LaMarsh and Associates - "Case for Change," January 2006

		Managing the Who and the How of Six Sigma When incorporating change management into Six Sigma projects, project managers must look at change from the perspective of the worker—the target of the change. If your Six Sigma project team does not consider the targets of change with the same discipline applied to the process itself, the possibility of failure is great—even when the process for change is perfect! By incorporating change management into the process, project teams are able to systematically identify all audiences, their change issues and the roles they play, such as: Targets—anyone who will have to change as a result of the project Sponsors—champions of the project who play a pivotal role in getting everyone to understand and encourage change Change agents—individuals who understand the targets' change issues, which allows them to assist targets in becoming more willing to change Getting relevant audiences on board early is critical. Once those groups have been identified, the project team can strategically outline the appropriate action steps, using: A communication plan—how individuals will hear about and discuss the change A learning plan—the actions that individuals will take to enact change A reward plan—incentives and rewards that encourage individual efforts to move to and stay in the change state If you apply change management in this way, it becomes a useful component of Six Sigma and a necessary part of your plan to incorporate change. Adding Up Change More than 60% of change initiatives fail, due in part to the absence of organizational acceptance. A third of all European Six Sigma initiatives fail to produce results and are abandoned, one third produce mediocre results and only one third are successful. Source: www.isixsigma.com Become a "Case for Change" subscriber and receive e-mail alerts whenever we publish future issues. Next article >> Newsletter home page >>
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