Identify the Systematic Problems or Significant Gaps in Your Business

The source of ideas for changing your business can come from dissatisfied customers, systemic problems that have failed all previous attempts at solution, a changing marketplace due to changes in technology, customer expectations, the entry of new competitors, or a 'burning platform' issue that is forcing the business leaders to make a difficult decision. You should be able to explain the real problems of the business in terms that the everyone in the organization will understand.

Articulate the Business Strategy

Define the quantifiable deliverables carefully and completely to guide and measure project success and alignment. The executive management team and the board of directors should be meeting periodically to identify and commit to a set of objectives for the coming business year at the very least. Annual reports are a good source of ideas in general, but you will have to drill down to a greater depth of detail to turn strategy into execution. In general, a company should have revenue growth from year to year and be able to consistently deliver a better return on invested capital than rival industries. The senior executive should have a detailed execution plan.

Manage the Effort

Imagine standing in front of the shareholders at the annual meeting. In the first two stages of the Recognize phase you have outlined the burning issues of the business and have described what results you intend to deliver. The operational leaders of the business will now want to know how you are going to achieve these objectives.

If the implementation of lean Six Sigma or other process improvement methodology is large, then this step would explain how you are going to implement an entire program. This means determining the elements of Quality leaders, MBBs and BBs, training, succession planning, reporting structure and infrastructure, project reviews, metric targets and an extended rollout plan for transforming the company. If your implementation of lean Six Sigma is small, then this step will be a much smaller version of project management that includes limited parts of this large process.