Kevin Clay - 10 Simple Steps to a Lean Six Sigma Project that Will Get Amazing Results Every Time

What if you could tap into the Mind of a Master Black Belt to help you in your Lean Six Sigma Project?

My Name is Kevin Clay and I am a Master Black Belt with Over 20 Years of Experience. I’ve completed hundreds of Lean and Six Sigma projects with ideas all over the Globe with Multi-Million Dollar Results.

Below are the 10 simple steps that I use to conduct every Lean Six Sigma project. Follow these steps and you will get Amazing Results from your Lean Six Sigma Project Every Time!

  1. Don’t Try and Solve World Hunger
  2. Go to Gemba!
  3. Plan Your Work and THEN Work Your Plan
  4. Track the Needle
  5. Verify your Focus
  6. Be the Ball
  7. Look for the 6’ View
  8. Decipher the Code
  9. Prioritize and Manage
  10. Mimes make the Best Operators

1. Don’t Try and Solve World Hunger

What can cause a Six Sigma Project to Have a Slow Agonizing Death? Not having a manageable scope!

Only about 35% of Lean Six Sigma Projects are completed (this is a conservative number).

Why? Because no one has educated the belt that it is improbable they will solve world hunger. This eventually leads to a permanently stalled project.

We teach our students that three of the most important words when it comes to Lean Six Sigma Project Scope are: focus, focus, and focus!

You can’t solve world hunger but you have a greater likelihood of success if you focus on one small village.

Once you Improve, Optimize and Control hunger in that small village then we can translate the Improvements to the next village in our priority with subsequent “multi-generational projects”.

With each generation of projects to solve world hunger, each village gets easier. We can even expand our scope to Improve several villages at once as we have encountered most of the variables in previous projects.

I’m guessing the question that is burning in your mind is “do I have to solve world hunger before I complete my project?”

The answer is “No”. Each generation of projects is considered its own project.

The best tool for understanding the optimal Scope of a Project is the Pareto Chart.

To use the Pareto Chart, we must first have data.

In this scenario, the belt has been given the task to reduce missed deliveries in the domestic U.S.

As Lean Six Sigma practitioners, we know that focusing on the larger problem will decrease our chance of success. We need to scope down to a project that we can manage.

Below is the data:

10 Simple Steps for amazing results in your lean six sigma project
What is a Pareto Chart?

We need to see the data in a Graphical format, so now we produce the Pareto Chart.

In Minitab 17, the Pareto Chart is found at Stat > Quality Tools > Pareto Chart …

Fill in the Pareto Chart as seen in the picture below:

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