Leadership Articles

Business » Leadership | By michelle simms @ Monday, 1st December 2008 @ 10:03 AM

Conflict is part of life, and it is perhaps close to inevitable in the workplace. As you and your coworkers work toward developing new ideas and improving and marketing your products and services, clashes in personality, philosophy, and intent are not just expected, but almost inescapable. The good news is that conflict does not have to be a negative experience - if dealt with correctly, conflict can be a springboard for sharing ideas, developing strategies, and working together successf... more...

Business » Leadership | By Donald Mitchell @ Tuesday, 25th November 2008 @ 9:34 PM

In explaining success, some people are quick to assert that \"It\'s all in who you know.\" But how many act on that observation to get to know more people? Relatively few, I believe. More often, this statement serves merely as an excuse to explain why the speaker hasn\'t accomplished more. But should you seek out people just for what they can do for you in making you more successful? It doesn\'t sound like a commendable idea, does it? What should you ... more...

Business » Leadership | By Paul Johnson @ Tuesday, 25th November 2008 @ 3:06 PM

What do we really know about our leaders? We yearn to know enough to be confident in following them and, ideally, to emulate them. Perhaps you can name the leaders in the forefront of your industry or profession. Maybe you believe you could be more successful if you could be more like them, so you study their works, buy their books and perhaps even seek jobs in their organizations. Even when you\'ve studied all you can about them and believe you understand the keys to their success, you don... more...

Business » Leadership | By Jacquelyn Donner @ Saturday, 22nd November 2008 @ 2:09 AM

The Six Sigma methodology focuses on the drastic reduction of process variation and product defects. The result is processes which are very robust, which make very efficient use of resources and assets, and which result in highly efficient organizations. Achievement of Six Sigma process capability will result in processes which yield less than 3.4 defects per million opportunities. Ultimate results will include reductions in Cost of Poor Quality, increases in market share, reduced cycle times an... more...

Business » Leadership | By Jacquelyn Donner @ Wednesday, 19th November 2008 @ 9:04 AM

Organizations who have adopted Six Sigma have learned that if they do not design for Six Sigma, they will not achieve it. DFSS is a rigorous approach to designing products and services and their enabling processes to ensure that they meet customer expectations. As the organization evolves in Six Sigma, we will learn more about the importance of DFSS, and apply the tools more frequently. The classical or traditional approach to product/service and process design generally involves several ... more...

Business » Leadership | By Jacquelyn Donner @ Tuesday, 18th November 2008 @ 2:25 PM

How an organization structures the people working on Six Sigma is a function of two things: first, by how the Group decides to focus its deployment (e.g., geographical considerations, degree of design, and engineering focus); second, by how the Group wants to integrate Six Sigma into its organization versus how it intends to ensure Six Sigma resources don\'t get lost in concerns of \"business as usual\" and fighting the latest fire. Best practices dictate that the senior man... more...

Business » Leadership | By Jacquelyn Donner @ Tuesday, 18th November 2008 @ 2:23 PM

Design for Six Sigma employs a set of tools and methodologies in the design of new products or services and their supporting processes. This is to ensure that the outcome remains as simple and cost effective as possible while serving the needs of the customer. Products and services are defined such that they can be produced at a Six Sigma level utilizing processes that are operating at their optimum technological capability level of entitlement. Empowered cross functional teams are the mo... more...

Business » Leadership | By Jacquelyn Donner @ Tuesday, 18th November 2008 @ 2:20 PM

Process mapping is an essential tool in helping us understand the activities and sequence of steps involved in any process. It also helps to identify areas where data collection should take place. It is commonly used at the early stages of project definition or project development to visualize the activities involved in a process. By completing the process map prior to performing process baselining and calculating the lean value, we can focus on processes that we fully understand. By comp... more...

Business » Leadership | By Jacquelyn Donner @ Tuesday, 18th November 2008 @ 2:18 PM

A fundamental element of Six Sigma philosophy is that unless we are prepared to invest in the measurement of quality, we cannot improve quality, if we don\'t measure quality, and don\'t follow-up on these measures, then we are sending a signal that we really don\'t value quality. This, in turn, affects day-to-day behaviors and activities of all employees. Generating new measures requires new questions. If we continue to ask the same questions, we will continue to ask for an... more...

Business » Leadership | By Jacquelyn Donner @ Tuesday, 18th November 2008 @ 1:39 PM

Defect Opportunities can exist at any level of a hierarchy (complex, system, subsystem, component, and element levels). The hierarchy level concept can be applied to every business situation. For example, there are many levels to a policy, service, project, assembly, design, etc. For each of these levels, we count the number of opportunities and defects for each CT. This information will eventually be used to calculate separate Sigma metrics in order to obtain true estimates of process capabilit... more...