Page 350 - Design for Six Sigma for Service (Six SIGMA Operational Methods)

310 Chapter Ten

something, even the “lowly” machine operator. Considering any individual
to be irrelevant to process management is to potentially overlook a major
source of innovative ideas for process improvement. In general, those with
the most proximity to the processes of interest will know more about its ups
and downs and, if given the opportunity, might contribute many excellent
ideas for making the processes better. Remember, the manager may not
have all the answers, at least not always.

Creativity flourishes in an environment of freedom and autonomy, and
organizations that are interested in boosting the levels of their process
performance must provide such a creativity-facilitating environment so
that good ideas can bubble to the top. It is difficult to generate creativity
on demand, but it is certain that less-restrictive cultures, cultures that
focus on longer-term rather than shorter-term value, and organizations
that respect the human individual, will find ways to improve continuously.
3M is well known as an organization with a creativity-facilitating culture.
The impacts of this on the bottom line are clear and have been well doc-
umented.
With discipline and creativity, an organization must also possess the right
skill and knowledge. Like creativity, skill and knowledge lie exclusively
within the human domain. Individuals with the required skill sets must be
sought out and placed where they can influence processes in the most
positive way. Knowledge includes everything from process know-how and
techniques to guidelines, do’s and don’ts, and procedures.

No organization knows everything that it needs to know, and there are
frequent opportunities to learn from mistakes as well as successes. The
importance of such knowledge must be recognized, and a lessons-learned
process must be established to capture, document, and disseminate such
knowledge as it is discovered; this is what it takes to become a learning
organization. Furthermore, never-ending education is what it takes to have a
skill base in the organization that is able to stay current with changes in
technology and in society or lead in the introduction of such changes.
Decision making is another core ingredient for process excellence.
Organizations with discipline, creativity, and knowledge, but poor decision-
making capabilities will be severely limited in their ability to develop
excellent processes. Decision making involves all negotiation and trading-
off of the different perspectives represented in the organization. It involves
a trading-off of global versus local issues and of remote versus imminent
issues. No one perspective is universal; therefore, to make the best decisions
and to find the best configuration for its processes, an organization must