Vishwadeep Khatri

Description - Bench happily highlights that while planning his career, he had considered the choice between being a Generalist or a Specialist early in his life. Mark wants to know about the decision that he took. Bench says that he decided to keep options open for himself and proclaims himself as a "very general Generalist". After listening to Bench, Mark says that he has realized that he has taken a path different from the two options. He considers himself as a "specialized Generalist" or what can be considered as a "generalized Specialist". Bench want to understand what this means. Mark explains that he is a Business Excellence Master Black Belt. He calls himself a generalized Specialist as he specializes in problem solving which he can do in any sector. He further explains that he could be considered a generalist too as he can work with large variety of processes but in a specialized way. This cartoon depicts that Lean Six Sigma and Business Excellence competencies allows one to be specialized without dependence on a specific industry or functional domain.

Both Natwar Lal and Jayaram T have provided key aspects to be planned ahead of Toll Gate Reviews to ensure effectiveness. Both Natwar Lal and Jayaram T are winners for this question. Visitors should go through expert response by Venugopal as well.

Q. 205 Let us consider a situation where drawing/testing large number of samples is disadvantageous and the Lean Six Sigma analyst has decided to use limited samples. What are the precautions that the analyst should take so as to limit biased and unbiased sampling errors ? Explain with suitable examples. Note for website visitors - Two questions are asked every week on this platform. One on Tuesday and the other on Friday. All questions so far can be seen here - https://www.benchmarksixsigma.com/forum/lean-six-sigma-business-excellence-questions/ Please visit the forum home page at https://www.benchmarksixsigma.com/forum/ to respond to the latest question open till the next Tuesday/ Friday evening 5 PM as per Indian Standard Time. The best answer is always shown at the top among responses and the author finds honorable mention in our Business Excellence dictionary at https://www.benchmarksixsigma.com/forum/business-excellence-dictionary-glossary/ along with the related term.

Interesting thought. Will try this at some time

Good thought. As tomorrow's Bench becomes like today's Mark over time, Mark should be setting new horizons.

Yes, we will bring them together many times. Thanks for this thought.

Hi Ravi, I am thinking that they will stick to their original thoughts and their arguments will help many other Bench's in the real world to consider becoming like Mark.

Hi Rahul, Please go through the two discussions shown below. You will get all your answers. Outliers - Unusual Observations -

Q. 204 The quality of questions and interactions in Toll Gate reviews is crucial for success of any gated process (not just Lean Six Sigma projects). It is seen that poorly planed or administered Toll Gate reviews are one of the biggest reasons for project failure in the Lean Six Sigma world. How should one plan toll gate reviews to ensure their effectiveness? Note for website visitors - Two questions are asked every week on this platform. One on Tuesday and the other on Friday. All questions so far can be seen here - https://www.benchmarksixsigma.com/forum/lean-six-sigma-business-excellence-questions/ Please visit the forum home page at https://www.benchmarksixsigma.com/forum/ to respond to the latest question open till the next Tuesday/ Friday evening as per Indian Standard Time. The best answer is always shown at the top among responses and the author finds honorable mention in our Business Excellence dictionary at https://www.benchmarksixsigma.com/forum/business-excellence-dictionary-glossary/ along with the related term.

While Neeraja Killi has provided valuable thoughts on how such a problem can be addressed, the winner for this question is R Rajesh who has comprehensively addressed the modus operandi specifically used for IT Infrastructure. It should be noted that the suggested ideas for IT Infra are useful for several other scenarios of a similar kind.

Q. 203 How do you tackle a situation (as commonly found in IT Infrastructure) where you find that large volumes of IT Tickets points to different isolated root causes most of the time? Do you think that fixing issues quickly as they occur is the best way to handle such a situation? What other similar situations have you faced? Note for website visitors - Two questions are asked every week on this platform. One on Tuesday and the other on Friday. All questions so far can be seen here - https://www.benchmarksixsigma.com/forum/lean-six-sigma-business-excellence-questions/ Please visit the forum home page at https://www.benchmarksixsigma.com/forum/ to respond to the latest question open till the next Tuesday/ Friday evening as per Indian Standard Time. The best answer is always shown at the top among responses and the author finds honorable mention in our Business Excellence dictionary at https://www.benchmarksixsigma.com/forum/business-excellence-dictionary-glossary/ along with the related term.

Correct answers provided by Mohamed Asif and Koteswararao Darnasi. The winner this time is Mohamed Asif for providing more details of each phase and highlighting in a comparative format. Please go through Venugopal's anwer as well, considering a flexible approach whereby we decide if we want to redesign the process or improve existing process at a later stage.

Bench still thinks of Six Sigma as a measure of process performance and struggles with the defects per million concept. Mark has continued to learn with evolution of Lean Six Sigma into a strategy driven Business Result Improvement Program. Are you ready to take your program to the next level? Do provide your comments on where do you think different organizations exist in this journey. This is an important discussion board for all Lean Six Sigma practitioners.

There are no winners this time. Benchmark Expert view by Venugopal is the perfect response for this question. Project Identification approaches like Metrics drill down, Project Charter creation, scoping methods like SIPOC are great for involving the Stakeholders.

Q. 202 How is DMA of DMAIC different from DMA of DMADV ? Note for website visitors - Two questions are asked every week on this platform. One on Tuesday and the other on Friday. All questions so far can be seen here - https://www.benchmarksixsigma.com/forum/lean-six-sigma-business-excellence-questions/ Please visit the forum home page at https://www.benchmarksixsigma.com/forum/ to respond to the latest question open till the next Tuesday/ Friday evening as per Indian Standard Time. The best answer is always shown at the top among responses and the author finds honorable mention in our Business Excellence dictionary at https://www.benchmarksixsigma.com/forum/business-excellence-dictionary-glossary/ along with the related term.

Q. 201 Success of cross functional projects for Business result improvement is highly dependent on the ability of Project Leader to engage stakeholders. What are some of the most powerful techniques for involving stakeholders early in a project? Note for website visitors - Two questions are asked every week on this platform. One on Tuesday and the other on Friday. All questions so far can be seen here - https://www.benchmarksixsigma.com/forum/lean-six-sigma-business-excellence-questions/ Please visit the forum home page at https://www.benchmarksixsigma.com/forum/ to respond to the latest question open till the next Tuesday/ Friday evening as per Indian Standard Time. The best answer is always shown at the top among responses and the author finds honorable mention in our Business Excellence dictionary at https://www.benchmarksixsigma.com/forum/business-excellence-dictionary-glossary/ along with the related term.

Today's best answer is provided by R Rajesh. Harini has provided a valid response too. Please do read Expert view by Venugopal as well.

The answers this time (given below) are good for the part 1 of the question but there are no attempts for part 2. Some efficiency metrics can be considered better than others if they have less harmful side effects. Productivity in manufacturing as number of units per month is a commonly used metric but promotes overproduction. Theory of Constraints promotes the use of a metric called Throughput which is calculated as Throughput = Sales - TVC (Totally Variable Costs). This is an efficiency metric which ensures that productivity will be considered valid only if Sales happen. And as evident, lower the variable costs, better will be the throughput. This metric removes some of the harmful side effects of a pure production volume metric. As no one has provided response to the second part, there is no winner for this question

Q. 200 While most leaders seem to agree that DMAIC is a logical sequence, needs top management support, can be used flexibly and makes business sense, what are some of the Leadership reasons for not supporting this methodology wholeheartedly (in many companies)? Note for website visitors - Two questions are asked every week on this platform. One on Tuesday and the other on Friday. All questions so far can be seen here - https://www.benchmarksixsigma.com/forum/lean-six-sigma-business-excellence-questions/ Please visit the forum home page at https://www.benchmarksixsigma.com/forum/ to respond to the latest question open till the next Tuesday/ Friday evening as per Indian Standard Time. The best answer is always shown at the top among responses and the author finds honorable mention in our Business Excellence dictionary at https://www.benchmarksixsigma.com/forum/business-excellence-dictionary-glossary/ along with the related term.

The winning answers are provided by Natwar Lal for B2C overall and by Kiran Kumar for Hotels and Hospitality.

Q. 199 What are some examples of most common efficiency metrics that are used in the business world? Which one's may be considered better than the others? Note for website visitors - Two questions are asked every week on this platform. One on Tuesday and the other on Friday. All questions so far can be seen here - https://www.benchmarksixsigma.com/forum/lean-six-sigma-business-excellence-questions/ Please visit the forum home page at https://www.benchmarksixsigma.com/forum/ to respond to the latest question open till the next Tuesday/ Friday evening as per Indian Standard Time. The best answer is always shown at the top among responses and the author finds honorable mention in our Business Excellence dictionary at https://www.benchmarksixsigma.com/forum/business-excellence-dictionary-glossary/ along with the related term.

If you are looking for a short answer, read Natwar Lal's response. If you want to go deeper and need to consider more details, read the response by Mohd Asif, Both Natwar Lal and Mohd Asif are winners for this question. Do read Benchmark Expert Venugopal's view which is apt for professionals who are equipped with Lean Six Sigma qualification.

Q. 198 While customer satisfaction is captured in most B2C companies, the score that is obtained has questionable value. (For this discussion, we will use B2C in context of large set of end consumers who buy products or services from retail directly) What are the methods one can use to make such satisfaction feedback more useful in B2C? Note for website visitors - Two questions are asked every week on this platform. One on Tuesday and the other on Friday. All questions so far can be seen here - https://www.benchmarksixsigma.com/forum/lean-six-sigma-business-excellence-questions/ Please visit the forum home page at https://www.benchmarksixsigma.com/forum/ to respond to the latest question open till the next Tuesday/ Friday evening as per Indian Standard Time. The best answer is always shown at the top among responses and the author finds honorable mention in our Business Excellence dictionary at https://www.benchmarksixsigma.com/forum/business-excellence-dictionary-glossary/ along with the related term.

While many respondents have provided very good responses. I agree categorization makes things simpler and easier to use. The critical aspect is provided by Jayaram T who clearly mentioned that research showed that the NPS% (the way it is calculated) showed good correlation with growth rates of Organizations. The winner for this question is therefore Jayaram T. I liked the responses from Asif, Shreyas, Rajesh, Indrani, Praveen, Bhagyashree, and Indrani. Do go through the expert view from Venugopal as well.