Leading Six Sigma: A Step-by-Step Guide Based on Experience with GE and Other Six Sigma Companies (Hardcover)

~ Ron D. Snee (Author), Roger W. Hoerl (Author) "You may have learned about Six Sigma from colleagues, customers, or suppliers..." (more)
Key Phrases: key process metrics, project hopper, overall deployment plan, Black Belts, Green Belts, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Leading Six Sigma is the complete guide to leading quality initiatives in your company. Top Six Sigma consultant Ronald Snee and GE quality leader Roger Hoerl demonstrate how to deploy a Six Sigma plan that reflects your unique organization, and key lessons learned from the world's best implementations. Coverage includes every facet of Six Sigma leadership: strategy, goal setting, metrics, training, roles/responsibilities, processes, reporting, rewards, ongoing review, and much more. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From the Back Cover

In Leading Six Sigma, two of the world's most experienced Six Sigma leaders offer a detailed, step-by-step strategy for leading Six Sigma initiatives in your company. Top Six Sigma consultant Dr. Ronald D. Snee and GE quality leader Dr. Roger W. Hoerl show how to deploy a Six Sigma plan that reflects your organization's unique needs and culture, while also leveraging key lessons learned by the world's most successful implementers.

Snee and Hoerl share leadership techniques proven in companies both large and small, and in business functions ranging from R&D and manufacturing to finance. They also present a start-to-finish sample deployment plan encompassing strategy, goals, metrics, training, roles and responsibilities, reporting, rewards, and management review.

Whether you're a CEO, line-of-business leader, or a project leader, Leading Six Sigma gives you the one thing other books on Six Sigma lack: a clear view from the top.

* The right projects, the right people Identifying your company's most promising Six Sigma opportunities and leaders * How to hit the ground running Providing leadership, talent, and infrastructure for a successful launch * From launch to long-term success Implementing systems, processes, and budgets for ongoing Six Sigma projects * Getting the bottom-line results that matter most Measuring and maximizing the financial value of your Six Sigma initiative * Four detailed case studies: What works and what doesn't Avoiding the subtle mistakes that can make Six Sigma fall short.

Proven techniques for leading successful quality initiatives.

• The Six Sigma guide designed specifically for business leaders
• Co-authored by Dr. Roger W. Hoerl, a leader in implementing Six Sigma at GE
• Draws on Six Sigma experiences at over 30 leading companies
• Covers the entire Six Sigma lifecycle, from planning onward
• Presents new solutions for overcoming the cultural resistance to Six Sigma initiatives

Leading Six Sigma offers an insider's view of what it really takes to lead a successful Six Sigma initiative, drawing on the authors' experience at the top levels of the world's largest and most challenging organizations.

Dr. Ronald D. Snee shares experiences drawn from executive-level consulting at over 30 major companies. Dr. Roger W. Hoerl teaches powerful lessons from his experience in pioneering Six Sigma throughout GE during the Jack Welch era. Together they offer unprecedented executive guidance on the issues most crucial to senior managers, covering every stage from planning through ongoingmanagement.

Snee and Hoerl offer practical solutions for the cultural challenges and human resistance that face any executive seeking to initiate Six Sigma or improve an existing program. They even explain how and when to "wind down" initiatives, transitioning Six Sigma to a "fact of life" that doesn't require the support of a massive centralized infrastructure.

"This is a truly insightful and well-researched book on Six Sigma by two of the leading experts in the field. Theirroadmap for successful deployment is supported by the experiences of major corporations, including GE and Honeywell. Itis extremely well presented in a step-by-step manner and backed up by real business-case examples. Bravo to the authors inbringing us a book that should be at the ready reach of leadership of organizations and the practitionersof Six Sigma. It reminded me so much of 'In Search of Excellence' as far as its potential impact on the way businessescan be successful."—William J. Hill, Ph. D.
Research Fellow & Six Sigma MBB Program Leader
Honeywell International

"Leading Six Sigma promises dramatic performance improvement and significant bottom line results for businesses. So... why is there so much variation in the actual impact that the many businesses that are pursuing Six Sigma are experiencing? Leading Six Sigma reveals the root causes. Ron Snee and Roger Hoerl, two respected and seasoned practitioners, take readers beyond the technical 'methods-and-tools' view of Six Sigma and instead focus their practical insights on what leaders must do to unlock the transforming power of Six Sigma. Their advice is not theoretical but rather distilled to proven approaches based on their experiences as consultant and GE insider. Whether you are engaged in Six Sigma now or are tempted to launch the initiative, this book will help you do it right."—Eric Mattenson
VP, Six Sigma Quest Diagnostics
Formerly Six Sigma Process Leader for GE Capital

"Leading Six Sigma does an excellent job of explaining the value of using Six Sigma to drive business performance and giving practical guidance for implementation. Ron Snee and Roger Hoerl have made it simple, understandable, and compelling. The examples they use from different companies such as GE and Grace prove without question that Six Sigma works in companies of very different sizes and cultures. If you are interested in upgrading the capabilities of the people in your company, improving its performance quickly, and positioning it for better results in the future, read this book!"—Paul J. Norris
Chairman, President, and CEO
W. R. Grace & Co.

"Ron Snee and Roger Hoerl are to be congratulated on writing a book that draws from their diverse firsthand experience with Six Sigma deployment. Much has been written about the DMAIC project implementation strategy, but Snee and Hoerl present a compelling, four-step initiative implementation strategy that goes beyond the boilerplate recommendations. They stand firm on the things that do and don't work, as well as offer options on things that may or may not work based on the implementing organization's current situation. This book is a invaluable resource for organizations in any stage of their deployment."—Dr. Steven P. Bailey
Certified Master Black Belt
DuPont Global Services
Past President
American Society for Quality

"Leading Six Sigma is a good reference for your progress—from deployment through sustaining momentum to integration into your process-management system. Snee and Hoerl capture the essence of the leadership, commitment, and resource deployment necessary to make Six Sigma successful." —Bill Schroer
VP of Operations and Manufacturing Strategy
Trane American Standard Companies

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: FT Press (November 11, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0130084573
• ISBN-13: 978-0130084576
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #671,325 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Six Sigma for Those Who Read Books for CEOs, January 13, 2004

By	Peter V. Tamas (New Brunswick area, NJ United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a book about getting your organization to adopt Six Sigma. This book focuses on excellent techniques that are needed for convincing upper management of the value of Six Sigma. The target audience seems to be CEOs and their top assistants. In fact the authors pretty much concede that implementing Six Sigma is impossible without CEO intervention. Little can be found to help line managers implement a culture appropriate for Six Sigma. This fine book would have been even better had they addressed line issues more aggressively and had more on how to communicate Six Sigma in a manner that would not leave the "rank and file" thinking Six Sigma is just "old water in new bottles".

I dare say in many companies, the rank and file will assume that Six Sigma is ineffective jargon. Further, this will to a large extent be due to oversimplified misunderstandings of Six Sigma. Most Six Sigma training emphasizes that Six Sigma is used when the solution is unknown. Yet I only hear people mention Six Sigma when they have a solution (sometimes a solution in search of a problem). "We need to finish this project to improve our Six Sigmas" and "we should [insert project goal] so we can all get our green belts" are typical of the comments I hear that are laughable to someone who understands Six Sigma.

This book's weakest sections are the first few chapters. The authors compare companies who had successfully adopted Six Sigma and those who did not. The authors believe that the successful adopters shared (and the unsuccessful companies did not have) the following characteristics:
- committed leadership
- use of top talent
- supporting infrastructure

The authors eventually come out and say that the CEO should dedicate a percentage of his/her time to Six Sigma: money is not sufficient! Having worked at GE, this conclusion seems inevitable: Jack Welch did, in fact, put a lot of personal attention into adopting Six Sigma. However, we don't all work for someone like Jack Welch.

In his autobiography, Welch describes not giving bonuses to those who were not working on Six Sigma. This was his way of ensuring that all the top talent were working on Six Sigma projects because otherwise managers would be unable to reward their top talent.

GE had another thing going for it that set the stage of Six Sigma: a culture of managing by facts and numbers and not opinion. Remember, when other companies were "focusing on core strengths" in the mid 1980s, GE was expanding in finance, particularly leasing. Why? It supported their other businesses and created tax shelters that saved tremendous amounts of cash. As long as these subsidiaries could demonstrate ever-increasing profits, they could get ever-increasing resources. Subsidiaries that could not come up with the numbers were sold or shut down, debates about "core" or not core did not enter into the picture. In this environment, if Six Sigma could demonstrate results, the corporate culture would adopt it. Certainly, Welch's actions made Six Sigma happen more quickly, but he had won the battle long before when he fostered a results-oriented culture.

Being able to briefly and clearly describe what you are trying to do has become a critical tactic in modern leadership. In business we call this a "mission statement", in politics, its called, somewhat derisively, a sound bite. The next edition would benefit from the reworking of one of the early chapters to one that would help management create a Six Sigma mission statement.

I've read some other books NOT on Six Sigma that by analogy bring home the weakness of Six Sigma literature. To learn how to create a mission statement, I recommend Carville and Begala (2002). They used a passage in the Bible, John 3:16, as an excellent example: "For God so loved the world, He gave His only begotten son so that whoever believes in Him shall not die but have everlasting life." They assert that this passage summarizes in 25 words the essentials of Christian theology. To paraphrase Carville and Begala, if the Bible can explain all the important tenets of Christianity in 25 words, surely 25 a word sample mission statement for Six Sigma can be provided for those who want to convince an organization to adopt it.

I would also recommend Michael Lewis' "Moneyball" as a companion book. Lewis (author of "Liar's Poker") uses Wall Street trading as an analogy to explain why the Oakland Athletics baseball team is one of the successful franchises with much less money than most. But I also see an analogy relevant to the topic of Six Sigma. "Moneyball" shows how one can achieve superior results by testing what everyone thinks they know with fact gathering and rigorous analyses. Moneyball will inspire anyone trying to implement Six Sigma to value testing assumptions with measurement.

A quick read of the reviews on Amazon will give you a feel for why people are skeptical of 6 Sigma: the feel-good tone of most writing on 6 Sigma and the insistence that it "is not a flavor-of-the-month management trend" make many of us suspect that 6 Sigma is not much more than hollow jargon and acronyms. The readers are left with the essential difficulties of positive change in any organization: you need to overcome assumptions that your organization's subculture may not even realize it has. What a corporation does by accepting Six Sigma is that it empowers people to gather data to challenge what "everybody knows". Most importantly, it sets a standard of very high quality, which reinforces the sanctioning of data-driven change.

I feel that this book comes up short in this regard, as do the other books I've read on Six Sigma, but otherwise is a good description on how an upper-level manager can bring about organizational change in general and implement Six Sigma in particular.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Excellent Book, March 26, 2003

By	Brittain C. Ladd "Business Book Junkie" (Irving, Texas United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Without a doubt this is one of the best books ever written on Six Sigma and I should know as I have read nearly every book written on Six Sigma over the last three years. However, let me clarify something up front. This book does not delve into the tools of Six Sigma nor the actual statistical methods of Six Sigma like Air Academy Associates excellent books `Basic Statistics' or `Understanding Industrial Designed Experiments'. What this book does, however, is address the following topics which so far every other book on Six Sigma has failed to cover and clarify:

1. The right projects, the right people: Identifying your company's most promising Six Sigma opportunities and leaders.
2. How to hit the ground running: Providing leadership, talent, and infrastructure for a successful launch.
3. From launch to long-term success: Implementing systems, processes, and budgets for ongoing Six Sigma projects.
4. Getting the bottom-line results that matter most: Measuring and maximizing the financial value of your Six Sigma initiative

What makes this book such a good value is that the author's of the book clearly know what they're talking about and their wisdom from implementing actual Six Sigma projects is priceless. This book is really a blueprint for implementing and sustaining Six Sigma and provides excellent advice on how to avoid the pitfalls that so many companies have run into during their failed attempts at implementing Six Sigma. The book is written in clear, easy-to-understand language with just the right amount of graphs and charts so even people who know nothing about Six Sigma will benefit from reading it. My advice is to buy this book and Michael George's outstanding book `Lean Six Sigma' together so that you truly get an appreciation for what Six Sigma is and what it can do when combined with Lean.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly Recommended!, March 1, 2004

By	Rolf Dobelli "getAbstract.com" (Switzerland) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This book differs from most other Six Sigma guides in that it identifies, by name, companies that failed at Six Sigma. So many authors have presented Six Sigma as something magical that it is refreshing to see its warts. Make no mistake - the authors are not out to debunk or dethrone Six Sigma, a management philosophy and method that has been their professional life for many years. They clearly believe that Six Sigma is worth the investment of time, brain power, leadership and political capital that it requires. But they aren't afraid to point out the fact that it does require serious investment, and that management must sustain its commitment for years to unlock the full benefit of the Six Sigma approach. The book is a tolerably good read, albeit dry. It mercifully spares the reader any puffery or promotion, and it lays out the axioms of Six Sigma life in a very lucid format. Occasionally, it stoops to cliché, but not terribly often. We recommend it to those who need to know what it really takes to achieve Six Sigma performance, and how to begin.