Kai Sigma provides both a systematic and pragmatic way for people and organisations to improve performance. Its key concepts and principles are supported by a comprehensive tool-kit enabling people to use the appropriate tools and techniques to solve the problems they are tackling.

At its heart is the need to ensure that people at all levels of an organisation both feel able, and are able, to challenge and improve their processes and the way they work. Naturally, this has significant implications for the culture of the organisation, and for the role of the Manager.

Kai Sigma demands ‘different thinking’ especially from the Leaders and Managers of an organisation, something that is not always easy to achieve, but it’s key. As an example, Catalyst believes that Managers must work on the processes they are responsible for with the people in those processes, to find ways to continuously improve them. Unfortunately, in all too many organisations, Managers are doing anything but.

Kai Sigma brings together the powerful concepts of continuously seeking to improve performance by understanding and reducing variation, in order to enhance both bottom line results and customer satisfaction. That improvement comes from focusing on how the work gets done and how well it gets done.

The approach to achieving these improvements follows a common framework, but will vary in both time and focus, according to the complexity and scope of the problem being tackled. Keep things simple, but never simpler than they need to be.

So, improvements might be implemented in anything from as little as one day or less, to perhaps several months, and could involve the use of ‘Quick Wins’, ‘Rapid Improvement Events’, or more formal and longer ‘Improvement Projects’. Either way, the framework of DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve, Control), commonly used in Lean Six Sigma programmes provides the umbrella process to ensure things are actioned appropriately. This helps avoid the dual temptations of jumping to conclusions and solutions without understanding something that so often leads to chaos.

Catalyst provides a wide range of training, coaching, and support services to help organisations maximise the potential of the Kai Sigma approach.