I had a request to post an article I wrote back when I was training Bank of America executives as executive green belts.
As a business leader you will want to ask the right questions of a team leader and his or her team. You probably have lots of questions to ask—maybe too many, and maybe not the right ones. Maybe you are not sure of the right questions, and maybe you are not sure how to ask the questions in the right way. Here is a starter list of questions to ask so you can make the appropriate business decisions.
Define phase ask:
1. Are we working on the right opportunity or problems?
2. Is the business case compelling?
3. Were the appropriate people involved in the creation of project charter and business case ?
4. Are the cross-functional departments prepared to commit resources (labor, equipment, and/or materials) to the endeavor?
5. Is the deliverable or output from the project defined in clear and quantifiable terms?
6. Were relevant risks considered before the project was approved?
Measure/Analyze phase ask:
7. Is the outcome metric clear, measurable, and accurate?
8. Have requirements been defined from the customer back (Voice of Customer) and tempered by clear business guidance (Voice of Business)?
8. Does the analysis take into consideration all the tasks (process/workflow) and the effort by all the cross functional areas involved?
9. Does the analysis balance the triple constraints of time (schedule), resources (cost), and performance (quality)? Does one of the three constraints dominate?
10. Is there a standard of performance (quality) criteria defined for each deliverable out of each strategic task?
11. Have major milestones been established to be used for executive-level reporting?
12. Has the project been planned to the appropriate rate of improvement (including a multi-generational plan).
Improve and Control phase ask:
13. At the beginning of this phase, is there a Change Control process in place?
14. During this phase, is the Change Control process being followed; and are time, resource, and/or cost impacts resulting from changes of scope being approved before effort is being expended?
15. Are the resources working on the tasks as they promised?
16. Are all involved cross-functional departments reporting status on schedule and with integrity?
17. Are variances to plan being addressed and resolved? Are re-forecasted plans being communicated to the project client (and to management) immediately? Is management rewarding honesty?
18. Are events being arranged to encourage cross-functional team communication and ongoing commitment?
19. Are the Risk Prevention and the Risk Response (Contingency) plans being tracked and managed?
Project Closeout phase ask:
20. Were all participants given an opportunity to celebrate? Were all those people who made special contributions recognized?
21. Was the project professionally “ended” with resources being reassigned and with the product/process going into production? Were any enhancements or modifications initiated as a new project under a new project number?
22. Were lessons learned documented and archived for use by similar future projects?
I personally believe it’s best to ask the questions during periodic project review meetings orchestrated to accentuate the positive aspects of project performance as well as to unearth problem areas to which you, the executive, can offer help and solutions. Whether these are called tollgate reviews, phase reviews, or whatever – the hidden value of Six Sigma is that the ENTIRE organization get’s a common language around problem solving, assessing the quality of the solution, and an easier way to allocate and align resources.
Some other guidelines to consider:
- Prescribe the result, not the procedure to attain the result.
- The choice is only valid if you have thought through the “then what” labyrinth and know your plan of action at each turn. Have you considered the possible negative ramifications (risks) of your choice?
- Don’t make choices for other people. Rely on them to get the work done within the framework that you set. Is this choice conditional on something over which you are not in control?
- Be sure that the team, either formally or informally, is set up for success in implementing the selected choice.
