Six Sigma and Beyond: Design for Six Sigma, Volume VI

To summarize this chapter, here are some do's and don'ts for successful benchmarking:

Requirements for success

• Use goal-oriented management ” measure and monitor everything; link to compensation plan.

• Start small and showcase.

• Recognize that conflict is inevitable because of the need to share resources to reach conflicting goals. Management has to make tough decisions to resolve the healthy conflict.

• Link goals to action plans.

• Understand that adequate resources are necessary to ensure the success of the plan.

• Ensure continuing top management support with the recognition that benchmarking does not necessarily supply a quick fix.

• Place emphasis both on the result (what to do) and the process (how to do it).

• Accept the concept of constant, incremental change.

• A blend of analytical and intuitive skills requiring the ability to synthesize sometimes ambiguous data is needed.

• Be willing to admit that change or improvement is possible and perhaps desirable.

• Focus on the needs of specific target market segments and business strategy when setting the priorities to benchmark.

• Create a corporate culture that thrives on learning and self-improvement with constant, though gradual, change. Constantly apply the Plan, Do, Check, Act cycle.

• Use Statistical Process Control to determine when events, results, or processes are out of control.

• Change the role of middle management. The middle manager is no longer "the boss." Middle managers must encourage and enable workers to think.

Common mistakes

• Giving lip service to the process and not providing the resources to get the job done properly

• Failure to effectively communicate the benchmark findings and drive them to implementation: all analysis and no action

• Failure to precisely define the expected results of benchmark improvement and to monitor actual performance (In the absence of this, no organizational learning occurs.)

• Lack of a comprehensive prioritization of the benchmarking projects to ensure the best cost/benefit results

• The expectation of quick results and a short- term focus on quarterly earnings

• Lack of constant purpose, focus, and direction

• Failure to implement results in small size , meaningful modules with specific deliverables; looking for "the" big win

• Unwillingness to face the reality of a situation and recognize that change is necessary and that hard choices have to be made

• Not drawing the correct balance between required accuracy and the practical ability to achieve better results; 100 percent accuracy, certainty , or performance is not required

• Failure to recognize that the early follower is almost as profitable as the pioneer and sometimes even more so

• Reliance on executive office analysis versus observation of the hands-on experience of others both within and outside the company

• Focus on problem reduction and not problems avoidance

• Failure to realize that, in most cases, benchmarking follows strategy

• Failure to recognize the constantly rising level of expectations in the marketplace

• Lack of contingency planning

• Failure to get participation at all levels and to break down interdepartmental barriers so that the total resources of the organization can be focused on the solution to common problems