Uncommon Sense - Tools to Improve your Work Forever

Direct, indirect, internal, external, regulatory, people who think they’re customers because they have authority, and ironically, customers who don’t even know that they’re customers.  Identifying the true customer(s) of a process from amongst an array of possibilities is key to the effective use of this tool for uncovering improvement opportunities.

Join PMI Director Consultant Sean Buckland as he explores this challenge and shares fascinating examples of using Voice of the Customer to reveal what a customer truly values, even when they may not know it themselves.  Don’t miss his explanation of the difference between satisfaction and value, and his radical advice for what to do when you can’t identify the customer of a process.

Want to know more about Voice of the Customer?  Here are more helpful resources:

• On Demand Webinar: Improving Through the Voice of the Customer  
• Video:  Using the Kano Model to Listen to Your Customer 
• Infographic:  Assessing the ‘Value Added’ by the Work We Do  
• Blog:  Link Measures to the Voice of Your Customer  

More from PMI:

• Dive into our Knowledge Hub for more tools, videos, and infographics
• Join us for a PMI LIVE Webinar
• Follow us on LinkedIn

Take your improvement career to the next level with PMI's Lean Six Sigma Certifications - now available in two new and accessible formats, built around you. 

• Explore On Demand >>
• Explore Distance Learning >>

How do you know that performance data is accurate?  Are you sure there aren’t, in fact, a series of processes hiding behind your process, distorting your measurement results?

Mood's Median Test and ANOVA are statistical tools that will give you confidence in your measures, helping you to focus your improvement work.

“I can’t imagine working on an improvement project without them”, PMI Director Consultant Sean Buckland tells us, as he demonstrates how they help us to understand complex systems, and shares his 3 top tips for helping you to apply these clever tools to best effect.

Interested in this topic?  Here are more PMI resources that you may find helpful:

• On-Demand Webinar: Black Belt Tools With a Kick
• Lean Six Sigma Certification:  Black Belt

More from PMI:

• Dive into our Knowledge Hub for more tools, videos, and infographics
• Join us for a PMI LIVE Webinar
• Follow us on LinkedIn

Take your improvement career to the next level with PMI's Lean Six Sigma Certifications - now available in two new and accessible formats, built around you. 

• Explore On Demand >>
• Explore Distance Learning >>

5 Whys is a great problem-solving tool for improvement projects, and it can also be invaluable in your day-to-day work to understand root causes when things go wrong, as they do from time to time!

At first glance, it may seem a simple tool, but as Senior Consultant Damion Albinson says, it’s a lot more powerful than simply asking "Why?".  Listen in as he shares his top tips to make sure you're getting the most out of 5 Whys, including to never be satisfied with the first suggestion and how to dig deeper to really get to the root cause of a problem to prevent it from ever recurring.

Is this the tool you need?  Here are some more helpful resources to get you started:

• Toolbox:  5 Whys - a quick and easy step-by-step guide that helps you use this tool
• On-Demand Webinar:  The Joy of Problems
• Video:  5 Whys example

More from PMI:

• Dive into our Knowledge Hub for more tools, videos, and infographics
• Join us for a PMI LIVE Webinar
• Follow us on LinkedIn

Take your improvement career to the next level with PMI's Lean Six Sigma Certifications - now available in two new and accessible formats, built around you. 

• Explore On Demand >>
• Explore Distance Learning >>

Ensure a productive and successful partnership with your sponsor and achieve more with your next improvement project.

PMI Director Consultant Warren Knight shares his 5 top tips on what you need from your sponsor, plus how to build a strong relationship with them so that together you can achieve your project goals.

Want to know more about this topic?  Check out these related resources:

• On Demand Webinar:  Sponsoring Projects for Success  
• Download:  Project Charter & Contract Template   
• Video:  The Role of the Sponsor in Successful Performance Improvement   

More from PMI:

• Dive into our Knowledge Hub for more tools, videos, and infographics
• Join us for a PMI LIVE Webinar
• Follow us on LinkedIn

Take your improvement career to the next level with PMI's Lean Six Sigma Certifications - now available in two new and accessible formats, built around you. 

• Explore On Demand >>
• Explore Distance Learning >>

Avoid wasting time on ineffective improvement strategies by using scatter diagrams to visually prove or disprove your theories.

PMI Senior Consultant Damion Albinson delves into the fascinating world of this underappreciated improvement tool to reveal why it’s invaluable for investigating variations in output.   But beware – he also warns not to extrapolate beyond the data and stresses the importance of having enough samples.

Learn more about using graphs to make an impact with these related resources:

• Video Series:  Essential Green Belt Tools - Scatter Graphs
• Blog & Infographic:  "If this is the question, what is the best graph to provide an answer?"
• On-Demand Webinar:  How to Tell Effective Stories Using Graphs

More from PMI:

• Dive into our Knowledge Hub for more tools, videos, and infographics
• Join us for a PMI LIVE Webinar
• Follow us on LinkedIn

Take your improvement career to the next level with PMI's Lean Six Sigma Certifications - now available in two new and accessible formats, built around you. 

• Explore On Demand >>
• Explore Distance Learning >>

Do you need to identify potential causes of an undesirable effect or problem?  Then you're in luck because in this episode of PMI's Uncommon Sense podcast, PMI Senior Consultant Damion Albinson talks about the Cause and Effect Diagram.

To really get to the bottom of a problem it’s crucial to avoid jumping straight to solution mode, Damion warns us.  Instead, focus on divergent thinking to generate a broad range of potential causes, before using PDSA to validate the most likely.  Listen now for some great tips on how to get the most from this powerful tool.

Here are some helpful resources to get you started:

• Toolbox: Cause & Effect Diagrams - a quick and easy step-by-step guide that helps you use this tool
• Video Series:  Essential Green Belt Tools - Cause & Effect Diagram
• On Demand Webinar:  Every Day Tools for Daily Process Improvement

More from PMI:

• Dive into our Knowledge Hub for more tools, videos, and infographics
• Join us for a PMI LIVE Webinar
• Follow us on LinkedIn

Take your improvement career to the next level with PMI's Lean Six Sigma Certifications - now available in two new and accessible formats, built around you. 

• Explore On Demand >>
• Explore Distance Learning >>

All business improvement is geared around doing a better job for your end customer.  But in reality, so much of what you work on isn’t directly affecting them, so it’s just as important to know your internal customer.

In this episode, PMI Senior Consultant Damion Albinson talks about techniques for recognising who your internal customers are, and offers some great advice on how to understand their requirements.

Want to know more about working with your internal customers?  Check out these PMI resources:

• Toolbox: Flowcharts - A quick and easy step-by-step guide that helps you use the tool
• On Demand Webinar: Customer and Stakeholder Requirements
• Video: Using the Kano Model to Listen to Your Customer

More from PMI:

• Dive into our Knowledge Hub for more tools, videos, and infographics
• Join us for a PMI LIVE Webinar
• Follow us on LinkedIn

Take your improvement career to the next level with PMI's Lean Six Sigma Certifications - now available in two new and accessible formats, built around you. 

• Explore On Demand >>
• Explore Distance Learning >>

We have an innate ability to manage our personal lives successfully, but as observed by PMI Director Consultant Barry Byrne, we’re sometimes reluctant to apply the same planning approach to our process improvement projects.

Join Barry as he talks about the value of good project planning, its impact on the outcomes we’re looking to achieve, and its importance for project success.

Listen out for his 3 key steps for effective project planning.


Want to know more about project planning?  Check out these helpful resources - available free of charge in the PMI Knowledge Hub:

• Customer and Stakeholder Requirements: On Demand Webinar
• Team Contract Toolbox:  A quick and easy step-by-step guide that helps you use the tool
• Project Charter & Contract template download

More from PMI:

• Dive into our Knowledge Hub for more tools, videos, and infographics
• Join us for a PMI LIVE Webinar
• Follow us on LinkedIn

Take your improvement career to the next level with PMI's Lean Six Sigma Certifications - now available in two new and accessible formats, built around you. 

• Explore On Demand >>
• Explore Distance Learning >>

The majority of problems you face in your organisation are likely to be systemic, manifest across multiple parts of the business, and will have a number of root causes.  Therefore, it's essential to build great stakeholder relationships in support of your Process Improvement work.

In our latest episode of Uncommon Sense, PMI Director Consultant Barry Byrne provides great insight into thinking about a constituency of system-wide stakeholders who you need to work with, and how to engage them effectively so that you can drive change and achieve great results.

Could your stakeholders be better engaged?  Here are some more helpful resources:

• On Demand Webinar:  The Importance of Great Stakeholder Engagement to Power Improvement
• Blog:  The Importance of Stakeholder Engagement in Process Design
• On Demand Webinar:  Customer and Stakeholder Requirements

More from PMI:

• Dive into our Knowledge Hub for more tools, videos, and infographics
• Join us for a PMI LIVE Webinar
• Follow us on LinkedIn

Take your improvement career to the next level with PMI's Lean Six Sigma Certifications - now available in two new and accessible formats, built around you. 

• Explore On Demand >>
• Explore Distance Learning >>

You’ve done a great job of diagnosing the problem;  you’ve identified the waste, and you’re feeling really enthusiastic about the solution you've designed.  So why not just go for it?

In this episode of Uncommon Sense, Director Consultant, Dennis Crommentuijn-Marsh, encourages you not to jump from solution to implementation, but to test first, even when you think you’ve got the right solution.

Dennis explores how to approach testing the right way, as well as sharing some great stories of what not to do!

Here are some more helpful resources to support you on your improvement journey:

• Our Improvement Toolbox – Idea Generation
• Innovation & The Quality Environment Blog
• What is a Green Belt Project?  Blog
• What Projects Should a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Take On? Blog

More from PMI:

• Dive into our Knowledge Hub for more tools, videos, and infographics
• Join us for a PMI LIVE Webinar
• Follow us on LinkedIn

Take your improvement career to the next level with PMI's Lean Six Sigma Certifications - now available in two new and accessible formats, built around you. 

• Explore On Demand >>
• Explore Distance Learning >>