San Diego, California - Program Executive Office Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence (PEO C4I) hosted a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt training, Feb. 26-March 2, as the command continues its roles as a cost- and time-savings leader.
The Continuous Process Improvement (CPI) Team from the PEO C4I Front Office trained seven students who work for both the command itself and some of its partners. Green Belts learn to support advanced projects by analyzing and solving quality problems, and they can lead quality-improvement projects. More plainly, Green Belts find ways at a mid-level to make organizations more effective and efficient.
At PEO C4I, Green Belts and Black Belts have led or participated in projects that have saved millions of dollars and hundreds of manhours. A major success story involves reducing thousands of administrative labor hours associated with the procurement of new information technology systems. A different, ongoing project is accelerating the Risk Management Framework approval process, which is a disciplined and structured process to integrate information security and risk management into the life cycle of system development.
"Process improvement doesn't happen in a bubble," said John Pope, executive director of PEO C4I. "To see the big differences we've seen, you need a focused team. A team of people can identify small projects we can complete quickly that add up to big savings overall. Every dollar matters. A team is also necessary for large projects, not only to do the actual CPI analysis, implementation and sustainment, but also because rarely does any organization work alone. Having all the stakeholders working together adds to the efficiency and effectiveness. This is one way we support the warfighter through improving affordability and speed to delivery."
To that end, the PEO C4I Front Office CPI team aims to have trained personnel in as many offices, on as many projects and from as many teammates as possible. Participants can be military or civilian.
One of PEO C4I's closest partners is the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR), and two students in this week's class were SPAWAR personnel who sit embedded with the PEO on a daily basis.
"Having people doing this type of work across the command allows them to identify many different problem areas," said Mike Dettman, PEO C4I Front Office Black Belt and a training instructor. "The CPI Leads in each program office funnel the issues they identify through our executive steering group. Then that group gains a better understanding of where the biggest impacts can be made looking at the organization as a whole."
Students in the class were eager to do well and to get started on their improvement projects in their workgroups where they can use their new skills.
"I applied to receive this training because I have experienced projects without formal guidance in place and seen delays because of that," said Lt. Cmdr. Jonathan Width, a student in the class who works in the Navy's Tactical Networks Program Office (PMW 160) at PEO C4I. "I have some ideas about where we can increase efficiency, but I'm looking forward to examining them with my new knowledge after this training and working with the larger team to move them forward."
Program Executive Office Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence (PEO C4I) provides integrated communication and information technology systems that enable information warfare and command and control of maritime forces. PEO C4I acquires, fields and supports C4I systems which extend across Navy, joint and coalition platforms.
