What is the Role of top management in Lean Six Sigma Implementation?
The role of top management in Lean Six Sigma implementation is critical to the success of the initiative. For this reason the top management are called as the implementation leaders. The key roles and responsibilities of top management in Lean Six Sigma include.
- Ensuring alignment with business strategy: Top management must ensure that the Lean Six Sigma initiative is aligned with the organization's business strategy. This includes defining the key performance indicators (KPIs) that are critical to the success of the initiative, and monitoring progress towards achieving these KPIs.
- Leadership and commitment: Top management needs to provide leadership and demonstrate commitment to the initiative. This includes setting the vision, direction, and goals for the initiative, and communicating them to the rest of the organization.
Top management should also demonstrate their commitment by identifying the relevant lean six sigma projects where improvements are needed, providing opportunities for employees to get trained for lean six sigma implementation, forming the cross-functional teams to implement changes in processes and providing resources as also timely-decisions before the changes are implemented. Top management’s participation in regular project-reviews with the lean six sigma teams ensures that they focus on the right actions for improvement and road-blocks (if any) are addressed without delay.
- Creating a culture of continuous improvement: Top management should enable a culture of continuous improvement by promoting a mind-set of learning, experimentation, and innovation. This involves encouraging employees to identify and solve problems, and providing them with the necessary tools & training, funding, manpower and technology for data collection, analysis and reporting.
- Supporting change management: Top management needs to support change management by ensuring that the necessary organizational changes are made to support the Lean Six Sigma initiative. This includes changes to processes, systems, structures, as also changes in the culture and mind-set of the employees.
- Encourage Employee Participation: Top management must encourage employee participation in the Lean Six Sigma initiative by creating a culture of inclusion and empowering employees to take ownership of their work and participating in the improvement efforts with a focus on finding creative solutions.
- Establishing accountability: Top management should also establish accountability for Lean Six Sigma by setting clear expectations for performance and results, and holding people accountable for meeting those expectations. This includes establishing “performance metrics” conducting regular reviews, and rewarding & recognizing those who achieve the expected results.
By G.K.K. Singh – LSS Guru (Alumnus IITB- IIMC)
Director – Asian Institute of Quality Management