Saturday, November 12, 2011

Lean Six Sigma: a foundation for innovation


Lean approaches focus on reducing cost through process optimization. Six Sigma is about meeting customer requirements and stakeholder expectations, and improving quality by measuring and eliminating defects.

However, Lean Six Sigma’s goal is growth, not just cost-cutting. Its aim is effectiveness, not just efficiency. In this way, a Lean Six Sigma approach drives organizations not just to do things better but to do better things.
Here are several questions:

• Do you have a clear vision of where you want your company to be in two years? In
five years? In ten years?
• How closely tied is this vision to the needs of your current and target customers? And is your understanding of these needs based on actual assessments or assumed information?
• Will this vision require innovations in your business model? In your products or services? In your markets?
• What will you need to do at the operational level to enable and drive these innovations?
• To support innovation, what changes will be required to your management approach, organizational structures, metrics and skills?
• How are you making innovation happen more systematically? Are you establishing
the right environment?

Resources: http://www-935.ibm.com/services/at/bcs/pdf/br-stragchan-driving-inno.pdf

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