Six Sigma | Chapter 3 - Setting Up A Project Flashcards
What are the important concepts for the Six Sigma Green Belt when managing Team Dynamics? (Hint - 7)
- Initiating teams
- Stages of team evolution
- Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
- Herzberg’s theory of motivators and hygiene factors
- Handling conflicts and conflict intensity
- Management / Leadership styles
- Roles played by people in a project
What are 9 types of project management and planning tools?
- Brainstorming
- Nominal Group Technique (NGT)
- Force Field Analysis
- Multivoting
- PERT/CPM
- Network Analysis
- Crashing
- Affinity Diagram
- PDPC chart
The project charter is the document issued by who?
The project initiator OR sponsor
What does a project charter need to include?
- The business need that the project was undertaken to address
- The project description
Why is a project charter used?
The project charter is used to formally authorizes the existence of a project and provides the project manager with the authority to apply organizational resources to project activities.
Creation of the project charter from a Six Sigma project perspective includes several issues that need to be discussed and negotiated by relevant stakeholders. Some important issues which need to be negotiated include what?
- Objectives : Quantifiable criteria that must be met for the project to be considered successful
- Scope: This is a measure of the work required to complete the project successfully.
- Boundaries: Project boundary states explicitly what is in scope and what is out of scope of the project
- Resources: While creating the project charter, critical resources (including people and funding required) are negotiated to ensure that appropriate resources are available.
- Project closure activities
- Project transition activities
What are the 3 elements of initiating teams?
- Clear purpose and goals
- Roles and responsibilities
- Management support and team empowerment
What are the 6 stages of team evolution? (Hint: Lots of rhyming)
- Forming : Team members begin to know each other and their reason for being together. Usually, there is confusion around roles and responsibilities. This stage includes avoidance of conflict as team members get to know each other.
- Storming: As team members get to know each other, there is growing awareness of hidden agendas and if goals are not well defined, conflict may occur. Although there is conflict, typically there is advancement in task functions and roles.
- Norming: Individual needs for getting tasks done leads to resolution of conflicts and a desire for cooperation. This stage is marked by harmonious cohesiveness as team members engage in free flow of information, ideas and constructive feedback.
- Performing: During this stage, the team becomes truly collaborative. All team members share similar objectives and work towards the successful implementation of the project. There is a feeling of satisfaction and fulfillment as objectives are achieved.
- Adjourning: Either after completion of tasks or changes team members leave for other tasks, or new members are hired. There may be discontent with doing the same repetitive tasks, and unless the group is consciously redeveloped, it will regress to Forming / Storming stages.
- Recognition: This stage is towards the end of the project, where objectives are achieved and the project team and its members get recognition for their performance.
T/F | The stages of team evolution are in the following order: forming, norming, storming, performing, adjourning, recognition.
FALSE. Stages are forming, STORMING, norming, performing, adjourning, recognition. its FSNPAR
How many stages are in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs? What are they?
5 Stages:
- Physiological
- Safety
- Social
- Esteem
- Self-Actualization
What are examples of hygiene factors in Herzbergs Theory?
- Company Policy
- Supervision
- Interpersonal Relations
- Working Conditions
- Salary
What was the two-dimensional paradigm in Herzbergs Theory?
The absence of hygiene factors could create job DISSATISFACTION, but their presence did not motivate or create SATISFACTION.
What are examples of motivators in Herzbergs Theory?
- Achievement
- Recognition
- The Work Itself
- Responsibility
- Advancement
T/F | Hygiene factors are “satisfiers” and motivators are “dissatisfiers” in Herzbergs Theory.
FALSE.
Motivators = Satisfier & Hygiene = Dissatisfier
In Herzbergs Theory, satisfiers and dissatisfiers relate to which of the following: tasks performed or the context/environment the tasks are performed.
Satisfiers relate to the tasks being performed. Dissatisfiers, on the other hand, relate to the context or environment in which the task is being performed.
(The satisfiers related to what a person did while the dissatisfiers related to the situation in which the person performed his tasks).
Blake and Mouton have delineated how many modes for handling conflicts? What are they?
- Withdrawal: retreating or withdrawing from a potential disagreement.
- Smoothing: de-emphasizing or avoiding areas of difference and emphasizing areas of agreement.
- Compromising: bargaining and searching for solutions that bring some degree of satisfaction to the parties in a dispute. Characterized by a “give and take” attitude.
- Forcing: exerting one’s viewpoint at the expense of another. Often characterized by competitiveness and a win-lose situation.
- Confrontation: facing the conflict directly, which involves a problem- solving approach, whereby affected parties work out their disagreements.
What are common issues that create conflicts in project teams?
- Schedules
- Priorities
- Manpower
- Technical issues
- Administration
- Personality conflict
- Cost
Reorder these from most to least conflict creating intensity in project teams:
- Technical issues
- Cost
- Manpower
- Schedules
- Administration
- Priorities
- Personality conflict
- Schedules
- Priorities
- Manpower
- Technical issues
- Administration
- Personality conflict
- Cost
What are factors that influence the type of management or leadership style for a team?
Selecting the appropriate leadership style should be determine by factors such as team composition and team objectives.
How many management/leadership styles are there? What are they?
- Autocratic (manager makes decisions himself - allows subordinates little involvement and discussion before a decision is made)
- Laissez faire (manager does not interfere with subordinates - so subordinates are largely unsupervised; may lead to anarchy)
- Democratic (manager allows subordinates to discuss issues and reach decisions although he will guide and advise)
- Discussing (two-way communication and discussion between manager and subordinates)
- Directing (managers tell people what tasks will be performed and when and how they will be done)
- Delegating
- Coaching (providing instruction to others)
- Facilitating (coordinating inputs from several sources before taking a decision)
- Participatory
- Supportive
- Task-oriented
- Team-based
- Assertive
What are the two types of roles played by people in a project?
People can either fill constructive or destructive roles in a project.
When brainstorming what is the validation method?
Methods such as multi-voting are used to validate and rank the ideas generated.
What is NGT?
Nominal Group Technique
Who developed NGT?
Delbecq, Van de Ven, and Gustafson in 1971
What technique facilitates decision-making and organizational planning where creative solutions are sought. It is usually carried out early on in a Six Sigma project to get feedback and buy-in from team members about creative ideas in the team.
Nominal Group Technique (NGT)
NGT is used as a idea generating technique to accomplish what?
Prioritizing issues.
What is the general procedure in NGT?
1st. Generating Ideas: All the members of the team are asked to generate ideas and write them down without consulting others.
2nd. Recording Ideas: The inputs from all members are publicly displayed and each person is asked to provide more clarification about their feedback in a round-robin feedback session.
3rd. Discussing Ideas: Each recorded idea is then discussed to obtain clarification and evaluation. This is usually a repetitive process.
4th. Voting on Ideas: Individuals vote privately on the priority of ideas, and a group decision is made based on these ratings.
What are some of the benefits of NGT?
- Balances participation across members - reduces bias and conforming influence created in traditional interacting groups.
- Encourages participants to confront issues on a problem-solving basis rather than on a personal assault basis.
- Leads to a greater sense of accomplishment for all participants and more creative solutions.
Who developed Force Field Analysis?
Kurt Lewin
FFA can be used as an idea generating technique to accomplish what?
Can be used for getting alignment on all facets of a desired change. Since Six Sigma involves changes in the organization, force field analysis helps in effectively managing such changes.
What are the two forces for every proposed change in FFA?
There are both Driving Forces and Restraining Forces for every proposed change.
What are driving forces in force field analysis?
Driving forces: Driving forces tend to initiate a change and keep it going. This could include actions, skills, equipment, procedures, culture, people, etc. e.g. for a technical project, increased productivity, lowering of costs and decreased cycle time may be the driving forces.
What are restraining forces in force field analysis?
Restraining forces: Restraining forces tend to restrain or decrease the driving forces e.g. for a technical project, need for additional funding, training, and potential loss of jobs may be some restraining forces.
What is the objective of force field analysis?
The objective of force field analysis is to clearly identify the driving forces and restraining forces. Thereby we can try to maximize the driving forces for the changes and minimize the restraining forces.
Multi-voting is used as an idea generating technique to accomplish what?
Multivoting helps the group to narrow down the list of options which can be taken up for serious consideration or further study
What is the multi-voting process?
- Count the number of options and divide by 3 - this gives the number of potential votes per team member.
- Each of the team members is asked to vote on the list of options. They can spread their vote across the options depending on how important they think the solution to be. They can assign more than one vote to a particular option if they so desire.
- After getting votes from each individual member, all the votes are grouped and counted. The options which get the highest number of votes are taken up for further study.
PERT is used as a project planning tool to accomplish what?
Creating activity estimates when there is uncertainty with the individual activity estimates. PERT gives us an idea of what task/project should be done, then we decide sequencing from there.
What does PERT stand for?
Program Evaluation and Review Technique
What are the two types of PERT calculations?
- PERT calculation for a single task
- PERT calculation for more than one task*”
- Example, for a project in which all tasks lie on the critical path
What is the PERT calculation for one task, specifically the PERT Value?
(pessimistic + (4 * most likely) + optimistic) / 6
What is the PERT calculation for one task, specifically the Standard Deviation (Sigma)
(pessimistic - optimistic ) / 6
What is the PERT calculation for one task, specifically the Variance?
(Standard Deviation) ^ 2
What is the PERT calculation for more than one task, specifically the PERT Value?
Sum of PERT values of individual tasks
What is the PERT calculation for more than one task, specifically the Standard Deviation?
The square root of (sum of variances of all tasks)
