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Every company has a business strategy, yet many do not explicitly articulate and communicate the elements of that strategy through written vision, mission and values statements. To operate a successful Six Sigma program, you need a clearly articulated vision statement that describes what you aim to achieve and a clear mission statement that describes how you wil do so. You also must have formalized guiding values that specify how leaders will make challenging decisions.
Six Sigma excels at evaluating how well you are executing against a business strategy and at helping you improve that performance. However it does not have tools designed to help you create your business strategy. So while establishing your strategy is a critical prerequisite for a successful Six Sigma program, you use a standard business approach to create it.
You can create your mission, vision and values statements in any order or even simultaneously, but consider approaching the tasks in the following sequence.
Vision statement: Start with your vision statement, which should describe the results you hope to achieve. What will your business accomplish for all its stakeholders? Consider employees, customers, and business owners or shareholders, as well as the industry overall. Your vision basically represents the target you are moving toward.
Operating values: Your operating or guiding values describe the principles you will follow as you seek to fulfill your vision. What are the factors that should come into play any time your business leaders need to make tough decisions? Where do you draw the line when it comes to compromise? Check out Intuit Inc.'s operating values for examples of some values you may want to consider.
Mission statement:The mission statement is probably the most commonly used of the three elements. It should clarify for everyone in the company as well as anyone outside just what your company does. This is the place to describe the main methods you use, the type of products or services you offer, or whom you serve. Depending on the complexity of your business and amount of detail you want to include, your mission statement can range from a single sentence to several paragraphs.
For more information and examples, check out the article on Create Your Mission, Vision And Values Statements. It is aimed at small business owners but the principles apply for larger businesses as well. Note that both for-profit and not-for-profit companies should create and apply these statements. For insights into using them for community organizations, check out the Community Driven Institute.
Once you have completed this first step in establishing your Business Process Management System, use them to guide the process of establishing the other components. First you will clarify your core processes and show how your detailed operations map to those key functions, and then you will establish metrics for tracking performance at the business level and at the employee level. Read on in this series for more details on creating your BPMS.
