With 40 years of hard-earned experience and wisdom, Lean Six Sigma (LSS) initiatives should have a high success rate.  Wise practitioners will avoid seven pitfalls.

Don’t fail to take the content seriously.  Lean Six Sigma ideas, tools and practices can be learned by nearly anyone.  But, they are not simple or obvious.  Students need context and history to make sense of this new approach.  Instructors need the deep knowledge recommended by doctors Deming and Goldratt.  Students need experience applying the tools.  Learners need coaching when they first use the tools.  They need to be familiar with the main set of concepts, tools and goals.  No single concept or shortcut approach is adequate.

Don’t overreach.  A steady pace and cumulative progress is ideal.  Match project size and complexity to skills and experience.  Start with single function projects.  Keep the project portfolio manageable.  Under promise and over perform.  Assess risks.  Support new project managers.  Try Kaizen blitz projects after a team is skilled.  Pursue major process re-engineering projects only with adequate resources.

Don’t be too technical or idealistic.  Functional managers and staff advance in their careers by being practical and delivering specific results.  They are looking for practical answers to their specific problems.  The theory of variation through dependent events doesn’t even sound like it might help.  Limit the technical statistics to what is required.  Accept that systematic solutions must incorporate existing exceptions and customer promises.  Explain solutions that fight with common sense or ask for patience to observe the results.  Use business judgment to limit the overuse of quality control, assurance and proof.  Extreme positions destroy credibility.  Take it easy with the pursuit of zero.  Zero defects, zero inventory, zero non-value added, zero travel distance and zero set-up time are ideal goals, not current expectations.

Don’t be a zealot of the new religion.  Managers did just fine before the quality revolution and the newly enlightened state.  They are proud of their knowledge, skills and achievements.  Don’t proclaim that “inventory is evil”.  Downplay Dr. Deming’s emphasis on the “unknown and unknowable”.  Don’t repeat the Shakespeare joke, “first, let’s kill all of the cost accountants”.  Don’t argue that “everything is a process”.  These are valid and important insights, but an overbearing approach will backfire.

Don’t create a new functional silo.  Quality, supply chain management, industrial engineering and project management are important functions that contribute to operations excellence.  No one of them is most important.  Six Sigma black belts have a role to play, but not the most important one on most projects.  Limit the professional jargon.  Avoid kingdom building.  Build cross-functional teams and experiences.

Don’t ignore the forces that oppose change.  All change is opposed by someone.  Use change management tools to identify opponents and work to move them swiftly to the new reality.  Carefully hide any attitude that indicates that the new way is the right way and the old way was wrong or inferior.  Operations improvements come about by leveraging the existing knowledge to address new challenges.  The Lean Six Sigma tools facilitate this progress.  They are not the goal.

Don’t ignore the realities of power.  Many Lean Six Sigma practitioners take a scientific, naïve view that all staff members work hard to make the world better and the company succeed.  Unfortunately, many employees first look out for number one.   Build teams and find allies.  Define political interests and align projects to support them.   Start with the interests of senior management.  What hot buttons and board room pressures matter most?  What interests do functional managers have?  Even while promoting the process world view, support their positions.  Is finance losing power due to the new measures?  Work with them to build new measures that support their existing roles.  Look at the measurement and reward system.  What does it encourage?  Don’t fight the reward system.  Leverage it.  Work to modify it if necessary.  Be sensitive to becoming a perceived threat to others’ power.  Investigate and resolve concerns.

Lean Six Sigma attempts to broaden the organization’s perspective to consider real customer needs and the major processes and partners which meet those needs.  Practitioners need to adopt this same broad, wide-open approach to their work.  The content needs to be adequate and mastered.  Projects must match resources.  Staff must be respected and supported where they are.  Change and politics must be managed as an integral component of success.