Financial Services Six Sigma

I do NOT want to be misunderstood here…I am all for communication.  I recognize that a healthy Six Sigma initiative (or any other initiative) needs to have a robust communication plan:  thus guaranteeing that all critical parties are kept informed, and ensuring buy-in at all levels. But… I have also come to understand that over communicating can kill a once healthy initiative.

Recently I left a meeting feeling frustrated, my only solace being that I wasn’t the only one feeling uneasy.  For what felt like the millionth time, issues around communication were discussed during our team meeting.  We seem to keep going around in circles when it comes to the communication plan:  challenges never seem to get resolved.  At the start of the project we put together what seemed to be a robust plan:

1. We set up monthly Champion meetings, bi-weekly key-stakeholder sessions and twice weekly team meetings – this was to ensure that all parties were kept abreast of recent developments & were engaged to identify critical issues & solutions.
2. We also leveraged existing corporate communication channels to keep employees updated, i.e., monthly newsletters, executive leadership meetings, etc…
3. The team even set up an intranet file--sharing location, where presentations & work results were posted in case someone wanted more detail
4. Yes…this list goes on…we created a feedback loop between the employees and the core team for idea exchange
   

But all of this didn’t seem to be enough.  Employees (outside the scope of the projects) were complaining to the team that they weren’t being kept abreast of the project sufficiently.  At first we thought that perhaps the frequency and method of communication was not appropriate.  But then we realized that this malaise had nothing to do with our communication strategy rather it was a byproduct of the firm’s corporate culture.  At this firm the following precedent had been set: Every employee’s voice needed to be heard and considered in the final solution.   

There are several issues with this – no initiative (regardless of its brilliance):

1. Will get everyone to accept the proposed approach to solving a challenges and the required changes
2. It is impossible to maintain momentum if everyone has to been to kept in the loop to the n^th degree
3. It is wrong to expect that the ultimate solution will incorporate everyone’s voice
   

There is a reason why every project has a Champion, Key-Stakeholder, Team Leader, Team Members & ad-hoc resources allocated to it.  There is an inherent assumption that this group of people (depending on their role) will remove barriers, come up with reasonable solutions and ultimately own the new process.  Everyone else just needs to understand the general direction of the project and escalate issues that other parties in the project have missed or ignored.  Over-communication can not only hurt the momentum of the project but give people an “out” if they don’t like the solutions or proposed changes.  Because, after-all, you didn’t take their recommendation/solution into consideration.

S. Shaffie ProcessArc, Inc. - Financial Services Six Sigma