With the current economic strain companies have cut back on the essentials in order to survive.  In many cases training needs have been cut or reduced, and managers are taking an alternative look at initiatives such as Lean and Six Sigma designed to drive improvement and yield significant results.

Achieving operational excellence is about being able to integrate the people, systems and actions to achieve desired performance.  With that said operational excellence means:

• Having a strategy that defines the overall direction
• A performance management systems that provides a guide on internal performance
• Implementing initiatives such as Lean Six sigma to drive performance
• Creating a culture that is agile and can meet the changing needs of the organization
• Upgrading systems to sustain performance

These are very broad areas that often have consultants or specialists in each area.  The result is that most organizations use a piece meal approach to achieving their objectives which do not provide the means to sustain the improvement that they need..

Any initiative that is designed to achieve a certain level of performance must involve the use of a holistic approach and must be customized to meet the needs of each group.  Without which performance is not sustained.

An approach to achieving operational excellence can be found by integrating the concepts of Lean and Six Sigma.  The combined approach –Lean Six Sigma provides a wide range of tools that are able to ensure overall efficiency and effectiveness in group or company performance.  So as this imitative is implemented, managers need to be continually evaluating effectiveness, changing systems so that performance can be sustained and identifying some of the cultural barriers that may hinder progress.

The need to develop and use metrics is fast becoming a vital element in running a non-profit organization.  The challenge is finding and using the right metrics.  The traditional approach is to compile massive data when requested or when needed for a grant submission.

I serve on the board of a non-profit and have tried to  encourage the organization to use metrics to understand things like capacity, planning, budgeting, improving processes, becoming efficient etc.  In a recent board meeting a board member handed me the following quote that had appeared in the Boston Globe.

“Unlike an older generation of donors who often gave charitable gifts out of habit to established institutions, such as museums and universities, a new wave of philanthropists-many of them relatively young and newly wealth- select their charities the way they pick stocks: by combing through facts and data.  Many of these prospective donors are turned off by pitches that try to tug at their heartstrings, instead favoring organizations that strike them as well-run, financially sound, innovative and poised to truly make a difference. ‘I know it’s a little cold, but when I make a decision to support a nonprofit, it’s just like an investment to me’, said Dale Bearden, managing director of Babson Capital Management.  ‘I know they’re all going to help people, so I want to give my money to someone who will help three times as efficiently.’”

“Bottom-line Philanthropy,” by Sacha Pfeiffer
Boston Globe. 4/30/08

What we have discovered is that our organization has a unique culture – one of collaboration, wanting to do good, misunderstanding the value of metrics and an overall fear of metrics.  I know that this is not unique to our non-profit and is probably a pattern shared by similar groups.  The use of metrics is viewed internally as transforming the non-profit into a bureaucratic organization that seems heavy handed and unfeeling.  However, if the focus is on receiving appropriate funding, all non-profits must now be geared towards creating a culture that delivers results; a task that seems difficult and alien to them.

The point of our discussion at our board meeting was to illustrate that our need to develop appropriate metrics is being demanded by the philanthropic world.  Our challenge now is get buy-in on the value and use of metrics from individuals internal to our non-profit organization.

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Contrary to the popular expression “What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas”, I will talk about my trip to Las Vegas last week.

“Discover What’s Possible” was a conference held in Las Vegas and sponsored by Actuate, a company providing a whole suite of software products in the Performance Management and Business Intelligence space.  The conference was well worth the effort, exposing participants, partners and thought leaders to new products, additional applications and new ideas.

My major reason for attending was to deliver a presentation on Thought Leadership Day entitled “Six Sigma Applications for Higher Education”.  Although the time spent was short, the conference was rewarding as I had the opportunity to listen to and learn from other leaders and practitioners in the performance management and balanced scorecard space.  Actuate is not only a company committed to providing new product and services, but also focuses on ensuring that the right application is used when appropriate.

Major themes covered on “Thought Leadership Day” focused on:
* Linking  Strategy to Performance Management – how to ensure that activities within the organization are linked to the strategy and ensure that activities performed add value
* Balanced scorecard applications – outlines of how the scorecard can be used to develop strategy maps and deploy measurements throughout the company
* Challenges to non-profit organizations – measures that are used for reporting when there is no bottom line
* The journey of performance excellence – the basic principles of performance management, and the future of the corporation and performance management

The final session on the Thought Leadership Day was entitled “Shatter Performance Management” a panel discussion of leaders who had made presentations during the day.  This also was an exciting session as conference participants heard from those of us on the panel regarding our thoughts and experience in the performance management field.  One thought leader on the panel was focused on data mining, a technique that uses current data to understand performance and can form the basis for a balanced scorecard or a system of metrics.

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This seminar was designed for individuals who have had some statistical knowledge but require a refresher program before moving on to more advanced statistical concepts. Participants will learn the value of statistics in decision making to manufacturing and non-manufacturing areas.

• Basic Statistics On-Line Webinar

Lesson Attendees will learn:

• To use basic statistical concepts to summarize data
• Perform simple calculations that  pertain to measures of spread and measures of central tendency
• Review and discuss some concepts of probability
• Apply concepts of the normal distribution to decision making

 

 Basic Statistics [84:48m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Advanced Product Quality Planning (APQP) is a methodology that encompasses all the activities and processes needed between customer concept and product launch.  The business areas affected are technical sales, product engineering, reliability engineering, process engineering, quality and operations.   This seminar will outline the basic tools used for APQP and how they are connected to ensure customer satisfaction.

Lesson Attendees will learn:

• Describe the role of APQP in product development
• Discuss the function of the primary tools used in APQP
• Describe how the tools are connected to ensure an effective launch process
• Identify checklists and other tools that are used to improve the product development process

The Podcast is a replay of the July 17, 2008 on-line training presented by Norma Simons

 

 APQP Training: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download