The primary goal of Six Sigma is to eliminate defects in a process. The desired outcome is improved quality and efficiency for the business. This overall result is achieved by streamlining business processes and eliminating wasted effort and resources.
Choosing and maintaining an optimal Six Sigma project is important to its overall success. One way to identify a Six Sigma project is by following a set plan.
Strategic Action Plan
The first step in identifying a Six Sigma initiative is to recognize which processes need to be addressed. It is also important that those who initiate a Six Sigma approach have an understanding of the businesses’ strategic plan.
The strategic plan should go hand-in-hand with adopting the Six Sigma approach.
The strategic action plan is the means by which the strategic plan is implemented. Its purpose should be to drive the mission, values and goals of the business. The basic steps, elements and questions which need to be addressed in creating a successful strategic action plan includes:
- Inviting key participants in the business – also known as stakeholders – to brainstorm a plan of action. The goal should be to create a plan of action to achieve the desired results.
- Creating or reformulating an existing mission statement, which reflects the values and goals of the stakeholders.
- Understanding the parameters of the business and answering questions such as: Are there funding or revenue constraints in implementing new approaches? Are there cultural considerations related to internal business culture and actual cultural issues in the marketplace?
- Answering the question, can the infrastructure support new initiatives? A successful Six Sigma initiative relies on the ability to use all the elements of DMAIC – Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control. For the approach to yield the desired results, there needs to be available personnel to carry out the steps.
- Conducting a comparison of current performance with the desired future performance. Focus on the processes in the business that clearly have need of improvement. Be sure to focus on those areas which allow for improvement.
Champions and Master Black Belts
To effectively incorporate the elements of a strategic plan, and have a foundation for a Six Sigma initiative, individuals should have an understanding of the business process from the ground up. It may also be beneficial to answer these questions:
What is fueling the process?
What is holding it together?
Organizations should have a framework that allows them to take input collected, in terms of customer requests and available resources, and create output, or positive outcomes. Planned-for-improvement activities need to be initiated by those who understand the framework – the core business processes. This is a way to clearly identify processes that need improvement, and to ensure that chosen projects are in alignment with the action plans created from the strategic plan.
The individuals who are involved in identifying the first Six Sigma project should be those trained in Six Sigma and designated as Champions and Master Black Belts.
The Champions and Master Black Belts should work together to analyze the strategic plan and look for the areas that are at the core of the business process. This is where project choice begins. Champions and Master Black Belts clarify and confirm the goals of the business. They review how departmental activities affect overall business process functioning, and they pinpoint how each aspect of the business process drives the overall system.
One of the primary roles of a Six Sigma Champion is to organize information for the Master Black Belt about chosen projects. This includes information about how each department’s activities are interconnected, and also can include funding options, staffing concerns, time constraints and internal and external cultural factors.
The Master Black Belt is responsible for assessing the information provided by the Champion and prioritizing project deployment. The Master Black Belt initiates project deployment and oversees the mission, after designating those responsible for project activities and results.
Master Black Belts may also train and mentor project staff, who can then be well prepared to spot potential defects in new business processes. As the business evolves, strategic plans should too evolve, with Six Sigma serving as the tool for continuous quality improvement.
