AAF Case Study: Securing Executive Support

Previously, we kicked off the AAF Six Sigma Case Study.

We covered the set up and background information that you as the leader of this hypothetical case study would have at the on-set. (If you haven’t read that post yet, start there!)

And I challenged you to describe what your immediate steps would be.

The answers were spot on.

• Seek and Gain Executive Support
• Create a Charter
• Build a Team
• Define the the process

Let’s dive in with seeking and gaining executive support.

Seek and Gain Executive Support.

Dana and Chuks summarized what we need to do here very well.

“Given the situation, starting off strong with leadership support extremely important. Get them off the fence. “

Dana Jepson

“To get this project off to a good start, the support base and structure must be there, else willingness and appetite for sustained project finance wouldn’t be there – especially when the vultures are waiting to get their hands on the cash pot set aside for the project!”

Chuks Wayemeru

I see gaining executive support as the domain of the Project Sponsor supported by the Six Sigma team. Here’s an excellent article on building executive support and the critical skills a sponsor needs. Tools like stakeholder analysis can help prepare for winning the executive team over.

Assuming executive support is achieved, and the project is validated, having a tollgate review at each phase of a DMAIC process (or even more frequently as a pulse check if the phases take a long time to complete) is a good way to package efforts & results and communicate with busy sponsors / stakeholders.

There’s a lot of work to be done before our first Tollgate review, however. Documenting and socializing project aims in a Project charter is critical for large / high-profile projects. This enables a clear understanding among all parties about the problems we are actively trying to solve.

What do you think?

Aside from completing the Define Phase and passing a Tollgate review, is there anything else you would add to securing executive support?

Next time we’ll cover creating a charter for this project. Be sure to comment and list some of the things we need to do to complete that task.