The People, Process, & Progress Podcast - How We Can Align the Six Sigma DMAIC and the Planning "P" Processes | PPP #68

Episode Date: February 25, 2021

I dusted off a LinkedIn article I wrote in November 2017 comparing the Six Sigma DMAIC methodology and the All-Hazards Planning "P" process. 

Please silence your cell phones, hold our sidebar conversations to a minimum, and we will get into this episode of the People Process Progress Podcast in 3, 2, 1. Hey everybody, thanks for coming back to the People Process Progress Podcast and to this episode 68, Concept Mapping, the Six Sigma DMAIC, and the All Hazards Planning P. This is another one of the times that I've looked at an existing process, compared it to the All Hazards Incident Management Planning Process or Incident Action Planning Process, that Planning P, that big P with steps that are inside it. This is from an article I wrote in November 2017 on LinkedIn. So go ahead and check me out, connect with me there on LinkedIn, go to peopleprocessprogress.com. I've got links to the articles there. But I had completed a Six Sigma

Foundations course, which was really helpful. And for those of you that don't know, Six Sigma is like a process improvement kind of efficiency thing. And so I thought, you know, all hazards planning and the planning P is about being efficient with our communication and with how we work together and how we coordinate. So let's look at one process. And I've compared that to project management and other things. And so let's look at this, this six Sigma. And so that DMA extends for design, measure, analyze, improve, control methodology, right? So if you're a green belt or a black belt out there, certainly send me some feedback, useful process progress at gmail.com. If I butchered how you

say the acronym, or if you have any insight as well, in the all hazard space, that planning P is the equivalent, right? That the incident management team and incident command system folks that put the incident command system into practical application use. And so I'm gonna go through that and there's a graphic I have on the website, so I obviously can't show you the graphic. I'm not doing a video version of this, but I have a bunch of color coded errors that go to it. So I'll just kind of walk you through that.

So the first phase, design, right? It's not limited to the key tasks of providing project definition, but selecting the project team or receiving approval for the project and the launch. In Six Sigma, the team is tasked with understanding customer needs, determining what performance outcome needs need to be improved. In other words, working the Y equals F times X equation. So that's one of the Six Sigma things you learn. How does the Y need to be enhanced? How do we make this thing better? So if we look at the planning P, the equivalent there is when the incident commander, which is like a Six Sigma project

champion, is developing specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time bound. What does that sound like? Our smart objectives that all incident management team members should be working towards. Often it's accomplished, we work with the planning section chief who's really facilitating that, who's like the Six Sigma project leader. And these objectives, they have to include the customer needs, where in the all hazards, you know, it's the host organization. So if we go somewhere to help after a flood or a missing person or a shooting or a big fire, we have to go there and say, hey, what do you need? How can we help? And that's how we help develop our objectives. Examples of improving you know the

why for the incident management team might be organizing a search and rescue, emergency operations center support, public safety for for you know planning large events or something like that. So similar to how the Six Sigma project champions select team members the incident commanders on an incident management team select their incident management team based on their knowledge and credentials, right? So if I'm a Six Sigma champion and I'm putting together a Six Sigma project team, I want people that know maybe that industry or the process, certainly green belts and black belts that know how to do process improvement. And once we get those qualified people, then we can start to do that evaluation of the rest of the DMAIC model. For the incident management team, once we get those qualified people, then we can start to do that evaluation of the rest of the DMAIC model.

For the incident management team, once we get those qualified IMT members, get those smart objectives, get that leader's intent, that leader's intent is like the project champion improving project launch and allows the incident management team to work towards their strategies and tactics. So that's my first comparison with the design to the initial incident commander selection and working through those objectives development the second phase on the six sigma side of the house the m after the d damaic which is the full acronym is to measure right and this includes determination of the size and scope of the project more specifically how the project team will work to measure that why what's that why that we want to make better so throughout this phase the project team will work to measure that why. What's that why that we want to make better? So throughout this phase, the project leader and the team will map processes, they'll get data collection, they'll determine the capability and the Six Sigma levels. So you can do an evaluation to determine kind of how efficient some already is or is not, and then try and get that up to

the optimal Six Sigma measurement there, measure that why, and kind of go from there. And on the all-hazard side, the project management, the planning section chief becomes that keeper of the process, right? We're going to keep that project team moving forward, going through the planning P, and we're going to get to that tactics meeting where we take those objectives and turn them into people and stuff and places to report to and figure out how many supplies we need. And that's our why, right? That's really where we get to the meat of what are we going to do to solve this? How are we going to make this better? And so for all hazards folks, if you're not familiar, that's where operations, the operations section chief tells everyone else, here's what I

need because that's the person that's been selected that knows that space, whether it's hazardous materials or their search and rescue person or whatever it is. Logistics says, hey, here's how we should communicate based on that. Safety says, here's some things that our people need to think about based on your tactics, or maybe we need to change those tactics because they're kind of unsafe. And the situation unit's kind of capturing this along with the resource unit. But how are we going to collect data on the status of all this kind of stuff? And so, as you know, in Six Sigma, you're collecting tons of data, as we mentioned in this measure phase, while a situation unit is analogous to doing that as well. They're always collecting incident or event data. And that data and intelligence will be disseminated regularly

scheduled times via SITREPS or situation reports that will validate as a team before they get sent out. So a lot of crossover with the measure there when you measure the status or the why or the efficiency of something as you're doing this DMAIC process for Six Sigma, just like situation unit and incident management teams measure the process of the work they are doing to help make someone's bad day better. So we've talked about design, we have measured, now we are going to analyze, which is the A in DMAIC. So when we're looking to analyze things in the Six Sigma world, that includes the focus on the Xs that are impacting the Ys. So what's causing this process to be effective or not? It's a critical brainstorming endeavor for the project team really, is they work to identify all the causes of production loss or inefficiencies.

We document those. We do things like fishbone diagrams. Again, if you Google Six Sigma, there's tons of information, which is another great thing about the internet. We'll move across the map and look at what we're doing in the incident management team world. And this analyzing helps us in the phase where we're preparing for that tactics meeting I talked about before. So kind of not in perfect sequence, but when we prepare for that, that's when those same people, the operations section chief, the resource unit leader are really sitting down and going, okay, let's really look at the problem we have, our leader's intent we we're given those objectives, and these probably sound

familiar, right? They are a key foundation of those foundational five things of leaders intent, objectives, organization, resources, and communication. So this preparing for the tactics meeting that we're doing is like analyzing in Six Sigma, we're looking at everything we can do before we get to the room where we put stuff on a big laminated board and actually map that stuff out. There should be conversations happening, just like a Six Sigma green belt or black belt, or yellow belt helping them out is going to work with folks in the organization and figure out what are these inefficiencies? Where are we losing production? Talk to me about how you do this or that. And then we're going to put all that together as part of the plan and part of the Six Sigma score and a few other evaluation methods to do that.

And the ultimate goal will kind of go back to that tactics meeting on the all-hazards side where we've analyzed what we think we need. We've done the operational planning worksheet and incident action safety analysis. Then we're assigning those to folks and getting those on an org chart. So lots of analysis has to happen, whether you're doing a Six Sigma process or project, or you're in the prepping for a tactics meeting phase. And now that Six Sigma team has a good data collection chart, right? It's time to move on to improve this second to last and the DMAIC Six Sigma model stage. And this is where the team will work toward developing solutions.

They'll plan for a pilot to test out their solutions, right, propose, and then they'll go into a full implementation. So there's this test phase, right? Testing during the time will allow the team to get feedback on what's working from their suggestions, what's not working from their suggestions. These early lessons learned will help the team, right, better develop the implementation plan

that provides resource and financial guidance and should include communication from key stakeholders up and down the chain of command. So jumping over to all hazards incident management following that planning P. And when we're in this improved phase in Six Sigma following the planning P, the planning section chief is moving us

toward this planning meeting. So this is the opportunity where Operations Section says, this is the plan I think will work, help us meet leaders' intent, work toward those objectives, this is the people and stuff, this is the pilot or this is the cell of the proposed tactics that the rest of the Incident Management Team is requested to support at the Section Chief level. So at the planning meeting this is where you have command staff so your officers your incident commander your public information officer liaison officer and safety officer you have your planning section chief

or your resource unit leader because that unit within planning helped operations put that together logistics section and the finance section so every other section and the officers will talk about supporting it, and the incident commander, it's up to them to approve it. So similar to how those Six Sigma champions must approve the implementation of the project, the incident commander must state their tacit approval of the plan. So once the Six Sigma project lead has said, hey, here's what we think will work, do you approve, yes or no, they get feedback. The champion says yes or no, and they go forward.

In the incident management team world, operations does that. They sell it. The other sections and the officers say, yep, I support it, or hey, let's consider this. And then ultimately the incident commander must say, yes, go forth and do good things, or no, we need to consider these. So the form of a plan in the all-hazards world is an incident action plan, which these days hopefully lots of people are putting together as we do drive-through COVID clinics and testing. And we're giving out thousands and thousands, going on, I don't know what, millions of shots now, which is outstanding. I know I have great friends that are doing outstanding work out there. So Godspeed and kudos to everyone out there working those incident action plans and

getting those done. But it contains those previously created approved objectives, the prescribed actions for operations, safety requirements, and any special considerations like financial or cultural items that we noted during our information gathering phase. So the DMAIC model of Six Sigma that we have followed, the Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control, ends with C, which is Control, and this episode will end with this section. But before I end, again, please stop by peopleprocessprogress.com. We've got actually some merch, a sticker, and a notebook

for your planning needs. Support the show that way. I'd appreciate it. Email me people process progress at gmail.com. For any feedback, connect on LinkedIn. And when you go to the website, really all the connections, if you can subscribe to the show, that'd be great. Share it, let others know. Give me your feedback. What do you want to hear about on this note on the show? Who do you want to see on the show? There's a request to be on the show forum at the.com site. So check that out. So this last phase, control, right, involves establishing and implementing project control, sustaining improvements in the process, and sharing control charts.

So sharing those with people. The control plan, which we create in Six Sigma, is a blueprint for everyone to follow the new processes, right, that are implemented and everyone to follow the new processes, right? That are implemented and should be communicated to all personnel, right? So we're not going to just evaluate this process and analyze it and then put it together and then test it and then not share that and say, Hey everybody, here's the new way of do things. Excuse me. Here's the new equipment we're going to use and here's how we should do this in

the future. In the all hazards world, that's that incident action plan, right? We're going to put that together and electronically via word on some standard incident command system forms. We can email that out as a PDF to share it instantly with folks. Say we're coordinating with multiple emergency operation centers in the region. And then of course, we're going to have paper versions of that, which nothing, you know, paper doesn't run out of power. So when folks can take that out in the field, they have some critical items like where do they report? What's their job? What's the radio channels for them? So that's a huge thing there. And what we'll do is we'll share the highlights of that in the operational period briefing. This is the last checkpoint, the last, hey, everyone,

are you here? Leadership wise. And then we have folks raise their hand. It's not a Q&A. We'll have a breakout session after that. But it's an opportunity for the incident management team leadership to address those boots on the ground, go over those high level things, and help them meet into the work targets on a consistent basis. And as the Six Sigma project team continues to monitor process improvement, implementation and success or failure, the incident management team is going to continually monitor progress like we talked about a little bit earlier, but this is after we've we've sent folks out into the field or to the emergency operations center somewhere. And we're going to monitor that progress or regression right through application of the tactics and achieving the overall objective. So

if it starts not working, we're going to have to change some things too. So to me, I hope, you know, a heavy incident management, incident command system believer, use some of those, have used some of those in kind of formal project management and other venues. I hope what's evident in, you know, kind of the concept mapped, if you go to LinkedIn site and check this out, is how many commonalities there are with these two processes, right? You know, Six Sigma designed to help industry be more efficient and save money and time, things like that. But it's very similar to a good all-hazards incident management team process that's also designed to do that, but also to save lives. So at this point, both Six Sigma

and all-hazards incident management focus on identifying problem or problems, brainstorming solutions, collecting data, and then provide a process or a product improvement through efficient application of personnel and resources. Thank you all so much for coming back to the show, for listening to this episode, and really just being involved. I really appreciate it. So I wish you all the best. I hope you're staying safe out there. I hope you're washing your hands, and I wish you Godspeed.