For Management
In order for SS to be effective, it must be embraced by the leadership.
Middle management is notoriously averse to change and the disruption it brings, and may sometimes actually work to kill an initiative. The author suggests presenting it as a beneficial change and implies that the best solution is simply to fire anyone who doesn't play ball.
Some of the selling points for SS are:
- Clearer priorities - SS helps to identify the "important" projects among the hundreds that are proposed by objective means (as opposed to politics)
- Fewer conflicts - SS teams work across the various silos that exist in a business, cutting through a lot of the red-tape barriers and helping disparate parts of the organization to work toward common goals.
- Data Transparency - SS gathers data from various places where it is typically filed away, out f view, and makes it more freely available
- Employee Development - Involvement in SS projects broadens the perspective of the employees involved
- Measurable Improvements - SS provides clear measurements for success, better enabling those involved to crow about their accomplishments.
There are also a handful of random challenges the author addresses: how to recover from the loss of a black-belt; what kind of projects meet SS requirements; understanding one's role as a sponsor; how to identify output measures for processes; dealing with employee complaints. The advice seems pretty random and organic, so I'm not recording it.