Goals49actionsteps

49 Action Steps
to achieve 110% of your goals

Define Design Implement

SIXSIGMAQUALTEC www.ssqi.com

49 Action Steps
to Achieve 110% of Your Goal

Table of Contents

Introduction to Action Plan 1
Strategic Alignment and Deployment -4
Operational Definitions 4-5
Management Style 5-6
Metrics 6
Defect Identification and Elimination 7
The Cost of Poor Quality 7
Cultural Readiness for Deployment 8-9
Willingness to Deploy 9
Willingness to Change 10
Identifying Improvement Opportunities 10-11



49 Action Steps
to Achieve 110% of Your Goal

Introduction The Categories

Five years in development, the following stra- 1. Strategic Alignment and Deployment
tegic goal “readiness” discussion guide is the
2. Operational Definitions
result of actual performance improvement and
management programs developed while working 3. Management Style
with hundreds of leading national and interna-
4. Metrics – Application and Appropriate-
tional companies.
ness (Financial vs. Operational)
This document is NOT intended to be an all
5. Defect Identification and Elimination
inclusive list and should not be viewed as a
(Success vs. Defect)
final, exact or absolute set of inquires to realize
all information needed to drive the “diagnosis 6. The Cost of Poor Quality
activity”. While answering these questions,
participants should be identifying or securing 7. Cultural Readiness for Deployment
evidentiary documents, communication exam-
8. Willingness to Deploy
ples, corporate publications, newsletters, the
Annual Report and any other material which can 9. Willingness to Change
support the answers given.
10. Identifying Improvement Opportunities
The questions are grouped into 10 general
The matrix of questions is the result of years of
categories, allowing for a quick summary or
application and a collaboration of the SSQI Man-
feedback document to the “most senior lead-
aging Partners, who would welcome the oppor-
ers”. The final analysis should be detailed by
tunity to discuwith you in more detail. Sugges-
player (serving as a Stakeholder Analysis) and
tions for improvement are always welcome.
presented to team members.

Define Design Implement 1


How to Use the Mini-course 1. Who are the critical stakeholders for your
enterprise? How do you identify their needs

Based on our research, this Mini-Course is the and wants?

perfect tool to share with your executive stra- _________________________________________
tegic team. We recommend that you print out a
copy for each member and keep a version with _________________________________________
your responses for future reference.
_________________________________________

_________________________________________
Strategic Alignment, Deployment
and Management _________________________________________

2. What are the strategic goals and objectives
Reaching your strategic goals requires a clear of the enterprise? Your organization? How were
picture of your current “goal state” and the they identified?
identification of those performance gaps that
are preventing you from achieving the goal. _________________________________________

Your organization must know and understand its _________________________________________
strategic direction through effective communi-
cation. It must also assess internal and external _________________________________________
threats and challenges, as well as collect and
_________________________________________
incorporate the voices of various stakeholders
of the enterprise. _________________________________________

Identifying the most critical items to address, 3. How are the goals of the enterprise commu-
developing targets and plans for achieving nicated to the organization?
them, and dedicating the appropriate financial
_________________________________________
resources are all facilitated by being able to
measure the right things in the right way. _________________________________________

In order to succeed, your organization must _________________________________________
understand the various constituents of the en-
_________________________________________
terprise and how to secure and represent their
voices. Critical agenda items must be identified
and communicated throughout the organization.



Strategic Alignment, Deployment 7. Are plans connected to capital and operating
and Management (cont.) budget planning activities?

_________________________________________
4. What/who is your greatest competitive
threat? _________________________________________

_________________________________________ _________________________________________

_________________________________________ _________________________________________

_________________________________________ _________________________________________

_________________________________________ 8. How are funds allocated to projects and
programs?
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
5. How do you measure your progress towards
those goals and objectives? _________________________________________

_________________________________________ _________________________________________

_________________________________________ _________________________________________

_________________________________________ _________________________________________

_________________________________________ 9. In the current cycle where are you in relation
to your goal targets?
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
6. What plans are in place to achieve your
goals? _________________________________________

_________________________________________ _________________________________________

_________________________________________ _________________________________________

_________________________________________ _________________________________________

_________________________________________

_________________________________________



Strategic Alignment, Deployment 13. Does your organization deploy business
and Management (cont.) plans? How are they measured/managed?

_________________________________________
10. How are you currently managing current
projects? _________________________________________

_________________________________________ _________________________________________

_________________________________________ _________________________________________

_________________________________________ _________________________________________

_________________________________________
Operational Definitions
_________________________________________

11. How does your organization manage and From the development of position descriptions
monitor projects in general? to the articulation of responsibility by position
or title, your organization’s culture and the at-
_________________________________________
titude that has cascaded throughout are deter-
_________________________________________ minants of success.

_________________________________________ 14. What is your role and responsibility as you
see it?
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
12. Does the strategy of your organization reach
down the organization chart to the operational _________________________________________
level?
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________

_________________________________________

_________________________________________

_________________________________________



Operational Definitions (cont.) 17. Are you effective at delegation? What do you
think your staff would say? Is your manager ef-

15. How does your staff see your role and re- fective at delegation?

sponsibilities? _________________________________________

_________________________________________ _________________________________________

_________________________________________ _________________________________________

_________________________________________ _________________________________________

_________________________________________ _________________________________________

_________________________________________ 18. How flexible are you? Your staff? Your man-

16. How are roles and positions defined in your ager?

operation? Who crafts those definitions? _________________________________________

_________________________________________ _________________________________________

_________________________________________ _________________________________________

_________________________________________ _________________________________________

_________________________________________ _________________________________________

_________________________________________ 19. Are performance improvement efforts tied
to performance management systems?

Management Style _________________________________________

_________________________________________
How the direction is set and driven at various
levels of the organization, as well as the way _________________________________________
in which cross-functional decisions are made,
_________________________________________
will reveal how “silo-ed” your enterprise is - a
potential predictor of the difficulty in address- _________________________________________
ing significant business issues.

Flexibility in the face of change and the align-
ment of compensation systems with perfor-
mance improvement will clearly relate the
importance of your initiative to all.



Management Style (cont.) 22. Is your organization data driven? Is data
respected or rejected?

20. How are cross functional issues addressed? _________________________________________
By silo or cross-functionally (collaboratively)?
How are decisions normally made? _________________________________________

_________________________________________ _________________________________________

_________________________________________ _________________________________________

_________________________________________ _________________________________________

_________________________________________ 23. Does your organization use a Balanced
Scorecard?
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
21. Where does budget accountability lie? How
many layers deep in your organization? _________________________________________

_________________________________________ _________________________________________

_________________________________________ _________________________________________

_________________________________________ _________________________________________

_________________________________________ 24. What are the critical measures of the busi-
ness and the most pivotal functions?
_________________________________________
_________________________________________

_________________________________________
Metrics
_________________________________________
To work toward achieving its goals, your orga-
_________________________________________
nization must be metrics-driven. An organiza-
tion’s key performance indicators reveal a lot _________________________________________
about its attitude toward measurement.

Are they communicated, understood, and used
to manage?



Defect Identification Elimination 27. How are costs associated with processes and
operations measured?

How specifically and clearly can your organiza- _________________________________________
tion articulate its problems? Where is the focus?
Who has the responsibility? Are problems recur- _________________________________________
ring, or are they kept in check?
_________________________________________
25. How do you define a defect? A problem? Do
_________________________________________
problems return after being corrected?
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
28. What process is in place for approval and
_________________________________________
tracking of funded projects? And results?
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________

_________________________________________
The Cost of Poor Quality
_________________________________________

Is there a full appreciation for the full scope of 29. What are some of the areas (processes,
a defect’s impact on the organization? products or services) where your organization is
wasting money?
26. How do you understand the cost of lost
value of operations? _________________________________________

_________________________________________ _________________________________________

_________________________________________ _________________________________________

_________________________________________ _________________________________________

_________________________________________

_________________________________________



Cultural Readiness 33. How does the line organization look at
changes? With fear of loss of job or as a natural

Performance improvement initiatives can excite evolution?

and drive you to greater heights, or they can _________________________________________
engender resistance, even fear if approached
inappropriately. _________________________________________

30. Is yours a process-driven organization? _________________________________________

_________________________________________ _________________________________________

_________________________________________ _________________________________________

_________________________________________ 34. What is your organization’s tolerance for
change?
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
31. What methods are in place today to improve
operations and service? _________________________________________

_________________________________________ _________________________________________

_________________________________________ _________________________________________

_________________________________________ 35. How often do you hear the phrase, “we
have always done it that way?”
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
32. Does your organization have union issues?
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________

_________________________________________

_________________________________________

_________________________________________



Cultural Readiness (cont.) 38. Are your compensation systems connected
to performance, projects and improvements?

36. What is your organization’s attitude toward _________________________________________
the following: change, Six Sigma, Lean, Process
Improvement...? _________________________________________

_________________________________________ _________________________________________

_________________________________________ _________________________________________

_________________________________________ _________________________________________

_________________________________________ 39. Has your organization deployed change pro-
grams before? How effective were they?
_________________________________________
_________________________________________

_________________________________________
Willingness to Deploy
_________________________________________
By identifying goals, and measuring and man-
_________________________________________
aging toward them, you will develop a clear
definition of success. But is there a sense of _________________________________________
urgency around achieving these goals?
40. If a previous improvement initiative failed,
Have you failed in the past, making the creation what were the 3 major reasons?
of support or interest in this effort more dif-
ficult? _________________________________________

37. What does your organization do well? Poorly? _________________________________________

_________________________________________ _________________________________________

_________________________________________ _________________________________________

_________________________________________ _________________________________________

_________________________________________

_________________________________________



Willingness to Change improvement, and finally bettering its chances
of achieving its strategic goals.

Success in achieving your goals can stem from 43. What are the 3-5 top issues you face today?
identifying potential roadblocks to change, as How would you prioritize them? Would your
well as parts of the organization where the staff see them in the same order?
sense of commitment to improvement is the
highest. _________________________________________

41. Is the organization open to new ideas? _________________________________________

_________________________________________ _________________________________________

_________________________________________ _________________________________________

_________________________________________ _________________________________________

_________________________________________ 44. What are the 3-5 issues that will face your
company in 2007/2008?
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
42. Are you personally committed to the evolu-
tion of the enterprise? How will you show that _________________________________________
commitment?
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________

_________________________________________

Identifying Improvement
Opportunities

Generating positive results will increase your
organization’s desire for improvement, thereby
improving its ability to change and drive more



Identifying Improvement 48. Does Training = Learning?
Opportunities (cont.) _________________________________________

45. Which of these issues have your tried to _________________________________________
solve in the past and failed? Others?
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
49. How are projects selected and targeted?
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
46. How are cross-functional issues addressed?
_________________________________________
By silo or collaboratively?
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________

_________________________________________

_________________________________________

_________________________________________

47. Does your organization consider itself a
Learning Organization? Why? Evidence?

_________________________________________

_________________________________________

_________________________________________

_________________________________________

_________________________________________


time for a
Fitness
Revolution?
Why the tactics of connecting
strategy to execution matter



Time for a Fitness Revolution?

Why the Tactics of Connecting close and service loans quickly enough to meet
Strategy to Execution Matter customer demand.

This state of overload, and the pain of lost op-
While nearly every industry suffered during portunity, sparked imagination. How can we
the recent economic downturn, by comparison improve the cycle times of all our processes?
mortgage companies enjoyed a flowing stream How can we remove bottlenecks and dead time
of success. Yet the lending industry as a whole from our operations?
is by no means optimized, and tougher times
are ahead. This is how we can make more money: not by
merging and acquiring more, but by doing what
“Achieving immediate strategic superiority we do better, in a different way. Surely we can
through acquisition has been the order of the merge and acquire, but can we achieve systemic
day,” says Dale Meder, Bank of America senior operational efficiencies that reduce cycle time,
VP of business process excellence. “But now the minimize errors, cut costs, increase capacity
industry is seeking to achieve lasting opera- and delight customers?
tional superiority through improved process
capability.”
An Operational Focus
If Meder sounds like a consultant, it’s because
he once was. But now he’s one of those who
The service sector in general, and the specific
very much practices what he preaches. Bank of
world of loan servicing, is undergoing a collec-
America, since launching operational improve-
tive epiphany of sorts. Driven by Wall Street,
ment efforts, has identified more than $1 billion
it has recognized that improvement initiatives,
in business improvements as a result of applying
such as Six Sigma and Business Process Manage-
Six Sigma and Business Process Management in a
ment, are as vital as finding the next scheme
planned, measured and systematic way.
for top-line growth.
Here’s what is sparking Bank of America and
most other large financial institutions. The
boom of the nineties broke the seams of
“transactional capacity” for many lending and
servicing institutions that couldn’t originate,



Could it be that the analysts themselves, post- area will increase the capacity to pro-
Enron, have decided that growth in general is cess more loans with the same amount of
not as golden as they thought? Growth can be resources.
bought and sold – or cooked up in the books – to
3. Complexity in the financial services indus-
an extent. Beyond this, the real path of gener-
try will materially increase, as the lines
ating value (profit) in a financial services busi-
between banking, investing and insuring
ness lies in the ability to lower cost and time
break down. This introduces heterogeneity
per transaction.
into formerly homogeneous strategic and
The pertinent question isn’t, “How much rev- operating environments. With more puzzle
enue can you show today?” The real question is, pieces of different shapes on the table,
“How much value did you create, for your cus- the task of putting them together in a way
tomer and yourself, per unit of time or cost?” that satisfies customers and benefits the
business is more demanding.
The mergers, the marketing, the growth-by-ac-
quisition mentality has in a sense overachieved 4. Figuring out how to provide more value
– with a little help from Greenspan and an per customer transaction, rather than how
anemic stock market. Now it’s time to focus on to acquire more transactions, leads to
pure operational excellence. market leadership. Getting your house in
order, and delivering superior transactions
and services, has as much or even more
Why to Focus on Operational potential for growing a business than a
Excellence: pure acquisitions or merger mindset.

What does all this mean? It means delighting
1. Interest rates are expected to rise, which
the customers you have may be more impor-
will have a dampening effect on the refi-
tant than finding new ones, who you lose later
nance market. With dropping demand and
because you don’t bring your strategies to bear
top-line growth in this area, lenders and
on their real needs, today, everyday, across the
servicing organizations will have much to
entire spectrum of what you do.
gain by streamlining operations, building
error-free capability and reducing costs.

2. Home ownership as a percentage of the
population is still on the rise, so demand
for new loans should remain strong. Efforts
to reclaim wasted time and cost in this



All of business is a relationship between a ingly do what banks and insurers do, insurers
“need” and a “do.” While sound strategy for- can fuse themselves with a bank or a brokerage
mulation takes care of identifying customer and house, and so on.
business needs, sound operational configura-
All the product lines are merging, and it is
tion takes care of “doing” in accordance with
becoming fashionable to be the do-all, end-all
defined and measured standards.
solution for everyone’s banking, investment and
In other words, financial services organizations insurance needs. A visionary mortgage company
better get busy figuring out how to become can see itself as a onestop- shop for portfolio
error-free when they handle the customer’s advice, checking, savings, car insurance, home-
money, process payments, send out bills, close owners insurance, health insurance, mortgages,
a loan, collect outstanding debts, answer the credit cards and debit cards.
phone – when they do anything in the context
Building the internal systems – the infrastruc-
of a business relationship.
ture – for making that vision possible is another
matter. There’s a few working parts that have
Where Strategy Meets Execution to be mashed together, some strategies to
align, some processes to merge and an intensive

In a healthy financial business, or loan servic- amount of linkage and coordination.

ing company, executives commit to critical Let’s bring it down to the level of a loan servic-
strategies and performance targets on a one- to ing organization, which has as much imperative
three-year horizon. “Formulating strategies as any to improve its operational capability
beyond five years is often folly,” says Meder, across a broad spectrum of functions. Servicing
“because the basic landscape of the financial organizations should be asking the same ques-
services industry is shifting dramatically.” tion their larger parent companies are asking:

Furthermore, the notion that long-term strat- how can I extract more business out of my cus-

egy can hold up in a volatile market is flawed. tomers and take care of them too by improving

A mindset of flexibility, not staunch adherence my operations?

to long-term goals, is the ticket for managing
the forward-looking plans of an enterprise as
circumstances change and as new data dictate.

What’s changing is that banks can increasingly
offer the same transactions as brokerages and
insurance companies, brokerages can increas-



The mantra is to increase value to and income Easier said than done. Remember the IBM com-
from existing customers, while raising the stan- mercial in which the boss says something close
dard of services provided. In short, we ensure to this: “This is a brilliant strategic plan…but is
customer retention through exceptional service it executable?”
with one hand, and we continue to refine our
It’s always easier to make the plan than to make
strategic intent with the other.
the plan happen. This is where Kanri comes in:
The Japanese have a phrase for the idea the systematic creation and control of change.
of strategy tied to execution. They call it Kanri is the way you manage and control the
“Hoshin Kanri.” Hoshin literally means “direc- processes of value creation.
tion needle,” as in a plan or course of action.
This is where strategy meets execution: in the
Kanri literally means “control reason,” as in the
way you do business, your “core processes.”
mechanistic management of change.
It’s the way you originate, the way you fulfill,
In plain English, if you want to improve your the way you close and the way you service that
business, you must systematize the way you matters. These are the value pipelines that flow
set, deploy and execute your strategies. Hoshin through and beyond the various functions and
Kanri is a system for translating critical strate- departments, the cost and profit centers, of the
gies into critical metrics. It then deploys those place you call “work.”
metrics throughout the hierarchy of the value
chain in a cascading, cause-and-effect way.
Business Process Management
Strategies are broken down into corporate
goals, which are broken down into business unit Business Process Management is a tool used by
objectives, down to the lowest level of mea- business leaders to derive clarity around how an
surement detail. As objectives are cascaded, organization’s core processes function, inter-
they are transformed into tactics and specific relate and interact with each other. While we
improvement projects at the lower levels. This all intuitively “know” how we do business, the
is how and where defects are actually elimi- reality is that we don’t. Whoever you are, and
nated and improvements are realized. wherever you work, you may think you know

This measurement system design is now what how your organization originates and closes

drives the entire organization. Performance tar- loans, but you have another thing coming.

gets are set, accountability for meeting targets
is established and everyone in the entire place
knows what they have to do: drive their process
to improve their metrics



Each individual in a value chain (process) has The goal is always the same: to get healthy. A
blind spots about how the process really works. Hoshin Kanri system provides the technology
When all the many people who work on the pro- for establishing a scientific basis of procedural
cess interact, their blind spots interact as well. health intervention. Business Process Manage-
This is why inefficiencies happen, why rework is ment is the machine used to diagnose where
done, why bottlenecks occur and why custom- the performance tumors are. Six Sigma and
ers aren’t always delighted with what you do for the like are the instruments used by expert
them. surgeons when performing the improvement
operation.
No one is necessarily a good or bad employee,
manager or executive by definition. But a Now we have the context and traction to trans-
company’s Business Process Management infra- late strategy into flawless, or at least healthy,
structure is good or bad by definition. Inasmuch execution. Business Process Management is the
as certain design methods inoculate a produc- nexus space between the brains of the strate-
tion line against variation (the root of all inef- gists and the hands of the executioners. In
ficiency and wasted cost), a Business Process medical terms, Business Process Management
Management system inoculates a loan servicing is the x-ray that tells the improvement surgeon
organization against variation, or poor quality, where to make the incisions.
in what it does.
Business Process Management connects strategy
Business Process Management leads us directly to execution in the most organized and action-
into facing who we are and, even more, how able manner possible. It is this connection that
we do business. It leads us into “mapping” our brings life and torque to an enterprise. The
processes – drawing them out on a wall or in a strategy without the execution is a pipe dream;
piece of software. It also drives us into collect- the execution without the strategy is a ship
ing valuable data about how process inputs are gone awry.
morphed into outputs through some “opera-
Most of us have been involved in schemes to
tional transfer function.”
“improve the way we do business” at least once
Remember that Hoshin Kanri is the direction in our careers and probably more than once.
and dashboard by which a loan servicing com-
pany can fruitfully, and scientifically, engage
in making itself better and more profitable.
The causally broken down metrics create a
dashboard of blinking lights by which the reds,
yellows and greens are all the time, on and off,
depending on how well critical processes are
meeting their objectives.



How many times has your involvement, regard- Your Strategic Partner
less of how high or low you were in the organi-
zation, been clearly delineated and understood? Six Sigma Qualtec is a premier provider of
How much ambiguity has accompanied former process management and performance improve-
attempts to improve your scope of operational ment consulting, training, and technology solu-
control? tions that drive breakthrough growth, produc-

Hoshin Kanri and Business Process Management tivity and value for our clients.

create the foundation for intelligently moving in We are unique in our ability to customize the
and out of a process battlefield with your SWAT integration of management disciplines to meet
teams – your Six Sigma black belt or green belt the industry-specific requirements of global
projects, your quality improvement specialists, leaders in financial services, natural resources,
your process engineers. manufacturing, process and service industries.

It’s not a haywire system of training a bunch Six Sigma Qualtec
of people and turning everyone loose on any 821 Alexander Road, Suite 130
projects or opportunities they can find. Real Princeton, NJ 08540 • USA
operational excellence grows up from only one (800) 247-9871 or (609) 925-9458
thing: taking the pie-in-asky vision of what a info@ssqi.com www.ssqi.com
business wants to be and shaping it into some-
thing actionable. Six Sigma Qualtec
1295 W. Washington Street, Suite 208
Business eventually and always comes full circle Tempe, AZ 85281 • USA
from strategies set to actions taken, and around (800) 247-9871 or (480) 586-2600
again. Anything you can do to make this cycle info@ssqi.com www.ssqi.com
tighter, faster and better will yield greater con-
trol power (Kanri) in keeping the company on Six Sigma Qualtec
course (Hoshin). P.O. Box 2959
Kenilworth
“It’s such a bold step to actually try and get CV8 1XR
140,000 people aligned from the top of the United Kingdom
organization to the bottom in all the businesses +44 (0) 1926 859555
we are in,” says Bank of America’s Meder. info@ssqi.co.uk www.ssqi.co.uk
“When complete, it will create an impetus I
don’t think will be stopped.”


Six Sigma Qualtec Six Sigma Qualtec Six Sigma Qualtec
821 Alexander Road 1295 W. Washington Street P.O. Box 2959
Suite 130 Suite 208 Kenilworth
Princeton, NJ 08540 • USA Tempe, AZ 85281 • USA CV8 1XR
toll free (800) 247-9871 toll free (800) 247-9871 United Kingdom
phone (609) 925-9458 phone (480) 586-2600 tel +44 (0) 1926 859555
fax (609) 419-9855 fax (480) 586-2586 fax +44 (0) 8701 400023
email info@ssqi.com email info@ssqi.com email info@ssqi.co.uk
website www.ssqi.com website www.ssqi.com website www.ssqi.co.uk

Copyright 2007. Six Sigma Qualtec. All rights reserved.

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