigma designed these steps to support any level of complexity. The brilliance is how you always follow the same 5 steps. You simply grab different tools from the six sigma toolbox. A project with massive amounts of data will leverage strong statistical analysis. A project with less data may use tools as simple as a check sheet and a scatter diagram. Learning about the tools and where to use them is why six sigma training courses are so extensive and intense. The challenge is figuring out who to train and what tools to train them on. This training challenge brings us to our third and final competitive advantage of the six sigma program. Competitive Advantage 3 - Six Sigma Belts Known as "belts", six sigma training programs are classified by the level of training and the roles people will perform on project teams. These belts and the level of training are: Yellow Belts receive about 4 to 8 hours of training; everyone in an organization should get this amount of training which is not much more than you are reading in this article. Green Belts receive about 6 to 10 days of training; heavy on the 5 step DMAIC methodology and the most common problem solving tools Black Belts receive about 15 to 20 days of training; all the Green Belt plus a much deeper dive into statistical analysis and project management skills Master Black Belts take an additional 10 days beyond Black Belt training; intense statistical tools and program leadership competencies Champions take about 2 days of training focused on applying six sigma to business processes and deploying projects across an organization A caution: there is no official curriculum of training requirements for each belt - it's buyer beware when searching for training. In terms of project roles: Yellow Belts will serve as subject matter experts and assist in other project support roles Green Belts will manage projects, collect data, analyze data, design improvements, implement improved processes, and monitor new processes Black Belts will lead major projects, ensure rigorous data analysis, coach teams in designing robust solutions, guide implementation of improved process, and monitor new processes until they are ingrained Master Black Belts will provide expert advice on overall program management and train new Black Belts Champions will be the executive sponsors for projects ensuring the right projects are funded and solutions provide benefits to the organization A caution: there is no official alignment of belts and project roles - each organization should design and staff projects to meet their needs. Common sense tells you not to staff a "six sigma" project with people who have zero training and are filled with fear when it comes to statistical analysis. Summary Six sigma has become one of the best improvement programs of all time and can lay claim to three competitive advantages: A specific goal to reduce variation to the point where you have less than 3.4 defects per million opportunities to have a defect A structured 5 step methodology which can flex and use different problem solving tools to meet the challenges of projects with different levels of complexity A comprehensive approach to training and project team roles using classifications referred to as "belts" One potential weakness of six sigma is the lack of a generally accepted definition. It's ironic to see how much variation exists when you search for the definition of a program focused on reducing variation!

10 Key Tips for Effective Employee Performance Reviews https://www.thebalancecareers.com/effective-performance-review-tips-1918842

You Can Make the Exchange Successful to Help Employees Develop Skills Are you interested in tips about how to make performance reviews successful in your organization? While performance review methods and approaches differ from organization to organization, universal principles about how to talk with an employee about his or her performance exist. Whether it's a performance review, a salary adjustment meeting, or the implementation of a performance improvement plan (PIP), these tips will help you more confidently lead the meeting. These tips are applicable in your daily conversations with employees. They are also critical in your periodic, formal meetings with employees to discuss job goals and performance. These ten tips will help you make performance reviews positive and motivational. They will improve—not deflate—your ability to interact with your reporting employees. Performance Review Tips The employee should never hear about positive performance or performance in need of improvement for the first time at your formal performance discussion meeting unless it is new information or a thoughtful insight. Effective managers discuss both positive performance and areas for improvement regularly, even daily or weekly with reporting employees. Aim to make the contents of the performance review discussion a re-emphasis of critical points. Performance Review Is Recommended on a Regular Basis In the interest of providing regular feedback, performance reviews are not an annual event. Quarterly meetings are recommended with employees. In one mid-sized company, job planning and evaluation occurs twice a year. Career development planning for employees is also scheduled twice a year, so the employee discusses his or her job and career, formally with their manager, at least four times a year. Goal Setting Is an Essential Component No matter the components of your performance review process, the first step is goal setting. It is imperative that the employee knows exactly what is expected of his or her performance. Your periodic discussions about performance need to focus on these significant portions of the employee's job. You need to document this job plan: goals and expectations in a job plan or job expectations format, or in your employer's format. Without a written agreement and a shared picture of the employee's goals, success for the employee is unlikely. Make How You Will Evaluate Performance Clear During preparation and goal setting, you need to make how you will evaluate the employee's performance clear. Describe exactly what you're looking for from the employee and exactly how you will assess their performance. Discuss with the employee his or her role in the evaluation process. If your organization's performance review process includes an ​employee self-evaluation, share the form and talk about what the self-evaluation entails. Sharing Performance Review Format Make sure that you also share the performance review format with the employee, so that he or she is not surprised at the end of the performance review time period. A significant component of this evaluation discussion is to share with the employee how your organization will assess performance. The employee needs to understand that if he or she does what is expected, they will be considered a performing employee. In some organizations that rank employees, this is the equivalent of a three on a five-point scale. An employee must do more than just perform to be considered an outstanding employee. Document Performance Throughout the Year Avoid the horns and halo effect in which everything discussed in the meeting involves positive and negative recent events. Recent events color your judgment of the employee's performance. Instead, you are responsible for documenting positive occurrences such as completed projects, and negative occurrences such as a missed deadline, during the entire period of time that the performance review covers. You need to make these notes throughout the year to assess the employee's performance fairly. In some organizations, these are called critical incident reports. Ask the employee to do the same so that together you develop a comprehensive look at the employee's performance during the time period that your discussion covers. Solicit Feedback Solicit feedback from colleagues who have worked closely with the employee. Sometimes called 360-degree feedback because you are obtaining feedback for the employee from his boss, coworkers, and any reporting staff, you use the feedback to broaden the performance information that you provide for the employee. Start with informal discussions to obtain feedback information. Consider developing a format so that the feedback is easy to digest and share with the manager. If your company uses a form that you fill out in advance of the meeting, give the performance review to the employee in advance of the meeting. This allows the employee to digest the contents before her discussion of the details with you. This simple gesture can remove a lot of the emotion and drama from the performance review meeting. Preparing for a Discussion Prepare for the discussion with the employee. Never go into a performance review without preparation. If you wing it, performance reviews fail. You will miss key opportunities for feedback and improvement, and the employee will not feel encouraged about his successes. The documentation that you maintained during the performance review period serves you well as you prepare for an employee's performance review. Practice Approaches With HR If needed, practice approaches with your Human Resources staff, a colleague, or your manager. Jot notes with the main points of feedback. Include bullet points that clearly illustrate the point you plan to make to the employee. The more you can identify patterns and give examples, the better the employee will understand and be able to act upon the feedback. Meeting With an Employee When you meet with the employee, spend time on the positive aspects of his or her performance. In most cases, the discussion of the positive components of the employee's performance should take up more time than that of the negative components. For your above-average performing employees and your performing employees, positive feedback, and discussion about how the employee can continue to grow her performance should comprise the majority of the discussion. The employee will find this rewarding and motivating. No employee's performance is completely negative—if so, why does the employee still work for your organization? But, don't neglect the areas that need improvement either. Especially for an underperforming employee, speak directly, and don't mince words. If you are not direct, the employee will not understand the seriousness of the performance situation. Use examples from the whole time period covered by the performance review. The Conversation is the Key to a Productive Performance Meeting The spirit in which you approach this conversation will make the difference in whether it is effective. If your intention is genuine, to help the employee improve, and you have a positive relationship with the employee, the conversation is easier and more effective. The employee has to trust that you want to help them to improve their performance. The employee needs to hear you say that you have confidence in their ability to improve. This helps them believe that they have the ability and the support necessary to improve. The conversation is the keyword when you define a performance review meeting. If you are doing all of the talking or the meeting becomes a lecture, the performance review is less effective. The employee will feel yelled at and treated unjustly. This is not how you want employees to feel as they leave their performance reviews. Ask Question to Make the Meeting Motivational You want an employee who is motivated and excited about their ability to continue to grow, develop, and contribute. Aim for performance review meetings in which the employee talks more than half of the time. You can encourage this conversation by asking questions such as these. What do you expect to be the most challenging about your goals for this quarter? What support can the department provide for you that will help you reach these goals? What are your hopes for your achievements at our company this year? How can I be a better manager for you? How often would you like to receive feedback? What kind of schedule can we set up so that you don't feel micromanaged, but I receive the feedback that I need as to your progress on your goals? What would be a helpful agenda for our weekly one-on-one meetings? The Bottom Line If you take these performance review tips to heart and practice these recommendations in your performance review meetings, you will develop a significant tool for your management tool bag. The performance review can enhance your relationship with employees, improve performance for your organization, and enhance employee-manager communication significantly—a boon for customers and work relationships.

OKR Vs MBO: What Is The Difference? https://bernardmarr.com/default.asp?contentID=1460

MBO (which stands for "management by objectives") has been a popular management tool for decades. But there's an alternative approach that's gaining a lot of traction at the moment: OKR (or "objectives and key results"). If you've read anything about OKRs, you might have noticed it has some distinct similarities to MBO. However, as we'll see in this article, there are some clear differences between the two. Defining MBO MBO was formulated by Peter Drucker in his 1954 book The Practice of Management as a way to improve organisational performance. In essence, MBO describes a process of defining specific and clear objectives for employees and is designed to create a culture of working towards common organisational goals. The concept spread widely, and has become the "norm" for many companies. Indeed, if you think of the classic way of managing performance - i.e. a manager agrees objectives with each employee, and then their performance (and compensation) is assessed against these objectives - what you're thinking of is MBO. Digging into OKR Because it's getting a lot of attention at the moment, and has been popularised by tech companies like Google, you might think OKR is a new approach. In fact, OKR has been around for decades. The concept was introduced by Andrew Grove, former CEO of Intel, in the early 1980s and caught the eye of venture capitalist (and early Google investor) John Doerr. Doerr picked up the approach from his time at Intel and took it to Google, who loved it, and OKR spread from there. Like MBO, the OKR approach is about setting strategic goals. However, it goes further than MBO, breaking down strategy and execution into two parts: the objectives (the Os) and the key results (the KRs). Essentially, this means you set a goal and then define how you will achieve it. So what exactly is the difference? It's clear that the MBO and OKR approaches are related - OKR evolved from MBO, essentially cherry-picking some of the best bits of MBO and building on them. And ultimately, both provide a framework for setting and communicating goals, as well as measuring performance. Both move people towards achieving common objectives. That said, there are some clear differences between the two approaches, namely: MBO sets out what you want to achieve, while OKR sets out the what and howThe MBO approach is about defining what it is you're trying to achieve. How an employee or team achieves that goal, and how their performance is measured against that goal is relatively flexible and open. OKR, on the other hand, drills down into much more detail. The key results clearly define what success looks like, and therefore what needs to be done to achieve the goal, and these results translate into quantitative performance measures. MBO is reviewed annually, while OKR is usually quarterlyTraditionally, MBO works on an annual cycle, setting goals for the year ahead, which are then evaluated and revised a year down the line. I say "traditionally" because this annual review cycle isn't so suitable for today's fast-paced world, and many companies are now choosing to review MBOs more regularly. (Indeed, if Peter Drucker was writing his book today, I've no doubt he would specify more regular reviews.) OKR is designed with a shorter cycle in mind, with goals and progress being reviewed at least quarterly, sometimes even monthly. This allows you to better track performance, highlight where things might not be on track, and take appropriate action. MBO is private and siloed, while OKR is public and transparentMBO objectives are set in a confidential discussion between an employee and their line manager, and the objectives remain private. Partly this confidentiality is because MBO is linked to compensation (which we'll get to below). In contrast, OKRs are much more transparent and tend to be created through wider team discussions, with the whole team deciding how to support the bigger-picture company goals. Anyone can see anyone else's OKRs, from the CEO to the shop floor worker. This highlights another key difference between MBO and OKR: the former is a top-down process, with the manager setting goals (that have, in turn, been cascaded down to him or her from the leadership team), while the latter is more of a bottom-up and sideways process. MBO is tied to compensation, while OKR (usually) isn'tPay rise and bonus decisions are heavily influenced by MBO - an individual's annual performance determines their compensation. As I've written about extensively, this can lead to some skewed results, and not necessarily the desired performance improvement.OKR is divorced from compensation - or, at least, that's the idea. Because OKRs tend to be quite aggressive and aspirational (see the next point below), they are not tied to compensation. The idea is to aim high, try new things and push boundaries, not to determine how big Kevin's bonus should be this year. MBO is naturally risk-averse, while OKR is aggressive and aspirational When compensation is linked to objectives, as it is in MBO, the expectation is that people will achieve their objectives in full. Otherwise, it's a reduced bonus for you, Kevin. Therefore, with MBO, people are expected to achieve their objectives, and this means objectives are often "safe". OKR is quite radically different in that it's okay to not achieve all of your objectives. The goals should be aggressive, aspirational and tough (although not impossible) to achieve, so getting only 60% or 70% of the way still represents great performance. This makes perfect sense if you think about it; consistently achieving 100% of your objectives means you're not being challenged. There's a willingness to let people fail (at least, in part) with OKR, and this encourages innovation. In conclusion, while MBO remains a popular way of setting goals and measuring performance, the OKR approach is gaining a lot of traction. And with good reason. Particularly because of its more regular review cycle and aspirational quality (and, let's be honest, its association with Google), I think we'll be hearing a lot more about OKR in the near future.

Six Sigma Meaning video Transcript

Welcome to an exploration into the meaning of six sigma one of the most popular improvement programs in the world. Our agenda covers these three areas we will start with the meaning of the words Six Sigma then we will explore a concept called defects per opportunity at the end we will define the goal of Six Sigma. Let's start with the question about the meaning of the words Six Sigma Six is easy it's just that number that comes after five and before seven later on in this discussion we will see why we use the Number Six Sigma up is the eighteenth letter of the Greek alphabet. That's Let's dig deeper into the meaning of Sigma first it has a Greek symbol the importance is how this symbol is used by mathematicians to designate standard deviation. We covered standard deviation in our discussion on variation. We also learned that standard deviation is defined as a measure that is used to quantify the amount of variation or dispersion of it set of data values. So far we can see that Six Sigma must have something to do with six standard deviations let's keep peeling the onion to learn more we know that US normal distribution of data will give us a bell curve when we create a histogram. For many business processes we typically have a target objective or performance measurement actual results will come in higher or lower than our target for example we might have a target to fill a bottle sixteen ounces of orange juice or we might want the wait time for meeting with a bank teller to be one minute or less or we might have a delivery appointment time at nine AM Here's an example from a home improvement store. You can see that the bottles of washer fluid are not filled with exactly one gallon. The one on the left is probably over filled and the one on the right is probably under field you can imagine customers will keep passing up the under filled bottle and reach for the one with more washer fluid. Eventually the under filled one will get knocked on the floor and spill all over the place in another example think about an auto repair estimate the actual cost for the time and materials could easily come in over or under the initial estimate. Now consider our prior discussion on quality. We need to meet requirements or expectations relative to similar things. The important aspect for quality is that small variation is OK if you are still meeting customer expectations. Putting fifteen point nine ounces of orange juice into a bottle labeled as sixteen ounces might be OK. The expectation from a customer is for sixteen ounces and fifteen point nine might be close enough. There are there are also requirements in terms of government regulations and there might also be requirements from retailers. Over filling a container might seem like a means to take care of consumers retailers and regulators but it will not please the cost the cons and owners of the business the goal the six sigma is to ensure your variation up to six thinner deviations meets requirements and expectations. Going back to our discussion on standard deviation tables we saw that the percentage of measurements increases at a known rate for example plus or minus one standard deviation will cover sixty eight point two percent to sixty eight point two six percent of all measurements plus or minus three standard deviations will be the sum of all six percentages on this chart giving us a value of ninety nine point seven two percent. And going up to six day under deviations we find that ninety nine point nine nine nine six six percent of all measurements will be included let's look at what this means first six sigma means we are meeting expectations ninety nine point nine nine nine six six percent of the time. Thus there are still a few defects. One hundred percent minus the ninety nine point nine nine nine six six means that point zero zero zero three four percent could still be defective Six Sigma is not perfection some items will slip outside what is expected. These point zero zero three four percent of the facts is the same thing as saying three point four per million so in summary Six Sigma means that for one million ninety nine nine hundred ninety nine thousand nine hundred ninety six point six are good and three point four are defective. For most people this talk of standard deviations quality variation and statistics takes time to sink in for me I was totally confused after reading my first book on Six Sigma. This is something that took me time to sort out so don't panic if this seems bizarre things will become clearer as we progress through the course that arc that concludes our look at the meeting of Six Sigma for our next topic we need to investigate this concept called defects per opportunity. To begin a defect is anything that annoys a stakeholder. And an opportunity is any chance to be annoying. Now for most products and services there are numerous opportunities to have a defect not just one thing can go wrong there can be dozens of opportunities. Think about how many opportunities there are to have a defect with a bottle of water the printing label positioning or thickness of the bottle could all be defective there can be issues with the cap and of course what about the taste of the water. Understanding the opportunities to understanding the opportunities to annoy is a key aspect of Six Sigma. Think about what could have know you when buying from a vending machine. Maybe it does not have your flavor of soda. Your favorite candy bar is at zero availability it won't take your dollar it keeps popping back out. You only have a twenty dollar bill and it won't work or it takes your twenty dollar bill and gives you a million quarters in change. You get the wrong change the machine is on the thirtieth floor and you are you are on the fourth floor. And that's just the start so you can see there's a lot of challenges with identifying what could annoy a customer. In my personal experience a company I worked at the vending machines on the even number of floors carry Pepsi products and the vending machines on the odd number for carry Coca-Cola products I'm partial to Pepsi products and I happened to be located on the wrong floor so I always had to go up one flight of stairs or down another yeah it kind of annoying that concludes our look at the concept the concept of defects per opportunity for our next topic what is the goal of Six Sigma we get our goal from an understanding of the meaning of Six Sigma. Plus the concept of defects per opportunity. So we start with seeking less than three point four D. facts per million opportunities to have a defect. That concludes our look at the concept of defects per opportunity. Our agenda included the meaning of the words Six Sigma exploring a concept called defects per opportunity and defining the goal of Six Sigma.

What is the difference between OKRs and MBOs? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wl0exJy4k_E

what's the difference between okay ours 00:02 and management by objectives 00:04 I work as a strategic adviser to 00:10 businesses helping them with their 00:11 performance and their strategy and I 00:13 also work as a non-executive director 00:15 for businesses and one of the 00:17 discussions that often comes up is how 00:19 do we best manage our performance how do 00:22 we align our strategic goals agree the 00:26 goals we need to deliver and then 00:27 monitor and manage the performance and 00:29 okay ours and management by objectives 00:32 are two tools you can use and I just 00:35 want to look at the difference between 00:36 them so management by objectives was 00:39 developed in 1954 by Peter Drucker and 00:43 he wrote a book called the practice of 00:45 management and this was very influential 00:48 and he basically said that organizations 00:51 need to work towards common goals and 00:54 one way to do this is that a manager 00:57 would sit down with the people reporting 00:59 to him or her and define what those 01:02 goals are on an annual basis usually and 01:05 then you would monitor performance and 01:09 then usually link compensation to those 01:12 as well so you would then get the bonus 01:15 payment if you deliver your goals that 01:18 you have said with your manager okay ask 01:21 stand for objectives and key result and 01:25 this is a trendy approach at the moment 01:28 because lots of the Silicon Valley joins 01:29 from Facebook to Google and others have 01:33 used this approach recently to manage 01:37 their performance but the concept is 01:39 actually not new the concept of okay 01:42 ours was developed by Andy Grove who was 01:45 the CEO of Intel in the 1980s and John 01:50 doar was someone that worked for Andy 01:53 Grove at Intel and then John doar left 01:58 to work for a venture capital firm and 02:02 he was one of the early investors into 02:05 Google and he basically took this idea 02:07 that he learned about it Intel and said 02:10 okay how about Google 02:12 using these objectives and key results 02:15 approach might really work for you 02:18 they then adopted this which then meant 02:20 it spread through Silicon Valley as as a 02:22 current best practice so okay ours are 02:26 basically split into two parts 02:28 objectives we define what you want to 02:31 achieve and the key result where you 02:33 define how you will achieve them so on 02:36 the surface they sound very similar what 02:39 I want to do now is to look at the 02:40 difference between them to highlight why 02:42 they're not the same the first 02:45 difference is that they're defining 02:47 different things management by 02:49 objectives define what you want to 02:52 achieve while okay a score bit further 02:55 they define what you want to achieve and 02:57 how you're going to achieve it so that's 03:00 the first difference the second 03:03 difference is how often you repeat this 03:08 process so management by objectives is 03:10 usually done annually on these annual 03:13 goal-setting cycles 03:15 where's objectives and key results are 03:19 set at least quarterly so they are much 03:22 more frequently the third difference is 03:26 how transparent this process is so the 03:30 management by objectives are usually set 03:33 privately between you and your boss and 03:36 they usually set in silos well ok ours 03:41 are transparent they're set between you 03:46 and your boss but then they're made 03:48 public so anyone can see anyone elses ok 03:52 ours so this is a complete transparent 03:54 process where anyone in you in the 03:57 organization right from the CEO to 03:58 anyone else understand can understand 04:02 what the objectives of someone else are 04:05 the fourth main difference is the link 04:10 to compensation 04:11 so Peter Drucker suggested that you link 04:14 your mentioned by objectives to 04:17 compensation so when you deliver your 04:19 goal as you get a bonus payment for 04:21 example John Doe in his okay I approach 04:26 suggest that linking okay asked to 04:30 compensation is dangerous because it 04:32 drives the wrong behaviors what you the 04:36 whole idea is that you make it 04:38 transparent you set ambitious goals and 04:41 if you link it to compensation is the 04:44 tendencies that you create a culture 04:45 where people aim for this the minimum 04:49 they can deliver instead of the most 04:52 ambitious goal that they might be able 04:54 to achieve which links me to the the 04:58 fifth main difference that management by 05:01 objectives is actually quite risk-averse 05:04 where you don't really set these 05:07 ambitious goals we're not really 05:10 aspiring to achieve the most it's more 05:13 about a negotiation process we say this 05:16 is the minimum I'm happy to commit to 05:19 whereas what you want to do with the 05:21 okay our approach is you want to create 05:24 an organizational culture where people 05:26 set ambitious goals and where it's okay 05:29 not to deliver all of them but it's much 05:31 better to have a really aspirational 05:33 goal and to deliver 80% of those then to 05:36 set a really low goal and deliver all of 05:37 them so this is a cultural different 05:41 cultural difference where you basically 05:42 with okay ask you're trying to create 05:45 the safe space where people are 05:48 comfortable to set really ambitious 05:50 goals make them really transparent that 05:52 if any anyone in the organization can 05:54 see them which then creates this culture 05:57 of driving towards amazing performance 06:00 results so hopefully that highlights 06:03 what the differences are head to my 06:06 channel if you want to learn more but ok 06:08 arts or management by objectives or good 06:10 performance management I've done a few 06:12 videos that go into detail on how you 06:14 usually develop good ok ours 06:17 how companies like Google how actually 06:19 putting this into practice