Assignment: Read the following article.
Stick to the story and avoid these five pitfalls
Published: 01/17/2013
With apologies to Tolstoy: All successful project certification reviews are alike; every unsuccessful project certification review is unsuccessful in its own way.
During the certification of a Six Sigma Green or Black Belt, one critical step is to demonstrate that you used the methodology and tools of lean Six Sigma to deliver sustained results. The usual way to do this is to present and defend your project (i.e., describe your actions and answer questions) to a panel of experts. A successful review begins by presenting the project in the classic format of any good story—setup, conflict, and resolution. Questions from the panel experts follow the presentation—or more often, come during the middle of the story when the experts interrupt the candidate to ask them. Either way, successful certification candidates answer questions in the same way. They first recognize the question as something they and their team considered, relate how they dealt with it, and then 99 percent of the time reflect on why that was a great way to deal with it, or how they would have done it given new knowledge or greater experience.
Sounds simple, right? In fact, most successful project defenses are simple, no matter what challenges were faced and overcome during the project—sophisticated statistical analysis, elegant experiment design, or figuring out the means to overcome resistance to change.
Generally, the narrative structure of any work, be it film, play, novel, or project presentation, can be divided into three parts: setup, conflict, resolution. The setup is when the situation and problem are introduced. The bulk of the story is the conflict, when the problem is diagnosed and a solution or multiple solutions are found. The third element, resolution, is when the problem is confronted, and a solution is implemented that results in improved performance—i.e., a happy ending, especially when the story is kept simple.
Every unsuccessful project defense is unique, but I have seen these five general issues regularly crop up:
Not succinctly telling the three story elements. Unsuccessful project defenses focus on one aspect of the project and throw away any opportunities to tell a coherent story. For example, some belt candidates will walk you through every possible step they (or the team) took to diagnose the problem. A comparable metaphor would be your doctor describing how Alexander Fleming discovered in 1928 that penicillin had antibiotic properties after he left a petri dish of Staphylococcus uncovered overnight, rather than simply prescribing penicillin for your infection. Other unsuccessful candidates spend 70 percent of their defense talking about the changes to their project charter, which may be interesting to them and demonstrative of the project challenges, but doing this leaves too little time to describe the the project results.
My hypothesis is that belt candidates have spent so much time living and breathing their projects that they focus on what’s interesting to them about it and forgot to tell the story. Create a solid executive summary, get solid feedback from someone not associated with the project, and then stick to just telling the story during the oral defense.
Lack of sustained results. This just kills the resolution part of the story. Results are needed to successfully earn certification. No amount of PowerPoint engineering or good intentions can overcome this basic fact. Lying about results is a very risky strategy. It sometimes works in the short term but very rarely in the long term, and it will destroy your team’s credibility. There are many “but” arguments—the analysis may be dead on, but the solution wasn’t implemented due to budget, resistance to change, lack of managerial guts, or lack of follow-through; the effort was there, but this wasn’t a good problem to tackle; the team used the tools and methodology as best it could, but there weren’t any data. The only acceptable justification for not presenting results is a long cycle time that’s needed to show the results have been sustained over time. In that case, the expert panel can issue a conditional certification and revisit the project, usually via e-mail, when the final results come in.
For example, I was on a panel that reviewed a capital budgeting project. The project was solid and had produced a meaningful change for the following year’s budget. However, a one-time result isn’t sufficient. In that particular case, we gave a conditional certification, and the Black Belt sent us the results (no need to reconvene) for the next year to earn unconditional certification.
Solutions that don’t track to causes. If people are struggling to draw the connections between your root causes and the final solutions as you explain your project results, you haven’t made direct connections. Point A must make it to point B. During the course of the project, the team will brainstorm a lot, and nobody wants to kill the enthusiasm. Sometimes extraneous undertakings will be identified and pursued; that’s fine as long as they are there for a reason, and there is a direct connection between the project’s root causes and the solutions. If there are extraneous initiatives involved, participants must know why they are committing to them. Likewise during the project presentation, the relevance of the additional undertaking must be explained to the panel.
Appropriate consideration of tools. Many belt candidates have asked, “How many tools do I need for my project?” The only answer is: the number of tools it takes to get to the right answer. Certification teaches candidates to decide how to use which tools at the appropriate time. Candidates might end up including in the project appendix other tools that didn’t work out. Invariably there is a Master Black Belt (MBB) on the panel who likes to show off and asks why you didn’t use this particular tool. The automatic reaction is to think, “Oh crap, I should have used this tool.” The right response is to say you didn’t need the tool, and the solution was solved by some other method, or that your team didn’t find it to be appropriate for a specific reason. The underlying question is, “Did you intelligently choose?” and if the answer is yes or no, say why. If you freeze up on the subject of tool usage, make sure you say that your instructor explicitly stated, “Don’t ever use this tool, it’s useless,” unless of course one of the reviewers is your instructor.
Not managing the audience. The first audience challenges will come from the MBBs on the panel. As soon as you present any numbers, they will go into a frenzy not unlike feeding time at Sea World. Questions will fly regarding where the numbers came from, whether you did an MSA, why this isn’t in a trend chart, what the confidence interval is, and whether the sample is representative or and random. First, don’t show them a number until you’re ready. Second, be prepared to discuss any number in the presentation deck. Third, make sure you tell your story first. This gives appropriate context for a meaningful discussion about the data when you’re asked. Finally, you can use this tendency of the MBBs to your advantage by telling the story, then showing them a nice, juicy number, then discussing the math for the rest of defense.
In short, for a successful defense, tell a good story with a happy ending (sustained results), make sure your causes link to your solutions, and proactively prepare for tool and data questions. It’s that simple.
source:
http://www.qualitydigest.com/print/22719
1 Sum the article up in 150 words.
2 Which points are fundamental? Make a list and prioritize.
3 What does he mean by a belt candidate?
4 Make a diagram to show the method suggested in the article.
Now listen to some practical advice given by an expert on project management.
5. Write a critical analysis of the lady's method.
6 What are the advantages of using this software?
Assignment: prepare 10 slides to give a presentation on a project you may have worked on or invent one.