There will always be a strong debate between Lean and Six Sigma people about using the 2 terms jointly. I am not positive of the lineage of it but I believe Michael George at the time of the George Group (later to be Accenture) coined the term. I assume he viewed the two methodologies as compatible and more effective in conjunction with each other versus separately. I am not even sure that many (Case in point being that many of today’s “Lean” consultants were trained as Lean Six Sigma Black Belts) disagreed at the time except for the very traditional Lean stalwarts.

Dr. Mikel Harry, credited as one of the founders of Six Sigma states that Six Sigma is not a culture and was developed as a quality tool to gain breakthrough performance for an organization. I adhere to that statement and think Six Sigma offers great opportunities for an organization and provides a very precise and workable structure in achieving this. I am not against the hierarchy of belts and the formalities of DMAIC, DFSS, etc. Many organizations need this type of structure to be successful. I am avid defender of Six Sigma in the Lean circles many times to the chagrin of others.

Lean was developed by the MIT group under Dr. James Womack from a study of automotive companies and more specifically the Toyota Production System. Its approach is based on continuous improvement with a direct correlation to PDCA and Dr. Deming’s philosophies. Lean made its first inroads in many companies and gains in popularities (IMHO) because of the ease of entry into the methodology. Removing waste and improving flow was Lean’s mantra in the 90’s and the tools of 5s and Value Stream Mapping soared in popularity. However, as Lean continued developing tools of A3, Hoshin and Standard Work became common place. But even more so, the culture of PDCA and the spirit of Kaizen started to take hold.

Six Sigma was the methodology of choice for many manufacturers as a result of the significant strides that GE and Motorola had made. Later, Lean seemed to gain and Six Sigma wane in popularity. Lean became the path to a customer as an enabler of some quick wins. You could then take the deep dive with Six Sigma when you wanted to get “serious”. As Lean continued to steamroll and Six Sigma still continued with somewhat lackluster performance many organizations and consultants dropped the attachment to Six Sigma and became “Lean”. Popularity does create a crowd. This may not be an entirely accurate description but it serves as a basis for my views and the following comments.

What makes Lean Six Sigma work? When you first start using any methodology, you are typically introduced through the tools. Using Lean initially versus Six Sigma makes perfect sense, it is an easier introduction. And why reduce variability on non-value activities? But sooner or later you get to the fork in the road. One path says Six Sigma and the other path is this thing they call culture (Lean). So do you want to take the deep dive with a breakthrough structured approach (still has a steep incline) or do you want to try and instill a culture of empowerment. There is not a right or wrong answer. You can take either. Where I disagree, is that you can take both.

Six Sigma has always been about structure and tools. It is very, very good and does an outstanding job when applied properly. In Six Sigma thinking, you can use Lean tools initially and get to 95%. To finish the job, you use Six Sigma. And as a result, Lean Six Sigma was developed. If your organization grew out of the Motorola and G.E. world it seems like a perfect fit.

If you adopt the Lean mentality and the spirit of Kaizen (continuous improvement is not an event) you become immersed in the culture of Lean, as Dr. Balle wonderfully described in the Zen Story about the mountain. Summed up in the blog post: Lean Tools and Culture as it Relates to Zen

Have you ever played yourself in a game? On a basketball court or even a simple game of checkers, sooner or later you have to pick a side to win. It is inevitable. This is the ultimate wedge between the two methodologies and can simply be stated. Six Sigma is a structured methodology and Lean is a cultural driven learn by doing approach. That is not to say that Six Sigma does not have its prototyping options and that Lean is not without statistical control (it did evolve from Deming). But it is saying that they are both on two completely different paths that you must choose between.

If you take the path of and see Lean as Lean, Six Sigma does not make sense and is not a compatible technology. There is a significant culture difference and approach. If you take the path of Six Sigma, you view Lean as only a set of tools nothing more and why not, Lean has a great toolbox. If you take the path of Lean you still can be just as efficient and just as effective as Six Sigma, you just do it differently.

I make no qualms about stating that I believe and follow a Lean philosophy. Lean works in my world much better. PDCA which is basically form a hypothesis, test it and adjust is what sales and marketing is all about.

I support the idea of Lean Six Sigma without hesitation. What I have trouble understanding is how you can be philosophically aligned in Lean thinking and practice Six Sigma. So I believe you must ask yourself; Which fork in the road do you take?

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This step involves taking the improvements and implementing them. We will document standard operating procedures, create are process control plans, and establish a control process. The one final step is handing off the process or transitioning the process for implementation. It is imperative that we create an operation that is stable, predictable and meets the customer requirements. This is the implementation supported by documentation and project management to put all the work into practice. Another way of saying this is how we are going to guarantee performance.

In the marketing funnel it comes down to the basic decision to commit or buy the product or service. As I said in my last post, clarity is the number one issue that may prevent you from succeeding if you meet root cause. Customers want consistency. At this stage, you will see price and confidence that you can deliver what you say seemingly becoming the greatest issues. If price was the overwhelming issue, just think of how many times you have lost a job to a better known brand. Why? Security and your lack of ability to address the root cause with unquestionable clarity.

The Control process of Six Sigma can certainly teach us a few things. Creating an operation that delivers a stable and predictable outcome is the purpose of not only the Control stage but the entire DMAIC process. If you have identified predictable measures that the customer can visualize and satisfy the root cause of his problem, you are well on your way of obtaining commitment.

Another stage of Control is handing off of the project for implementation. How many marketing projects are not supported by sales or vice versa? Sales efforts can be undermined especially when the process is does not monitor predictable results. The ability to control this stage of the process may prevent you from caving into unreasonable demands that prospects may place upon you. However, most worries are not about the prospect but in the effort to close sales many organizations will take their eye off the target and take jobs that may or not solve the root problem for the customer. Seldom in that circumstance will you deliver the product or service that the customer is hoping for. It may even be over delivering, which not only is wasted but to the prospect unclear and not evaluated appropriately. Sales will look at this as part of these results and either determines that there is a greater degree of flexibility in the product/service than there is and/or that pricing could be adjusted because the next customer may not need all this. This is not a problem of sales, you have built the platform and handed off a poorly designed control phase. Build a process management plan for implementation and establishing ongoing measure and methods to be used for improvement will facilitate your process.

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After all the hard work of the previous stages, it goes without saying but you must improve on the root cause of the problems not something else. It sounds silly to say, but the people that were good at doing all the detective work in the previous two steps are not necessarily the problem solvers in the organization. Roles may shift and different agendas may creep into this stage. This is important if this shift takes place stay on task and work on the root cause.

All solutions are not equal. Typically, without too much analysis you can weed through them and narrow the good ones down to several ones that address the root cause. The remaining ones should be systematically eliminated or ranked in order of feasibility to include perceived effectiveness, ease of implementation, within budget constraints, and the ability to measure. What good is a solution if it cannot be measured on how effective it is? Another criterion that I recommend is the ability to pilot test. A sampling of your solution can be a very effective way of deciding between two seemingly equal solutions. Especially, if one requires a substantial investment. A solution matrix is a very simple and visual tool for comparison. Several other tools that can be used our Tree Diagrams and Design of Experiments (DOE).

This is also the stage that I develop a future state map using the Value Stream Mapping Tool.

Marketers are just at the stage of get someone to evaluate or try the product. They are thinking download for thirty days, use this sample, and attend this webinar and other ways of evaluation. My thinking is that after you have accomplished the other three stages of the funnel; you are ready to demonstrate that you solve ROOOT CAUSE. Can you? Most jobs are lost at this stage because of a lack of clarity. You solution must be crystal clear and be without a question on how you will solve the prospects’ problem and deliver that solution. It is also imperative that you turn your solution into dollars. What is the ROI you are contributing?

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Are listening to your prospects requirements and measuring yourself on how you are performing based on those requirements? Are you correct? Have you properly identified, verified and quantified the root causes of their pain and statistically linked input with output? If this seems mind boggling, you are at the proper stage. Now, is the time to make sense of all the data and confirm the validity of it? This is the time that so-called common sense can get in the way. Even at the most basic level of Six Sigma training, examples are given of problems that be reviewing the data there seems to be an obvious answer. It is simply an eye-opening experience when you input the data into a statistical program such as Mini-tab and see the results. If you would not have analyzed the problem correctly, you may have been working on a problem that did not exist and as a result have little impact. Remember the old adage, numbers do not lie! However, garbage in will equal garbage out, verification of the data is extremely important.

Using a high level process map or as I prefer, a Value Stream Map is important. The visualization of the process will help as you analyze the data. The first several times you do this, it may only involve several simple tools such as a Fishbone Diagram and/or a Pareto Chart. This also the stage we look at Value-Added activities.  We can very often find many things that are adding little value from the customers’ point of view at this time. Sometimes significant reduction that will pay for the entire improvement policy can be found in this stage.   

As a customer, I may have entered your funnel with a specific problem and now have determined that you are someone that I should consider. It is time for me to analyze your organization and start developing preferences. How does my marketing play this role? My marketing at this time needs to identify your root cause. Are you identifying it? I believe that it is very difficult for a prospect to move from consider to prefer without having their root cause addressed. If you start with the definition of the problem you solved and take a marketing segment or even an individual prospect and use a tool such as the fishbone diagram, you will be able to determine whether you product or service addresses root cause. If it does not, is there a reason to continue with this customer? Is it a good fit? Maybe, there is a better product or service you should be offering?

Definitions:

The Fishbone Diagram, also known as the Cause and Effect Diagram or Ishikawa Diagram, is a graphical construct used to identify and explore on a single chart, in increasing detail commonly using the 5- Why technique, the possible causes which lead to a given effect. The ultimate aim is to work down through the causes to identify basic root causes of a problem.

A Pareto chart, named after Vilfredo Pareto, is a type of chart which contains both bars and a line graph. The bars display the values in descending order, and the line graph shows the cumulative totals of each category, left to right. The purpose of the Pareto chart is to highlight the most important among a (typically large) set of factors. In quality control, it often represents the most common sources of defects, the highest occurring type of defect, or the most frequent reasons for customer complaints, and so on.

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Picture courtesy of Systems2win.

Marketing people view their role as a series of events, task and campaigns versus a process. Not to over simplify but a calendar is a static document and does not support the use of a process. Once you start systematizing or building a marketing process deliverables, stability, variation and measurable results become important. Hence, Lean or Six Sigma can be a significant partner in improving the Marketing process.

Use of the DMAIC process is usually reserved for solving problem with existing processes. Other methodologies, such as DMEDI are used in the design functions and may be more suitable for certain marketing campaigns. In this series of Blog Posts, I am going to concentrate on the DMAIC method.

My early post correlated the Marketing Funnel to DMAIC and how we may use that methodology to walk our customer through our marketing process. The first stage in the DMAIC Methodology is the Define stage. In the marketing funnel the opening stage is usually reserved for the awareness stage. We typically think of this as our lead generation efforts of getting someone to enter our funnel. Even though we may use efforts as permissions style marketing it is still very much a bait and switch tactic. If we truly believe the Inbound Marketing is what is necessary in today’s marketing, using the Six Sigma Define stage opens a more correct way of entry into the funnel.

My explanation of the Define Stage previously:
Purpose: Identify the clients, their needs and requirements.
Deliverable: State the need of the client and the problem

Expanding on this explanation the Define stage typically asks us to start with a problem statement. In the marketing sense, can you define the problem that you solve for your customers clearly? Where the problem statement describes the pain, the next statement should describe the relief that is to be expected. After that, we go into a process that is typically defined as Voice of the Customer. There are typically two major categories that are required; Output requirements and Service Requirements. The output requirements relate to the final product or service that is delivered to the customer. The service requirements relate to how the customer would like to be treated and served during the process.The final step in the Define stage is to document the process. Typically, this is done with a high level process map. Don’t worry about it being completely correct as we will use it and develop it further in the remaining processes.

Six Sigma has some great tools on how to obtain and measure these processes such as Kano Analysis, Process Map and SIPOC . I just wonder why marketers shy away from them.

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Technorati : DMAIC, Marketing Funel, Process Map, Six Sigma

In previous blogs, you have heard me mention that one of the main culprits is variation and the lack of proper segmentation. We think of segmentation both in a horizontal fashion and a vertical. Horizontal will typically result in segments such as: Direct, Internet, Distributor, Joint-Venture and so on. The vertical aspect of your Marketing Funnel is the image on the right depicted below. This funnel allows you to assign different products to each process stage in the hope of maximizing efforts.

However, if you attempt to improve your Marketing Funnel, how would you go about it? Being a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, the Marketing Funnel bears a close resemblance to the DMAIC process of Six Sigma. Not that I am trying to replace the marketing funnel with DMAIC, but it certainly would not hurt to analyze the resemblance to improve our marketing process. Using some generic definitions of DMAIC and just relating them to the Marketing Funnel can create some interesting observation.

Define
Purpose: Identify the clients, their needs and requirements.
Deliverable: State the need of the client (CTS) and the problem

Measure
Purpose: Quantify Process Performance
Deliverable: Determine baseline process performance

Analyze
Purpose: Identify, Verify and Quantify Root causes
Deliverable: Statistically linking input with output

Improve
Purpose: Create the Solution and Validate
Deliverable: Optimizing Process Operating Conditions

Control
Purpose: Document and Standardize Process
Deliverable: Meet Critical to Quality(CTQ) consistently (Involvement)

Looking at your Marketing Funnel from the DMAIC viewpoint is not that farfetched, is it?

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Technorati : DMAIC, Lean, Marketing Funnel, Marketing Hourglass, Six Sigma