I was recently asked to talk about Continuous Improvement on a podcast. One of the questions was what approaches are important and I went into a fairly long explanation of DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control). So, let’s talk about DMAIC and why it is so important to continuous improvement. I remember starting my role at NAVTEQ in 2010 with the objective of building a Lean Six Sigma program for the company. I was put in charge of a small team of process engineers and asked to bring continuous improvement thinking into the company. Cool! This was the opportunity that I had always wanted at Motorola. I had a green field to build a program and a culture from scratch. Unfortunately, and as you might expect I was immediately challenged by the existing culture.
A very influential director stood in my way of everything I wished to accomplish. I quickly outlined a couple objectives for the team and a rough vision to give us direction. I am more of a practitioner than a theorist so I moved from strategy to action. I connected my team members with some of the bigger projects in the organization. I was aware that the company had projects that were stalled and ideas that were shelved. I wanted to demonstrate that a strong problem solving approach was the difference between execution and failure. Our involvement was not met with open arms and great support. It was much the opposite, really. I had executive level support, but that didn’t mean we could easily jump in and build new structure into existing programs, even if they were woefully off track.
The question that was used as a resistance tactic was, “What is your team going to do for us?” My answer was always the same, “We will bring an approach.” The follow up question, also always the same, “What do you mean by approach?” My answer, “We will create a charter for the project and process flow maps. We will make sure there is a clear thread of logic between the solutions the team was to implement and the problems needed to solve. This is how you ensure execution and sustainability. These missing artifacts open you up to the obstacles that prevent success. Then I’d hear, “Oh we have done those things already.” Frustratingly, no one could produce these documents or when they did the detail was severely lacking.
In the end, our team was successful. Very successful. We took on a couple projects that were shelved due to repeated failure and turned them into visible successes. With each win our team built more credibility and took on more difficult projects. Eventually we were tasked with building a Business Operating Model for the entire corporation. It was really cool! It was the catalyst that caused me to launch Chalmers St. Consulting.
I tell this story because a fundamental component of what we do in Continuous Improvement is provide an approach. We are associated with problem solving, sure, but it is how we approach problems that makes us successful. This approach that I referred to often at NAVTEQ, the approach that allowed us to provide value and create success where others have failed, this approach was nothing more than DMAIC. Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control. Five phases that LSS practitioners have been teaching since the 1990s.
Define – What is important?
Measure – What is wrong?
Analyze – What is the root cause?
Improve – What are the ways that we can fix it?
Control – How do we sustain the improvement?
The executive at NAVTEQ that gave the most headache was eventually replaced. The person was well meaning and very intelligent. The issue was that this person was stubborn and focused on answers and having the answer rather than figuring out the right question. In fact, being the person with the answer brought this individual a lot of satisfaction. This is not the DMAIC approach and it is not what I expect when I develop a new Green or Black Belt.
Lean, Six Sigma, Total Quality Management, Agile… the tools may change, but the underlying foundation is an approach that helps us ask better questions. This helps us think deeply about a problem which forces us to focus and be persistent in our approach to problem solving. This does not change. It is incredibly important to successfully deploy new processes, new tools, new organizational structures, and new change. For this reason, I am going to focus my next several newsletters on the phases of DMAIC. What they mean to me and why I think you should take them seriously.