Comment pouvez-vous maintenir l’élan et l’enthousiasme de l’équipe Six Sigma au fil du temps ?

As always goals and objectives help teams drive forward but make sure they reflect where they are in your journey. If starting the 6 Sigma journey as a business think about goals which will ensure that deployment is timely and effective. Think about the transition from start up to steady state/business as usual and what objectives would enable a program to be sustained and/or expanded. At the other end of the journey most organisation want the methods, tools and techniques to be woven in to the fabric of the organisation so what objectives would enable this to happen and for it not to disappear completely

project leaders (belts) should be blessed with an engaged, enthused and supported sponsor. In my experience sponsor engagement is critical and likely not to be sustained through the course of the project or even through the life of a program. Trust the process; the tools and techniques work when applied for the right reasons and in the right way and this is where the availability of competent MBB's is important as the real SME's. Recognition of the teams efforts (not just the belt) is hugely important and provides motivation for folk to continue to use the methodology and too want to become a belt themselves

How to maintain the enthusiasm of a lean journey? RESULTS. Achieve or exceed goals that remove the burden placed on the value creators in every work space. This is how you continue a never ending journey. It truly is a constant pursuit of perfection, a true North continuous journey. And when you think you're there, ask your customers: how else can we delight you? Your team will know exactly what to do.

Leadership engagement is a key requirement if success of a program is to be achieved. More practically the availability and engagement of project sponsors is needed to ensure the link between business leadership engagement, projects and business results is established and sustained. The sponsors need to be accountable for the project and, therefore, the results. Make sure project results are reported and monitored for sustainability; most projects should deliver a change which is required to be sustained

Leaders have to prove that Lean is not a “flavor of the week” thing. It has to be fundamentally rooted in everything - across the board, and LEADERSHIP has to be the tie that binds. If the initiative is important to the leadership, it will become important to the people.

I would like to add following points, based on my experience leading & managing Six Sigma projects. 1. The TOP Management's involvement and commitment to achieve meaningful business results, should be explicitly evident through their words and actions. 2. Six Sigma is a continual journey and not a destination. This should be clearly communicated by Top Management to the teams working on Six Sigma. 3. Instead of addressing current problems through Six Sigma, a collaborative effort has to be put in to creatively identify probable problems as well and those have to be suitably prioritized. 4. Where possible, the problem and the results achieved through Six Sigma projects have to be shared with the customer.