14.3 The Power of Pilot Projects

As a change leader, perhaps your go-to tool for creating credibility, building momentum, and developing a proven path is the pilot project. You may be wondering, “What is a pilot project?” Here is a simple definition.

Simply put, a pilot project lets you test lean six sigma before you try to roll it out across your entire organization. A pilot project is a small up-front expense that can save you time and money down the line.

Why Should You Use a Pilot Project?

Carefully selected, meticulously executed pilot projects answer three core questions.

Is This Doable?

Pilot projects let you test your idea in a controlled setting, giving you the chance to refine your plan before you roll it out. If the pilot doesn’t work, you fail fast, safe, and smart. You don’t waste resources or burn credibility—but you do perform an AAR to learn what went wrong! Sometimes you learn the idea is good, but your company just isn’t ready.

WIIFTOP?

Pilot projects that work provide you the numbers to make your case for change. They are the source of well-crafted success stories. They answer the question, “What’s In It For The Other Person?

How Should We Proceed?

Well-designed pilot projects don’t just answer the question, “Is this doable?” They help you document a proven path, including pitfalls to avoid. That said, keep this in mind: Just because you define a proven path doesn’t mean it is the only path. So, share your learned insight and invite others to adapt as needed.

Final thought: Effective lean six sigma champions do everything they can to identify good pilot projects and assure their success. By carefully documenting baseline performance and the implementation process itself, you can transform a pilot project into a valuable learning laboratory.

Where Do You Find Pilot Project Ideas?

Now that you know a little about the nature of pilot projects, let’s address a common question: “Where should I start?” Answer: Develop a list of candidate improvement projects. You might want to run a project selection workshop. Invite key thought leaders—from both senior leadership as well as front-line workers—to share their ideas (see Figure 14.2). Where do they think the best opportunities for improvement are? What are they passionate about?

To help prepare for the workshop, consider leading off with a short briefing session a couple of weeks before the workshop. You will use this session to provide some basic training on lean six sigma, answering key questions:

• What is lean six sigma?

• Why should people care? (We’re talking WIIFTOP here.)

• How do you expect them to participate?

Your goal: Demystify both lean six sigma and how it will affect them and the way work gets done. This is a great time to invite everyone to think about potential candidates for a lean six sigma pilot project. Ask your team to consider projects that can improve processes to help achieve strategic goals or eliminate operating pain points. You might say, “When we get together, we’d like to develop a Top 10 list of things we’d like to fix. From this list, we’ll pick a project to test the power of lean six sigma and help us make the case for making it part of the way we do business.”

How Do You Select the Right Pilot Project?

When you get together for the workshop, you want to accomplish two objectives.

1. Identify potential improvement pilot projects.

2. Select the project that gives you the best opportunity to understand and promote lean six sigma.

The good news: Although you are only going to select one project to pilot test, if it works well, you will have a set of other high-quality ideas to implement next. Having an approved list of projects can help you keep the momentum growing.

Perhaps you’re thinking, “As the facilitator, how can I get people to share their best ideas?” Answer: Consider using the World Café method. It is designed to create a comfortable and inclusive setting where people are open to sharing their ideas. Let’s talk through the basic process.

Step #1: Create a Relaxed Setting

You go to work before the others arrive. Your goal: Create an informal, comfortable environment, typically modeled after a café. Setting up several small round tables with four or five chairs is ideal. Keep your working groups small to encourage everyone to engage in the conversation. Some facilitators really like to replicate the café setting, covering each table in a white linen tablecloth and placing a vase of flowers in the middle. You want to provide colored pens and a writing easel.

Step #2: Welcome and Introduction

As the facilitator, you want to welcome each person warmly. As you begin, share your context and goals for the workshop and provide a brief introduction to the World Café process. Your goal: Set people at ease and get them excited to engage in the process. Be sure they understand the Café Etiquette. Finally, introduce the discussion question. For instance, you want to start with a question like, “Where are our best opportunities to employ lean six sigma to improve an important business process?”

Step #3: Conduct Round-table Discussions

Give people 20–30 minutes to go to work, sharing their ideas about your discussion question. You may want to ask one person at each table to be the host, i.e., the person responsible for keeping the conversation going and capturing the shared ideas. The host will also report out at the end of the round-table discussions. After the 20–30 minutes, each member of the group moves to another table for another discussion round.

Step #4: Harvest the Ideas

After two or three discussion rounds, invite the table hosts to share the ideas that emerged at their tables with the larger group. Invite others to comment on the ideas in an open-discussion format. As the ideas are being shared, record them visually for the group to see.

The World Café process is easy to learn and easy to conduct. The good news: If you invite the right people and engage them with well-crafted questions, you will enjoy fun, insightful conversations that generate great ideas.

For your workshop, you will run two World Café sessions. The second will focus on selecting the “best” project to understand and promote lean six sigma. As you start this second session, share Figure 14.3 and provide some basic instructions about what an ideal project looks like. Remind your team that not every project is equally suited to be a pilot. The ideal project sits at the intersection of project size, project duration, project importance, and engagement of your executive sponsor. And, of course, your team must be confident that it is doable.

You may be wondering, “What if we can’t find an ideal project?” Answer: Consider the tradeoffs. Is one or more close enough? If so, choose one and get started. It is far better to get started than to wait around for a perfect project to appear (you could wait a long time waiting for perfection). Let’s take a closer look at these project criteria.

Project Size

You want to find a project that is substantive. You don’t want people to dismiss your pilot as trivial or a special case. People like to say, “But we’re different.” At the same time, you want to select a project that is manageable—one that you have a reasonable chance of being able to control.

Project Duration

Remember, one of the reasons you are running a pilot project is because you want results. You are trying to build momentum. However, if the project is too short, colleagues may not take it seriously. If it is too long, you won’t be able to convincingly claim success until it is completed. A good rule of thumb is to pick a project that can be carried out in three to six months. You can generally make the case that such a project is representative of other potential initiatives.

Project Importance

You may be tempted to select an easy, low-risk project. If things go badly, you don’t lose much. The failure won’t ding your credibility. People may not even notice. And that’s the problem; they likely won’t notice if it goes beautifully, either. You need to pick an important project—one that draws attention and gives you a chance to make an impact. Besides, you and your team need to have some skin in the game. A trivial project won’t motivate your team to do its best work. A substantive project also gives you the experience and insight to map out a detailed proven path.

Engagement of Executive Sponsor

Change can be hard. You need an executive sponsor, someone who can remove obstacles, free up resources, and help you tell your story if, and when, your project delivers powerful results. You’re looking for passion and proactive engagement. An engaged sponsor can help if you need to push back against entrenched resistance. Here’s a little good news: By the end of your workshop, you will likely have a list of viable sponsors. You may even have a volunteer.

Doability

Size, duration, importance, and sponsorship are necessary, but they are not sufficient. Before you make a final decision, explicitly ask, “Can we really do this? Are we reasonably confident that we will be able to achieve the kind of results that will help us tell a compelling story?” If you can objectively say, “Yes,” you’re ready to make a decision and go to work.

How Do You Run a Successful Pilot Project?

Pilot projects show “how” to make lean six sigma real while identifying likely pitfalls you should avoid in the future. They help turn the stepping-stones of the cycle of change into a well-paved pathway, but only if you run them successfully. Experience reveals a proven path to pilot project success. Let’s take a look at what you need to do to execute a pilot project well.

Set Clear Goals

The reason you are exploring lean six sigma is to make your processes better—that is, easier, more efficient, and more competitive. Now, as you start your pilot project you need to explicitly define your objectives and what you are trying to accomplish. Ask yourself, “What does success look like?” With lean six sigma, your goals are likely to improve productivity, enhance quality, reduce lead times, make communication easier, and WOW your customers. Note these goals and make them visible. Then measure your baseline performance so that when you are done, you can document key performance improvements.

Build Your Team

You’ve already picked your project and set your goals. Now, ask yourself, “Do we have the right team to make this work?” The choice of the project has already established your core team. They are the people who currently run the process. You might call them the process owners. So, the real question is, “What additional talent do you need?” You might need some employee coaching or engineering talent. On some projects, you might need to invite supplier or customer employees to join the team. Never forget, the people involved are the key to the success of any project. The odds are that you talked about this as you selected your project. Assuring you have a winning team is part of assessing doability!

Provide Training—and Resources

Don’t skimp on training. Provide the lean six sigma training your team needs to effectively improve the process. You may want to put several team members through green belt training. Certainly, you want them to understand the DMAIC process. Your project champion needs to assess what lean six sigma tools will be needed to run the project and make sure the right training is in place. Training is almost never one-and-done. Be prepared to provide resources as needed throughout the pilot project. The good news: When the pilot is done, you’ll have more people who can coach others up as you migrate lean six sigma to other projects and other parts of the organization.

Decide on the Length of Test

When it comes to lean six sigma pilot projects, duration means two things. First, how long will it take you to make the changes to an existing process? Second, how long do you need to let the new process run before you evaluate its performance and declare it a success? Be a little cautious here. You need to test the new-and-improved process across the range of expected use cases. How well does it perform under normal operations? What happens during peak usage? Is it susceptible to disruptions? As the process proves itself across a range of operations, you can tell an increasingly compelling story.

Gather Feedback and Document the Process

A true pilot project implies you are doing something for the first time. Some trial and error is part of the process. Your goal: Find out what works and what doesn’t. If you gather feedback on the good, the bad, and the ugly throughout the pilot, you’ll be able to document the proven path to success. You’ll also be a better coach—and a better cheerleader—on future projects.

Report Out and Celebrate

Once the pilot project has been completed, you typically will have an opportunity to report out. Rather than do this yourself, why not follow a Honda best practice: Let the team who actually did the work report on the project’s success. Remember, one of your goals is to build momentum. You do this by inviting other people into the spotlight. After all of your work, you are ready to celebrate. Be sure to acknowledge individual team member contributions.

Close the Learning Loop

You may have celebrated, but you’re not done until you conduct an after-action report (AAR), also known as a blameless autopsy. Don’t hide or gloss over the mistakes. Own them! That means you acknowledge them, learn from them, and figure out how to avoid (or at least mitigate) them in future projects. Addressing challenges is part of the learning process.

One final thought: Done well, pilot projects are powerful. Some people, however, can be skeptical about a pilot project’s results. Pilots can look good for the wrong reasons. You could stack your team with people who are particularly receptive to trying new things. Your team may feel special and thus bring extra passion to the project. You might dedicate extra resources to the project. You get the idea: You could game the system. Don’t! You need to be meticulous and do all you can to make the project work, but you want to follow a process that sets the stage for future success, not cynicism. Then you will be ready to share what you’ve learned and invite others to build on and improve your efforts as they apply lean six sigma in their own contexts.