Workshops
List of On-Site Workshops
Opportunity Boot Camp TM
Changing Paradigms about Lost Opportunity and the Barriers that Prevent Us from Recognizing or Capturing It
This course has two different levels of content - one for managers that links lost opportunity to decision-making criteria and culture change, and one for the workforce that simplifies the concepts but helps employees see opportunity in the problems they face everyday, understand the basic of the value of recurring problems, and become aware of the barriers that prevent problems from being solved. Creative visuals and exercises are used to illustrate concepts and the mathematics of opportunity in both sessions.
This course will help you end your search for the "right" improvement program because it positions your organization to receive the power that improvement tools and methods provide, regardless if you are customizing your own system or adopting Six Sigma, Lean or another well-known methodology.
It should be scheduled for managers before an improvement initiative is designed and implemented because its content and the way it is delivered forever changes the outcome and exponentially increases the chance for success and sustainability.
Aligning Decision Criteria with Improvement Learnings
Building Achievable Budgets and Establishing New Criteria for Expansion Capital Approval
This course addresses techniques for setting achievable equipment performance targets and new criteria for approving expansion capital. Class length and content can be customized for specific processes and industries. Includes in-class exercises. Is covered in overview form in Opportunity Boot Camp.
FOR: Executive Management Teams, Plant / Site Management Teams, Controllers, Quality Initiative Managers
Linking Key Measures to Improvement Potential
Selecting and Charting Key Measures to Reveal Opportunity, Monitor Action Plans and Tie People to Performance and Profits
Employees should be able to measure their own performance. Class includes criteria for selecting and charting key measures and tying them to improvement projects. Class length and content can be customized for specific processes and industries.
FOR: Executive Management Teams, Plant / Site Management Teams, Controllers, Quality Initiative Managers, Improvement Coordinators. Is covered in overview form in Opportunity Boot Camp.
Strategies for Success with Process Optimums
Drawing Your "Line in the Sand" for Improvement Potential.
This course covers setting process optimums. Without setting optimums for processes, only budget or forecast is left to create the gap between actual performance and your improvement goals. Optimums can be used to calculate lost opportunity and help employees begin to achieve what is possible instead of settling for what is in the budget. Linkages to expansion capital, budget goals and strategies for incorporating optimums into process control parameters and workforce communications are discussed. This concept cannot be overlooked if increased production, revenue enhancement, expansion capital avoidance and real culture change are part of your goals.
FOR: Executive Management Teams, Plant / Site Management Teams, Controllers, Quality Initiative Managers, Improvement Coordinators, Workforce Training (entire departments including equipment operators and maintainers). Is covered in overview form in Opportunity Boot Camp.
Tying Cost of Quality to Lost Opportunity
Applying Cost of Quality at a Practical Level to Assess Lost Opportunity, Set Improvement Priorities and Connect Employee Activities to Value Creation
Learn to use Cost of Quality to account for events that steal time and production, add to cost and cause out of control conditions or deviation from plan. Includes class exercises with examples customized to specific processes and industries.
FOR: Executive Management Teams, Plant / Site Management Teams, Controllers, Quality Initiative Managers, Improvement Coordinators, Workforce Training (entire departments including equipment operators and maintainers). Is covered in overview form in Opportunity Boot Camp. It is recommended that Process Optimums and Cost of Quality be presented together so that employees not only learn how to find and quantify lost opportunity but value it for prioritizing projects
Why Aren’t People Talking? – Breaking Down Barriers to Improvement
Using Process Orientation to Improve Interdepartmental Working Relationships, Process Flows and an organization's ability to meet Customer/Supplier Requirements.
This course helps employees focus on process instead of people to break down barriers and create a comfort zone for change. Real-life success (and failure) stories are shared that illustrate the power of paradigms, organizational silos, mixed messages and sacred cows on culture - at both the management and workforce levels. A Su Doku exercise illustrates the impact of dysfunctional relationships between departments.
Attendees were enthusiastic: "I will take a different approach in looking at processes, make sure I am looking at the Big Picture, and share the game with my cross-functional team. Excellent - it is apparent that she knows her stuff."....."It changed how I understand barriers and address them throughout projects. Excellent connection to case studies and Su Doku. Thank You!"..."Very good, I was doubtful at first but she won me over."..."Reconfirmed the value of paying attention to the human side of quality. Good activity and relationship to workplace. Now I will consider a discussion about unintentional barriers." "Very interesting. I can relate this to I.T. - they always have their own agenda and control all I.T. improvements." "Simple demonstration of a powerful subject."
FOR: Executive Management Teams, Plant / Site Management Teams, Controllers, Quality Initiative Managers, Improvement Coordinators, Workforce Training (entire departments including equipment operators and maintainers). Is covered in overview form in Opportunity Boot Camp.
Facilitating and Training Process Improvement Teams
Process Improvement Overview, Team Interaction Tools, Action Plan Execution Skills
Process Improvement Teams are formed to fix recurring problems that are most familiar to them. Good foundation training is critical to a team’s ability to identify/analyze opportunities for improvement and execute/monitor successful action plans.
FOR: Improvement Initiative Managers, Improvement Coordinators
Improvement Leadership 101 – Helping Managers Be Great Improvement Leaders
An Overview of Management’s Role in Driving and Sustaining Improvement Initiatives
This course addresses linkages between the management system and improvement initiatives and managers’ roles as “players” in improvement (driving improvement teams, prioritizing projects, analyzing trends). Course length/examples can be customized.
FOR: Executive Management Teams, Plant / Site Management Teams, Controllers, Quality Initiative Managers