Week #2: Teams and Faciliation

Question 1

How many people do Six Sigma teams generally include?

Answer 1

5-8 people.

Question 2

What are the benefits of teams?

Answer 2

• A team is a group that comes together to achieve a common goal
- Each team member fills a unique role

• The best teams are cross-functional
- They include people from inside and outside the focus area

Benefits of teams include:

• The ability to achieve an outcome not attainable by any one individual member

• TEAM – together everyone achieves more
• The whole is greater than the sum of the parts
• Alignment towards a common goal allows us to understand how we all win together

• Increased respect for one another as we get to know each other as people, not just colleagues
• Greater trust as we begin to understand our teammates’ intent and capabilities
- As trust builds, we begin to unleash the potential of the team

Question 3

What is the primary rule of teams in Six Sigma?

Answer 3

To ensure we have cross-functional involvement and buy-in.

Question 4

How do you ensure that the team has cross-functional involvement and buy-in?

Answer 4

• Consider the impact of team decisions on the functional area and the system as a whole
- Don’t sub-optimize the whole by optimizing the part

• Involve people from multiple areas of the organization
- Additional input and voices in the conversation leads to better consensus

• More involvement and better agreement results in more buy-in to those solutions because of people participated in making them

Question 5

What types of series of inputs do teams make decisions on?

Answer 5

• Observation
• Data collection
• Brainstorming
• Application of statistical techniques

All of these lead to sustainable outcomes, and it’s important to recognize when to use each one.

Question 6

What is an expert facilitator?

Answer 6

• Helps the team recognize if a subject matter expert or other important voice is needed
- Reaches out to the right people to expand the conversation

• Helps establish the ground rules

• Healthy boundaries to operate within as a team
• If there is conflict, the team can fall back on the ground rules to work through it

• Intentionally works the team into and through any conflict

• An expert facilitator trusts the process, even though they don’t necessarily know what the
  outcome will be
• Uses tension as part of the creative process of coming up with solutions

• Takes time each meeting for everybody to get to know one another as people, not just as colleagues
- Example: good news check-in