Our Quality Project & Initiative Facilitation (Session Leader) Workshop course prepares workshop leaders to make the most of critical quality projects. The course is intended for those that want to improve their group leadership skills, particularly in extracting excellent results from group activities.

It is imperative in a quality project that the workshops are themselves quality experiences. How better to set the tone for the results you want to achieve, and to set an example of a refined process?

The course is intensive, well-rounded, and targeted for today's fast paced, quality-driven environments.

This course covers a range of typical quality group activities. After building a foundation in the art of facilitation, the course instructor leads students through various practical applications.

The course generally follows a DMAIC path in providing practical examples but the value of the learning experience is not limited to Six Sigma® applications. We also include peer review inspections, FMEA, root cause analysis, TQIM, and other typical quality project activities.

Expert facilitation is proven to dramatically increase team productivity and set a positive tone for the entire project.

Many team projects have started and ended poorly because of experiences in group settings. This course provides excellent training for project leaders, facilitators, participants, and subject matter experts.

You will emerge with greater confidence, additional tools, increased awareness about team performance, and a conviction and ability to run your projects better.

The class spends sixty percent of the time on team (as group) skills specific to quality project project management. Project management is distinguished from general facilitation (typically) by:

• Longer life of the team/workgroup
• Significant non-workshop activities in addition to workshop activities
• Remote collaboration and individual or sub-team assignments
• Specific quality project tasks completed with team members in group settings
• Quality project managers with multiple projects or additional project management responsibilities

COURSE GOAL

Our goal is to make the “soft stuff” easy. Graduates learn to apply SMART rules and preparation plans to their project management activities. Tasks with your team that once seemed daunting are made significantly easier. You can expect to improve your team leader or facilitation skills, while delivering better project results. Our intense, three-day curriculum teaches quality project leaders how to:

• Decide when to involve the team in individual or group activities and communications
• Structure group activities to be more efficient AND effective
• Increase project member enthusiasm for team activities
• Manage the disparity in your knowledge of quality tools and techniques relative to your team members
• Shift responsibilities from you to team members for more effective and lively team meetings
• Manage out-of-control meetings and learn to recognize signs of loss-of-control earlier
• Manage group conflict and "problem people"
• Learn techniques for reaching consensus
• Understand collaboration tools

BENEFITS

• Improve your ability to manage and work on projects while you´re juggling your regular job responsibilities
• Improve your team's enthusiasm and contribution during group meetings
• Resolve conflicts before they arise
• Turn workshops from grueling, time-consuming, low productivity exercises into vibrant, creative activities
• Learn which team members contribute best within workshops (from those that cannot)
• Earn the respect of senior managers for your ability to effectively manage workgroups in workshop settings

OUTLINE

The following is an outline for a typical presentation of this course. Actual content may vary due to our effort to continuously update course content and/or the specific requirements (and characteristics) of course participants.

Successful graduates should build confidence and expertise in specific quality activities. These are examples of activities that are integrated into our three-day curriculum:

• Building (excitement for) the team charter
• How to build process maps with a team
• How to set project opportunity priorities
• How to lead the three steps behind successful "brainstorming"
• Managing changes in team composition due to turnover, reassignment, or project phase
• How to identify and manage delivery of "Quick Win" opportunities
• How to build and apply RASI for next steps

DAY ONE

Group Basics

• Projects and project management with groups
• Group characteristics and their impact
• How to manage the "group lifecycle"
• How to recognize and manage factors that inhibit effective group work
• When to use sub-teams and assignments

Workshop Basics

• Characteristics of the ideal workshop
• How to design a successful workshop
• Explicit and implicit roles in group (workshop) settings
• Deciding whether to "team build" or not, and why (and how)
• The most common failure modes (and what to do about them)
• When workshops are a waste of time
• Why meeting location matters (and why "off-sites" may work)
• How to identify and manage important workshop logistics
• What is different about Six Sigma project teams and the work they are to accomplish

You As Group (Team) Leader

• Common group activities within projects
• Characteristics of effective team leaders (and whether you possess them, and what to do if not)
• Criteria for you to decide if you should lead your own meetings
• What to do if you suck at leading groups, meetings, or teams
• Why do you do not have to do all of the group management and why
• The inherent conflict of being the process expert and team leader - and what to do about it
• Your role as "process policeman":
  • Time
  • Content
  • Attitude
  • Process
  • Quality
  • Conflict

DAY TWO

Designing A Successful Team Workshop

• Scheduling the proper time and setting for group meetings
• Team member assignments
• Training your team members to participate effectively
• How to design and apply meeting rules, with proven rules to get you started
• Energy boosters (when, why, and what to do)
• Essential follow-up activities (Guardian of Change role)
• How to manage team members who are unfamiliar with Six Sigma concepts (How to help them contribute)

Decisions Within Project Groups

• What is and is not a "decision" and when they occur
• The basics of decision-making
• Group decision-making behavior
• Tools and options for group decision-making
• What to absolutely avoid when making group decisions
• When consensus a valid decision tool
• Traceability in decisions (how to know what and how it happened)

Assuring Successful Group Activities

• Building project schedules
• How to conduct team progress reviews
• How to manage discussions about conflict
• Team communication before, during, and after group meetings (upwards, downwards, and across the organization)

DAY THREE

Practicalities

• Preventing sabotage
• When to cancel a project meeting and why
• How to recognize time wasting activities and time wasting people in team meetings
• Adding and removing members of groups
• What to do when the boss invites him/herself into your meetings
• How to plan for and manage the top team meeting contingencies
• What to do if the team cannot agree or a decision is unclear
• How to work across varying levels in the organization - from shop floor to the executive suite
• How to transform ideas into breakthrough concepts
• How to evaluate the quality of your workshops
• How to align your processes with other projects and initiatives

Applied Quality Project Facilitation

• Defining a project "problem", and many include:
  • How to lead a team to determine Critical Customer Requirements
  • Leading a QFD (quality function deployment) workshop
• Creating a measurement plan
• Analysis in group settings, and may include:
  • FMEA
  • Root Cause Analysis
  • Peer Review Inspection
• Creating an improvement action plan
• Defining controls for your improvements

SCHEDULE

This course is scheduled on-demand for private classes. We hold open enrollment courses periodically. You can register on-line for this course on our Registration page.

COST

Private: The cost for this course is $1800 per participant and includes course materials. Maximum private class size is twelve; minimum is six. Private class clients provide facilities, accoutrement such as meals, presentation aids, LCD projector, easels, and paper.

Public: The cost for this course is $2000 per participant and includes course materials, breakfast, lunch, and refreshments.

® Six Sigma is a registered trademark of Motorola, Inc.