Some Basics About Six Sigma

 Every  businesses looks for STANDARDS in place.All your customers,stakeholders and Management expect  high standards and they are needed to achieve true excellence and create  your competitive edge in all aspects of business.

Six Sigma, , is a methodology to reduce business process cost and waste, improve quality and delivery performance, and assure that client requirements are better understood and met by management and staff. Irrespective of  organization's function quality management is criticalfor the management of qualityand the quality of management both. Six Sigma gives a more accurate statistical process performance metric than any other known system.

Incorporating Six Sigma the desire to reach perfaction and the  evolution in that direction could be  tracked and demonstrated. This could give an understanding that Quality Improvement is  an ongoing process and should not be thought of as a Static Goal.

To achieve Six Sigma Level or to come close to it it is essential to have Six Sigma Training  to all levels of personnel involved in improving business processes.Role of  higher or senior  management becomes very prominant.

Also the correlation between Six Sigma and ISO 9000 standards has been very clear .As without QMS or Quality Management System being in place and process of continual improvement being established Six Sigma Level could be only a distant dream.

To increase understanding of what Six Sigma is it , Executive Level Management Training is essential as this serves to understand how high-level organizations that have properly instituted Six Sigma ,have achieved remarkable and demonstrable results. All the  results are discussed and analyzed in the context of Six Sigma "best practices" implementation.

Today criteria is not only customer's satisfaction but to  exceed the custom's expectations. Six Sigma Training teaches a process that allows your organization  to maximize quality for your operation by utilizing a finely honed and quantifiable method, resulting in true Quality Improvement that too measurable.

Simply put, if we want to know what Six Sigma is all about we can say :Six Sigma is about generating and analyzing statistics; statistics that affect your profitability, and the products or services provided to your clients. With propability in Six Sigma representing the occurrence of 3.4 defects in one million opportunities. This ratio is generally considered as optimal, and with the proper investment of human resource time and capital, not only achievable, but essential to creativity, flexibility, success and growth.

We may cover more of Six Sigma details Like different levels of training,such as Green Belt,Black Belt,Master Black belt,Champion in next blog.

The Meaning of Six Sigma

Six sigma has different meanings to different people. Some believe it is all about reducing variation, while others believe it's strictly a quality improvement method. While reducing variation leads to quality improvement when the target is met, there are broader meanings to the term six sigma and “six sigma initiative”.

Many successful six sigma initiatives have reducing variation as one of the tools, but the broader meaning is to improve the business. Six sigma is used to improve the business systems as a whole, often having quality as an underlying edict.

For example, a hospital may use six sigma to improve the occupancy rate, improve bed turnover, reduce emergency room wait time, and reduce administrative check in cycle time. All of these initiatives have a little bit to do with quality, but have a different overall objective.

There are many tools included in the six sigma discipline. To name a few, there is the CT tree (critical to quality, cost, schedule, etc), cause and effect matrix, (FMEA) failure mode and effects analysis, DOE (design of experiments), hypothesis testing, analysis of means and standard deviation, advanced statistical analysis. There are many others within the discipline that a trained black belt will explore and use when necessary.

It is important for six sigma practitioners to understand the overall goals and objectives rather than picking projects that enable the use of six sigma tools. Once the goals and objectives are determined in the Define phase of the DMAIC model (Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control), the six sigma green and black belts will methodically choose the tools necessary to solve the challenges.

Anyone that has been involved in any continuous improvement activity in the business world knows how far most businesses are from perfect. Most business problems do not involve advanced statistical analysis to solve. This fact is one reason many six sigma projects are solved very early. It isn't always a mystery that must be solved, but simple investigation and then execution.

Defining six sigma projects is the most important part of the initiative. Some projects may not really require six sigma tools. The goal is to solve business problems, using any improvement method. Although advanced tools many not be necessary, the DMAIC model works well even for simple projects.

Some black belts prefer to determine if the project is worthy of consideration to be classified a “six sigma project”. Some groups prefer to leave these “easy” projects for others while the black belts use their skills on more complex problems. While this may be fine for some groups, it also has the potential to distance the black belt from the real issues in the organization.

Many books describe the typical six sigma group as including sponsors, champions, master black belts, black belts, and green belts. Their respective roles are defined very clearly. While this may work well for very large corporations, many six sigma black belts are now being employed as a one person change agent. When a six sigma black belt is hired as the only change agent in the organization, rarely would a company wait six months for projects to be completed. Obviously, six sigma has a different meaning for this organization than a conglomerate with 100 black belts.

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Six Sigma Training - Maximize Your Quality Standards

Standards: all businesses have them; high standards are expected by your customers, and should be demanded by management and stakeholders; the highest standards are a necessity to achieve true excellence, and maintain your competitive edge in all aspects of business. Six Sigma, variously defined as a philosophy of continual improvement, a measure of variation or, most commonly, a process performance metric, is a methodology to reduce business process cost and waste, improve quality and delivery performance, and assure that client requirements are better understood and met by management and staff. No matter what an organization's function is, quality management is critical: not just the management of quality, but the quality of management. While a variety of Quality Management processes are available, none give you a more accurate statistical process performance metric than you will be able to generate using the methods provided by Six Sigma Training.

Clients desire perfection, but are knowledgeable enough to know that perfection, just as perpetual motion, is beyond human bounds. They will, therefore, be delighted with an aggressive evolution toward perfection: an asymptotic curve ever approaching that goal, in essence. With Six Sigma, that evolution can be tracked and demonstrated. Quality Improvement is not a static goal, but an ongoing process. Business success requires not simply meeting, but exceeding, the custom's expectations. Six Sigma Training teaches a process that allows you and your staff to maximize quality for your operation by utilizing a finely honed and quantifiable method, resulting in true Quality Improvement.

Savvy companies are familiar with the term "Six Sigma", but what does it really mean, and how can Six Sigma Training benefit your enterprise? Simply put, Six Sigma is about generating and analyzing statistics; statistics that affect your profitability, and the products or services provided to your clients. Without delving too heavily into the mathematics, Six Sigma represents the occurrence of 3.4 defects in one million opportunities. This ratio is generally considered as optimal, and with the proper investment of human resource time and capital, not only achievable, but essential to creativity, flexibility, success and growth.

In order to understand the importance of Six Sigma Training, a brief history of quality assurance standards is appropriate. Starting, for simplicity, with the First World War, slight variations in ordinance tolerations caused quality failures in weapons factories. Lack of standard calibrations often resulted in serious accidents. Initially, Quality Inspectors were placed to monitor the production process. While helpful, it was clear that there was more to do in the nature of quality. As time passed, Western countries developed Quality Program Requirements in order to try to conform supplier performance to user need. After various iterations, the expansion of quality ideology into industries beyond the military, the institution of the International Organization for Standardization, ("ISO"), and the now famous quality competition from Asia, Japan in particular, ISO 9000, and its offspring were developed.

Granted by Accredited Certification Bodies, after appropriate auditing of quality management, ISO 9001 compliance certificates may be achieved by business organizations. Business visionaries, however, know that, while reaching the high plateaus is essential, in order to both lead and succeed, the pinnacle is the only goal. Utilizing Six Sigma Training to gift your organization, and the personnel who have dedicated their careers to being leaders, with exceptional tools and skills, will allow you, and the clients whose trust makes it all possible, to climb the true path, and plant your flags on the summit.

Six Sigma Training is available to all levels of personnel involved in improving business processes, from anyone who can affect organizational change, to the highest senior management. Lean Enterprise Training is structured to provide an in-depth introduction to Lean Enterprise, (the reduction of waste and streamlining of operations), and demonstrate the correlation between Six Sigma and ISO 9000 standards. Executive Level Management Training serves to increase understanding of what Six Sigma is, and how high-level organizations that have properly instituted Six Sigma have achieved remarkable and demonstrable results. These results are discussed and analyzed in the context of Six Sigma "best practices" implementation.

Moving up the ladder, Six Sigma Champion Workshops focus on techniques and tools used by Sigma Improvement Teams, including the Black Belt Team disciplines applied to a project. Sigma Champions are responsible not only for sponsoring a project, but for determining which specific projects are optimally selected. Six Sigma Green Belt Training concentrates on teaching personnel to support high level, or Black Belt projects. Upon completion of Six Sigma Green Belt Training, a practitioner has the opportunity to participate in Six Sigma Black Belt Training, which inculcates the "DMAIC," (Define; Measure; Analyze; Improve and Control) model. Individuals are trained from project definition through process control. Participants achieve Six Sigma Black Belt certification by completing the three or four week course with 100% attendance; passing all weekly exams; receiving 8 hours of instructor coaching; successfully completing a project within four months of training completion; successfully defending that project, and passing a written final examination.

In sum, Six Sigma Training teaches your personnel to improve business processes, optimize performance, eliminate operational waste, and maximize profits, while saving your organization hundreds of thousands, and often millions of dollars,. It is the only system that truly statistically quantifies these results in a measurable and meaningful way.

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The fear of the consequences of the change in the

One of the main reasons for the resistance to change is the fear of the consequences. We are talking about the fear of the unknown? Maybe it also, but it is a little deeper than just fear of the unknown. What are we so afraid of? Well it's mainly due to the fear of the consequences of errors.

"You can do this, and someone else has to take advantage of me if I make myself vulnerable, and the error in the East?" People are scared of colleagues and afraid of vultures middle management. They fear aggressive career-makers who want to rocket to the top of the company, leaving the bodies of their colleagues in their wake. In fact, many people seek power. Our nature is just as in the pecking order of the hen house, the alpha male and a group of gorillas hierarchy. And how can we get power? How to move to a higher level in the hierarchy? By being stronger or smarter than everyone else. Prey on the weakness of others.

Let's look at a few examples:

We see them everywhere on Saturday mornings. The smallest of the family become fanatically coaching fathers new Lionel Messi. They stand on the sidelines yelling and screaming their little "beginner" or "Star" each time, when the pride and joy did not kick the ball hard enough. "Try a little harder, come on, how is it possible?" At the moment the little boy just wants to run and hide. Does he come to just have a little fun playing soccer? Unfortunately, while you will often see a bit of a pair of football boots to hang up, on a permanent basis.
Twenty years later, the little boy ends up in the workforce. Where he was raised, had a low tolerance for errors. And then he suddenly has to be open to "cure". She has a smile and, in practice, to cheer, when someone comes to tell him he has made a mistake. He is supposed to find it fantastic that all errors are logged and that they are even statistically analyzed. Not so easy ...
Another example that fits in this context is the fact that the bullying. At school, it always seems to be the bullies taunt those children who are somehow different. They focus on the attacks on the children, who somehow, one way or another, are responsible for the bullying; with the help of aggressive behavior of emotional reactions such as crying, etc. Children who indicate that it appears to be the weaker party, which are often misunderstood. A child who is completely indifferent and ignore a bully is a bully in the soon-to-be-alone and goes in search of another victim, who react to, you will be able to continue to their power play.
"Boys don't cry." Three little words, which have ensured that it would take generations before the men would dare to finally show their emotions in public.

Three examples of a common thread running through them. Each example is the desire for power and hierarchy. Strong versus weak.

In the first example, the father wants to harden his son and arm him lurking by setting very high expectations of him and proclaiming him, so to speak, the best against the enemy. "You have to be at your best and can't make mistakes." The founding fathers, that ROAR the loudest often do so because they associate with their son failures with itself. They see them as their own. In the second example, the bully is anything other than a poke of his weaknesses. He tests to see how he can influence, and when he sees that it works, he relishes his power.  And, finally, the boys do not cry because it is a sign of weakness. If you make yourself vulnerable, vultures swoop in.

How can we best deal with this fear of abuse of power? And, most importantly, How to remove this fear?

By working with a solid confidence and clear communication , the fears are UNFOUNDED.

The only way to remove someone's fear is to build a solid confidence. We dare to open up and be ourselves for people completely rely on. We dare not reveal ourselves and have less difficulty to recognize and admit mistakes. Here lies one of the most important keys to the improvement of management of State aid procedures. Create an organization where people can trust each other.

As we all know, the management is an important example of this. They show their organization, that they fully support this approach. But it is not enough. Change management, you also need to explain to people what's going on, how it happens and, above all, why it should happen.Keep in mind that this communication must be given from the outset. If we can win the confidence of our citizens, we will never get a second chance. And when trust is lost, it is very difficult to get back.

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Writing Effective Benefits Statements

How to turn features into compelling benefits that matter to customers

One of the most common trap the marketing folks get into when working on technical products is focusing on the features of a product rather than the benefits to the end user. Features are great - we all want to know what is in a product and want to be able to compare it to other products. But at the same time there are many features that, while the benefits may be obvious to the Marketer or Product Manager working on them, may leave potential customers wondering why they matter.

Here's an example. Back when I was the Product Manager for the Human Interface for the MacOS at Apple, the company would routinely release new technologies with each operating system release. Since many of these technologies were very "cool" by technology standards they would get talked about as feature. A few examples include QuickDraw GX and QuickTime.

Now for those of us who are more technical geeks, or for those who followed what Apple was doing we immediately understood what Apple meant when they said "includes the new QuickDraw GX graphics and printing architecture and version 2.0 of QuickTime". But for the other 99.999% of the world, stating some benefits would have answered the age old question of "So why should I care" (and "So why should I upgrade").

When writing effective benefits statements think of the phrase "Which means that you can". What do I mean by this? To give you an idea I'll use the 280 Group as an example (this is the part of the article where we do the shameless self-promotion).

One of the "Features" that we promote is that we provide "Hand Picked Marketing & Product Management Consultants and Contractors". On its own you might say "So What?", but here's the benefit statement.

FEATURE:
"Hand Picked Marketing & Product Management Consultants and Contractors…"

Which means that you can…

BENEFIT
"…save the time and hassle of doing the work yourself to find a qualified consultant, check their references, etc."

Here's another example:

FEATURE:
"Seasoned Professional and Experienced Consultants…"

Which means that you can…

BENEFIT
"…rest assured that you will have a committed and professional resource to see the project all the way through and get excellent results."

The "Which means that you can" phrase helps bring out the real value to your customers. They don't care about technology or features if there isn't an associated benefit to them. This may seem like Marketing 101, but it is amazing how many people neglect this when writing their marketing content.

To wrap up, let's go back to the Apple example. Now if I told you that you should upgrade to the newest version of the MacOS because you'll get QuickTime 2.0, which means that can watch movies on your computer that are twice as big and are much higher quality, would you be a little more prone to want to upgrade?

About the Author:
Brian Lawley is the President of the 280 Group, the Product Marketing & Product Management Experts™. The 280 Group provides consulting, contractors, training and templates to help companies define, launch and market breakthrough new products. For more information about the 280 Group's services and toolkits (Product Roadmap, Product Launch, Beta Program, Developer Program & others) visit http://www.280group.com./No. of Times this article has been viewed : 2392

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What's in a Quality Assurance Plan?

If you've been in business long enough, you've most likely already heard about setting up a quality assurance plan. A lot of businesses, big and small, already have theirs in place. If you don't have one yet, you might want to get started creating one.

The term is already an obvious giveaway to its definition. It implies the company's thrust towards planning to produce and deliver products that are so good and effective that customers will almost always be satisfied. The individuals therefore who are assured are the ones who pay for what you sell.

Assuring customer satisfaction is therefore a relevant concept here. This is why you should also want to know why it is important. When you have a good quality assurance system that promotes satisfaction, you ensure the continued existence of your business. The more satisfied customers are, the more they'll keep coming back to you. That means more income for years to come.

To make sure that you will always be able to churn out good products, you need to make sure that your plans are organized. The first step that you would always have to tackle in system creation is the identification of objectives. These should always be in line with customer needs and wants. You can get ideas of these through actual feedback.

Once you know what you need to concretely accomplish in a quality assurance program, the next step is to define roles and responsibilities. This simply means putting on the table who is in charge of what. All members of your team should be encouraged to ask questions to promote a thorough understanding of what is expected of them and what needs to be done.

The next step in planning is to create a structure or outline for coordination. Companies typically have several teams in charge of various standards and general responsibilities. It is a must for the team in charge of assuring product value to make sure that its system components and actions are in harmony with those of others. Otherwise, some points might contradict and make the accomplishment of objectives difficult.

Quality assurance plan task and schedule definition is the final planning step. This involves outlining what specific tasks need to be done and accomplished within a set time frame. This wraps up the brainstorming component in a comprehensive program and is followed by the phases that cover implementation, checking and action.

A good solid system actually does more than make customers happy. Companies can use their programs to their greater advantage to achieve ISO certification. Getting certified is an optional move for companies but you might want to apply for this to enjoy more benefits. It is generally known that certified companies are regarded even more highly by customers, business partners and other companies because of their having met international standards.

There is no doubt that you only stand to benefit from planning for a quality assurance system. Consistently providing good products or services is the only way you can convince customers that you are worth sticking it out with...

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