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MBA1 Project Management Assignment 2 MBA Module I Xiangyu Kong, S15 Cohort HAMLINE UNIVERSITY Mar. 25, 2010 School of Business MBA Module I 1. “Lean” and “Six Sigma” readings ? What are the key themes/approaches of Lean and six Sigma, how are they different and how do they each add value? Lean manufacturing satisfies the requirements of customs as possible as they can. It regards the final requirement of customer as basis and emphasizes the balanced flow in order to reduce the flow circle.
It also requests the elimination of all the waste happened during the production link as well as the routing optimization. In addition, Lean treats their employees as the most important resource of the corporate; for instance, it pays much attention to the employees’ involvement, proficient skill, group morale and advanced thinking model. On the other hand, Lean prefers practicing than analyzing so that it sometimes cannot make a scientific and efficient decision. In other words, Lean’s settlements are prone to be so quick and subjective that it cannot use professional quantitative methods and keep the process balanced.
Six Sigma pays close attention to the customers’ requirements especially all the aspects which effect customers’ satisfactions. In addition, it is highly dependent on the statistical data so that the decision maker and manager easily find the central problem from the statistical material. Moreover, Six Sigma extremely concentrates on the improvements of the operation flow, which means it puts the points on the underlying cause of the product defects because the quality of the product relies on the perfection of the flow rather than the final examination of the product.
At last, Six Sigma has the concrete DMAIC process which needs to be balanced and improved continually in order to maintain the stably increased benefits. There are many differences between Lean and Six Sigma. Such as the goal, the approaches, the circle time, the organizational structure, the emphasis, the training method and so on. For instance, first of all, the goal of Lean is to eliminate all waste and reduce the circle time of the flow, while the goal of Six Sigma is to improve the quality of the process and reduce the undulation.
In addition, the approach of Lean is more practices and the approach of Six Sigma is DMAIC model. Furthermore, Lean’s emphasis is behavior but Six Sigma’s emphasis is analysis. ? How might Lean and Six Sigma be complimentary? How might Lean and Six Sigma be seen to be in conflict? As far as I am concerned, Six Sigma provides the strategic direction for Lean’s continuing improvements. Lean emphasizes the efficient and excellent improvement of process and so does Six Sigma.
Moreover, Six Sigma finally intends to improve everyone’s behavioral styles so as to create company’s culture of Lean with sustainable development and autoadoption, which is also the inner drive of the continuing improvement of Lean. Lean and Six Sigma both point up the supremacy of customers and process. The integration of Lean and Six Sigma are necessary because Six Sigma lacks of integral systematic Optimizing Capabilities while Lean lacks of the normativity and efficiency of some complicated problems, which means Lean needs to retort to the specialist to directly resolve the problem.
Therefore, Six Sigma’s DMAIC project methodology can not only provide the strong operative solutions and tools for the complex problems of Lean but also adopt value flow analysis for the elimination of all the waste in process. The integration of Lean and Six Sigma is really helpful and significant. However, just like what I said before, there are several differences between Lean and Six Sigma, which means they may conflict with each other sometimes.
For example, Lean has a relatively high requirement to the basic managerial standard of a corporate but Six Sigma can be applied in most kinds of the companies with different standards. Therefore, there probably will be conflict in the company which wants to apply Lean and Six Sigma. In addition, the goal of Lean is to eliminate all waste and reduce the circle time of the flow, while the goal of Six Sigma is to improve the quality of the process and reduce the undulation. Also, lean pays much attention to the behavioral practice and Six Sigma focuses on the professional and scientific analysis.
Furthermore, they have different perceptions for the financial effects. Objectively, Lean may contribute relatively less to the finance because the effects of Lean on the company’s financial environment do not usually go through the scientific analysis and layout. On the other hand, one noticeable characteristic of Six Sigma is picking the right program that brings the company more and more benefits. Nevertheless, the applications of Lean and Six Sigma are less efficient in China, which is my homeland.
Due to the cultural differences between Western and China, there are not too many companies try to use Lean and Six Sigma. The disparities of managerial foundation, attention degree and resource input between western and China result in the poor condition of the companies especially the small medium company with limited funds and talents. I consider that perhaps the effective integration of Lean of Six Sigma will work better for SME in China owing to their theoretical features. 2. “Organizational Change Management and Projects” reading ?
What is Change Management and why is it important? Change Management refers to the organizational change strategy which improves and adjusts the internal level, workflow and company’s culture when languid organizational growth and inner bad problems happen. It leads the transition during this period of time. There are three basic definitions of Change Management: 1. the categories of Change Management. 2. An area of professional practice. 3. A body of knowledge. Corporate always need to face to the changeable market.
Market includes customers, supplier, skill, investor and so many factors, of which may transfer to the requirement for the change management, however, whether well handled the changes especially the significant changes will be the key to the company’s success in the market competition. Meanwhile, the high rate of project failures is also one of the causes. There are many companies can not meet their business objectives because of the fundamental flaws in project planning and inefficient change managerial methods, whereas these failures can be prevented with good practices in Change Management.
Therefore, Change Management is needed so much by the present situation. ? What are the objectives of Change Management strategy? What are the different stages of Change Management within a project? The objectives of Change Management Strategy includes building commitment to the system, selling the benefits of the system, managing user expectations and information needs, providing information on available support and resources, providing information about the system to impacted audiences and obtain their input, educing uncertainty and fear of new technology and processes, developing a framework to coordinate all communication efforts, ensuring that consistent messages are delivered to stakeholders at all levels and that decisions ,events and activities are communicated in a timely manner, making communications an integral part of the project team’s daily activities and preparing employees to communicate project information to line leaders. There are five stages of change management within a program.
They are awareness, understanding & buy-in, support, commitment & action, advocacy & ownership. It is quite important to deal with them in the project plans in time. 3. “Big Buy Mobile – Project Simulation Case Study” reading ? How does PM, LSS and CM Theory & Methodology apply to the Big Buy Mobile simulation case study? Project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service or result. It belongs to the project in this case because it created a unique product, service or result temporarily.
The project manager focused on the influencing constraints of the specific project. He knew if any one factor changed, at least one other factor was likely to be affected. The project management plan was iterative and went through progressive elaboration throughout the project’s life cycle because of the potential for change. In addition, the project manager clearly knew his role as being assigned by the performing organization to achieve the project objectives.
They also demonstrated the Project Life Cycle which includes starting the project, organizing and preparing the project work. Moreover, the project manager put themselves to the corresponding project management processes in this project. For instance, they set them to the beginning of the project and tried to move to executing process group, monitoring and controlling process group and closing process group. In this case, we can also notice that the program management applied a lot of knowledge from Lean and Six Sigma.
First of all, he tried to fix the customer service first in order to enhance the degree of customers’ satisfactions. Moreover, he tried to reduce the cycle time and eliminate all the waste happened during the production link as well as the routing optimization. Secondly, the project charter showed that they used leverage relevant best practices to accomplish goals. The quality of the product and service and undulation would be improved significantly by Lean and Six Sigma.
Furthermore, I found that they used a definite data analysis for doing this investigation so that they could well understand the process of the project. We can notice that there are a lot of problems that we can apply CM Theory & Methodology to solve, such as the personality problems and some conflicts that exist between departments, the communication trust crisis, the changeable roles and responsibilities and aggravated customer service. All of the signs indicate the necessity of Change Management. As the Project Manager, how are you thinking about next steps? How will you set up your project for success? As far as I am concerned, I will integrate Lean and Six Sigma and put them to this project. As we know, Lean and six sigma should be used together so as to have the most effect in the bottom line of a business. For this case, by combining resources and integrating programs, more can be accomplished with less expenditure of time and money.
In this way, the underlying cause of the problem is less likely to be ignored, and long-term, continuing resolving can be logically applied and progress measured. In addition, if you just reduce waste you probably do not have the chance to get to the underlying cause, and if you just do Six Sigma, you probably can not maximize the full potential of the organization. Therefore, we need the integration of Lean and Six Sigma in terms of the present situation of the company.
On the other hand, the operation of the concrete and actual integration of Lean and Six Sigma must meet the requirements of stakeholders’ benefits, the five phases’ cycle time improvements. I consider the critical elements for my project’s success will be the People-Oriented idea. There is no doubt that I will treat my employees as the most important resource of the corporate; for instance, I will pay much attention to the employees’ involvement, proficient skill, group morale and advanced thinking model in order to firm the foundation of the company’s progress.
Furthermore, since customer and process are the extremely important parts of both Lean and Six Sigma, I will commit to establish a long-term strategic partner relationship with all clients we have served and concern more about the demands of our clients. In my opinion, what our clients have felt is not only the value of solutions, but also the value of the exemplary effect throughout the entire process when the company has transmitted to the enterprises affluent management tools and unsparing spirits and professionalism.
Reference 1. http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Lean_manufacturing#Overview 2. http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Six_Sigma#Historical_overview 3. http://baike. baidu. com/view/113003. htm? fr=ala0_1_1 4. Do you apply Six Sigma today? Xuehong Wang, 2008, Beifang Press, P256-257 5. http://marketingamt. banzhu. net/article/marketingamt-1-766231. html 6. Organizational Change Management and Projects, Jennifer Graham, JG consulting services Inc. 7. http://www. hkfundcom. com/bbs/Default. asp