Archive for DMAIC
Why you should use Kanban in Marketing?
Posted by: | CommentsKanban is any signaling device that gives authorization for a supplying process to know what to produce, or for a material handler to know what items to replenish. For example: a physical paper card placed in a container of parts. When stored items are actually used, the Kanban card gets “freed” (perhaps it was in the bottom of the container), and gets put back into a Kanban stand where the Kanban “requests” are fulfilled. 
Kanban is a way of limiting work in process and the amount of new work that is introduced into the process. As a result, work would be pulled from the previous stage as work is completed and levels demand. It emphasizes throughput rather than numbers. If you have read my previous posts, you would recognize the emphasis I put on throughput and the need for this to be monitored in the sales and marketing process.
The Reasons for a Kanban can be summed up in these previous posts:
Improve your Marketing Cycle, Increase your Revenue : Speed is important in the buying process. Your total cycle time can be improved. However, it seldom can be done without more feedback loops in your system. Develop process blitzes to reduce these non-value times. Go to Gemba or the customer’s place of work and find out what happens during this time. See what is stopping them from moving forward. It may be an internal constraint within their company. However, the constraint may be yours. You may not be responding to the customer’s latest needs. Your ability to focus your resources on the customer needs may provide the overall clarity he needs this to make a more rapid decision.
Improve throughput, cut your customers in half!: In a manufacturing system cutting WIP just about always will increase throughput. Why? You end up working only on what is needed and when it is needed. You also will have less waste, less material to handle and fewer mistakes. Good things happen when you are not handling excessive amount of material. In a marketing system cutting the amount of customers in half works very much the same way. You end up working on what a customer truly needs and wants. Your marketing will become more personal, more direct, and fewer mistakes.
Using the Six Sigma Tollgate in your Marketing Funnel: Have you thought of using DMAIC as a way of defining your marketing funnel? We looked at Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control and utilized these basic principles to walk a customer through the marketing funnel. In other posts, I discussed the ability to create a shorter cycle time by decreasing the non-value time in between each of these stages. One of the methods of doing this is to have a strong call to action for a prospect to move from one stage to the next. However, how do you know if a customer is ready to move from one stage to the next?
What kind of questions would you ask at a tollgate?: In a recent post, using the Six Sigma Tollgate in your Marketing Funnel I went through the concept of using a tollgate in your marketing funnel. Below is a list of questions that might help general a few ideas that you may want to consider. (Review Post)
The essential points needed in a Kanban system are:
- Stock points
- Replenishment Signal
- Quick Feedback
- Frequent Replenishment
If you would consider the typical marketing cycle as a prospect moves from one stage to another, you imagine it as step by step process and certain events taking place within that stage. With a Kanban method or a tollgate you could have certain trigger points for each stage or even a phase within that stage allowing one marketing effort to pull from the previous. The method would also limit the number of prospects within that cycle so that the proper amount could be managed or more importantly satisfied! Or, you could have an unlimited supply of leads flowing into each stage? You probably wish you had the latter. However, which would prove more effective?
Photo Courtesy of Systems2win.
A Simple Exercise to Differentiate Yourself
Posted by: | CommentsEveryone tells you to differentiate but are you comfortable that you are different enough. A tool that I use to make a strong impact on a client is one that is from the book, The Chasm Companion: A Field Guide to Crossing the Chasm and Inside the Tornado (Revised)
The benefit your service/product is to the user:
A. Provide Modest Enhancements
B. Add substantial value
C. Gives dramatic productivity gains.
D. Changes the competitive field
The pain of obtaining the benefit to the user:
4. Significant reengineering, new systems
3. Major changes to existing systems
2. Modest changes to existing systems
1. Integrates with existing systems
When completing this of course the more opinion and arguments the better. You will have to create a consensus, however and a decision reached. Sometimes positioning the competitor’s products/service around yours can assist. Are more changes required, do they add less or more value? If you end up at square A4, no Gain with a lot of pain, you can probably throw the product/service away. It simply will not work. In fact A2 and A3 should probably cause the same reaction. The truth to the matter is that unless you are doing a startup, you probably end up in the twilight zone. The problem being in the twilight zone, according to author Geoffrey Moore is that these offerings will cause little market movement. In other words, they are not COMPELLING. The other areas follow this pattern:
- D4, you are in an early market category.
- D2/D3 is about market segmentation and making the pain a favorable trade-off to that group.
- C1/D1 means that your product can move to widespread adoption and you are ready for that transition.
- A1, B1 is being accepted in your target market and an easy solution.
This description is a take-off from the book but to fully understand you have to read the Crossing the Chasm
. It is a must read and still today it is one of most cited books in the innovation area. I have bought the book around 5 times. I keep giving it away.
However, the point to this entire exercise for me is differentiation relative to the gain and pain of the customer. It is an exercise that enables you to look at your product/service more objectively from your customer’s eyes. Are you really that different if all you are doing is complicating their life without making a significant gain? Another item it addresses is your market segmentation. Are you targeting a customer that your product/service causes little pain? If you are in the twilight zone, where are you headed? What will it take to move you to the outer perimeter? It is a simple answer make yourself more valuable by making the gain greater or the pain less!
Related Posts:
Evaluating your Marketing Funnel, Only Seven Levers matter
Bringing your Storyboard Alive!
Posted by: | CommentsYour storyboard should not be a a dry report but an active document that truly makes your project come alive! Storyboarding has become a popular way of transferring the details of a Six Sigma project to a graphical representation. Very much like your child’s fifth grade science fair project. The purpose of course it gives the Six Sigma team a way to summarize their efforts and let other people outside of the team understand their efforts. On the Lean side, I think that is why A3 reporting has become so popular. It is a graphical way of displaying the project. Though we are all not visual learners the majority of us find learning by stories and pictures and diagram much easier. 
“The first storyboards were originated in the Disney animation studios in the 1930’s. According to Walt Disney, the storyboard was invented by Web Smith, an animator and one the first story men at the studio. When Web planned a story, he would draw it instead of describing the action in words. At first he simply spread the drawings out over the floor of his office, but soon graduated to pinning them in order on to the walls. In this way, the unfolding story gains the valuable visual dimension. According to legend, Walt was none too happy with the innovation. He had just redecorated the offices and the marred walls in Webb’s office stuck out like a sore thumb. But Walt also recognized the order imposed by the posted drawings and the ease with which the entire feature could be analyzed and manipulated. So he ordered 4′ x 8′ corkboards and the storyboard was born.
Soon, every Disney cartoon for so life on the storyboard, and the board themselves moved to new departments as the project progressed. The story men would pitch their ideas to Walt on storyboard, color and sound were both added using the storyboard as reference point, etc. When Walt hijacked the studios innovators to design the attractions for Disney land, they brought the storyboard along with them. And today, it has evolved into a standard technique among the Imagineers.”
I think there should be a happy medium somewhere between the Disney storyboard and the Six Sigma storyboard. However, if you error, error toward the Disney side.
As many of you already know, the PowerPoint presentation was developed by engineers for exactly the same reason that most develop a Six Sigma storyboard, to tell the story of a project. However, the main purpose of a storyboard is to tell others outside of the team the story and maybe more importantly to depict to others what is going on inside the project as it is unfolding. Try hanging your Storyboards in the hallway or cafeteria much like the trophy cases in a school. You may be surprised on the amount of activity and comments that it may stimulate. Ask for comments by putting a suggestion box or post it notes next to the storyboard. Get people engaged in the planning process not just at the end.
You may create the typical PowerPoint utilizing SIPOC, VOC, House of Quality and other Six Sigma or Lean Tools. If you are on the team ask yourself, how will you get others engaged? Consider your audience, the storyboard is not about you it is about them. Take a lesson from Disney or even have your fifth grader help you on this project. For example, using a DMAIC process, below are some simple guidelines on how to develop an entertaining storyboard.
Define the problem: What is the first thing you learned in 5th grade about writing a story? You have to have a hook! Appeal to the emotions of your audience!
Measure: Your metrics must clearly define the problem and visually display it. Do not limit yourself here to simple metrics; maybe pin the defect on the wall or the cause. If a failure causes a catastrophic condition, display visually what that means.
Analyze: Create some drama in analyzing the problem. A typical process here would be identifying the vital few metrics that are important. Create some drama in finding the root cause. Think about how if you don’t find the real problem what may happen.
Implement: We have taken the story to the critical stage, there has to be a solution. This is where everyone wants to jump in and help. We are all problem solvers but are we all MacGyver’s? We have to find the best answer that addresses root cause and is measurable. Who will be the Hero?
Control: Now, is the time of the story that the problem is solved and life goes on happily ever after. Can you depict that in your storyboard? Can you show and prove the results that prove this? Did you reach the other side of the rainbow?
Creating a compelling presentation that depicts the story accurately and allows others outside the team to participate is extremely important. Remember, your storyboard should not be a report but an active document that truly makes your project come alive!
Related Information:
Be Our Guest: Perfecting the Art of Customer Service
The Six Sigma Way Team Fieldbook: An Implementation Guide for Process Improvement Teams
Related Posts:
The Disney Way
Using DMAIC for your A3 Report in the Lean Marketing House
Lean Six Sigma Storyboard
