In Shakespeare’s famous play, Juliet tells Romeo that a name is an artificial and meaningless convention:
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”
This encapsulates the central struggle and tragedy of the play, and is one of Shakespeare’s most famous quotes. What’s more, it’s inspired me to think about all the names organisations use for their improvement programmes. These include, for example, Lean; Six Sigma; Lean Six Sigma; Operational Excellence; Continuous Improvement or Kaizen.
If you’re serious about improving performance, then however you package and label your approach, you’ll almost certainly be using a selection of Lean and Six Sigma concepts, tools and techniques to help you achieve success. So, please don’t worry too much about what you call your programme, choose something that works for you.
As you can see, dipping into Shakespeare has also inspired me to take poetic licence with Lean Six Sigma! I’m sure you can do better, perhaps producing a rhyming elevator speech for your improvement programme. Please send your ‘entries’ to me at jam@catalystconsulting.co.uk there will be a small prize for the best entry, a copy of ‘Lean Six Sigma For Dummies’.
Meanwhile, here’s my effort:
Poetic licence with Lean Six Sigma
If you jump to conclusions,
You could cause confusion;
The solutions you choose,
May be wrong.
So manage by fact,
Don’t simply react,
Or the problems you face
Are prolonged.
There are tools to help
Find the root cause
Or highlight
Where there’s waste.
Make your processes flow
And the bottlenecks go
So it’s more
To your customers’ taste.
Lean Six Sigma’s the way
To improve every day
And enhance the way
Things are done.
Engage your staff
Don’t do things by half
You’ll find improvement
Is fun!
So follow DMAIC
Or results could be tragic
You’ll waste precious time
And resource
Use six sigma with lean
Not sure
What I mean?
Then book on our very next course.
So, we have a little competition for budding bards – please let me have your entries by 28th February.
