Sigma Magic Help Version 18

True North

Overview

True North is like a compass that points an organization's lean deployment in the right direction. It might be viewed as a mission statement reflecting the organization's purpose. It is a concise and universal set of ideals that provides a compass that transcends any particular organizational strategy. True North refers to what an organization should do, not what it can do. It is an ideal state of perfection that a business should be continually striving towards. True North is a vision of the perfect condition from the standpoint of the customer and the business. It should be simple: challenge the status quo and guide the organization to make the right choices. The different elements of the True North statements should reinforce one another and help a business move towards the ideal state. This particular tool helps with a simple format for documenting the True North. Once a True North has been created, it has to be approved by management to ensure everyone aligns with the proposed statements, and then it should be rolled out to the entire organization. Ideally, every company member should be able to reel out the True North in their sleep.

To add this tool to your workbook, click on Lean and then select True North.

Inputs

Click on Analysis Setup to open the menu options for this tool.

Setup

A sample screenshot of the setup menu is shown below.

1	Analysis Type: Specify the tool format for this analysis. This selection is not enabled since there is only one format available.
2	Num Tasks: Specify the number of rows of data you would like to enter on the worksheet. This information is used to format the worksheet. Note that any data below this formatted area will be cleared.
3	View Example: Click on this button to open the example file. You can view the example to get an idea of how to fill out this tool, or you can use the example as a starting point and modify it to meet your project needs.
4	Help Button: Click on this button to open the help file on this topic.
5	Cancel Button: Click on this button to exit without saving any changes.
6	Create Design: If this is your first time using this template, click this button to format the worksheet template. You can also update the worksheet format any time, but remember that you may lose any data entered on this worksheet. Once you are happy with the worksheet template layout, you must enter any required data on the worksheet. When the data entered into the worksheet is complete, you can click on Analysis Setup and then Compute Outputs to generate analysis results.
7	Analyze Design: Click on this button to save all changes and compute the outputs for this analysis. Review the results of your analysis and make changes to your inputs if required to update analysis results.

A sample screenshot of the worksheet is shown below: On the worksheet, you must enter the True North statements finalized by the team. The worksheet is broken up into common sections used for these statements, such as:

Num	Description
1	Safety & People
2	Delivery
3	Quality
4	Financials

Documenting some metrics and specific targets for each area would be best. Capturing the actual values may help, but make sure that the targets are in the ideal condition, which may be hard to achieve.

Checklist

You will see the following dialog box if you click the Checklist button. The checklist contains a few pointers on things you must pay particular attention to while performing this analysis. The checklist has been derived from experience working on past projects. Not all the checklist items need to apply to you. However, you should carefully review the checklist and apply any recommendations that make sense for your project. Make sure to read each checklist item and mark it as completed after you have read and taken actions as appropriate for your project.

1	Item: The items on the checklist are listed on the left
2	Status: The status of whether the checklist has been answered is listed on the right.

Ideally, all items on the checklist should be marked as reviewed/completed.

Verify

If you click the Verify button, the software will perform some checks on the data you entered. A sample screenshot of the dialog box is shown in the figure below. The software checks if you have correctly specified the input options and entered the required data on the worksheet. The results of the analysis checks are listed on the right. If the checks are passed, they are shown as green checkmarks. If the verification checks fail, they are shown as a red cross. If the verification checks result in a warning, they are shown in the orange exclamation mark, and finally, any checks that are required to be performed by the user are shown as blue info icons.

1	Item: The left-hand side shows the major tabs and the items checked within each section
2	Status: The right-hand side shows the status of the checks.
3	Overall Status: Shows the overall status of all the checks performed. If all the checked items are okay, the status image in the header will show a green checkmark. If any checks fail, then the status image in the header will show a red cross mark.

Outputs

Click on Compute Outputs to update the outputs. If you have answered all the questions in the input dialog box in the affirmative, then it is recorded as such on this worksheet. If all the template elements have been filled out, the dialog box is shown when you click the Compute Outputs button.

Notes

Here are a few notes regarding this analysis:

• If you modify the True North format, make sure you update the header information.

Examples

The following examples are in the software's Examples folder.

• Select a business and create the True North statements for this business. Consider any existing Vision, Mission, and Values statements when you finalize your True North. An example of True North for Toyota is shown in the reference file (True North 1.xlsx).

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