Six sigma heirarchy

First let's talk about how a six sigma project is organized. A six sigma project is centered around someone called the black belt. They are a six sigma project leader. The black belt has had years of training in six sigma projects and works on them full time managing four to six projects per year. Under the black belt is a number of green belts who work on the project part time and have some six sigma training. How many green belts are working on the project depends on the company and some even opt to make all workers on a project green belts. Beneath them are project team members who contribute part time work to the project. There are also master black belts who have even more experience and can offer help and guidance to black belts as well as anyone else on the team if needed. They are a very valuable resource on a six sigma project. The final group of people are called champions and they are people who oversee projects by approving project charters, review progress and help to ensure the success of six sigma projects. These are the metaphorical cogs in the machine that make the six sigma methodology work. Next let’s look at the methodology itself. 

The dmaic method

There are five generally accepted phases of a six sigma project. Those phases are define, measure, analyze, improve, and control. They are also known by the acronym DMAIC. The DMAIC process is meant to help us identify and fix problems in the project with as little waste as possible. Let’s go through each phase and discuss what they involve. In the define phase you collect requirements, objectives, and scope. This involves working with customers heavily. The goals of the measure phase are to define defects, gather information on what defects currently exist in the project as well as information on how the project is performing in its current state. In the analyze phase of the project we aim to learn what exactly is causing any defects we’re experiencing in the project. A big challenge of this phase is to not jump to conclusions. Teams have a tendency to try to implement solutions before they understand the true source of the problem which can lead to lots of time and money wasted on a solution to a problem that doesn’t work. The key to the analyze phase is to verify their hunches with hard data before moving on to fix the problem at hand. The improve phase is where once we fully understand the project we can find and implement solutions that will fix the problem. Another important part of this phase is to collect data on the performance of the product to prove that the solution has led to better outcomes for the project and the customer experience. Lastly during the control phase we figure out how to maintain the improvements we see on the project. Now that the solution is in place it takes work to ensure that improvement is continuous. This usually involves creating a monitoring plan to track the success of the process as well as coming up with an emergency plan to be executed if the process dips in performance again. Utilizing DMAIC can help you deal with defects as they arise. Next let’s talk about the four constraints of the six sigma method.

the 4 main constraints

The six sigma method defines four main constraints that serve to give an upper limit for the project. The constraints are scope, schedule, budget, and quality and each are vital in delivering the end project in a way that will make everyone happy. Scope is what needs to be done for the project to be completed successfully. It is what is required by the customer and the processes used to produce what they want. Defining scope helps us understand our project and what is being asked of us. Schedule is simply the time it takes to complete the project. This requires a good understanding of the scope as well as how long each task of the project is going to take. The schedule is a very important part of the process to get right as it’s the most commonly missed with delays and missed deadlines happening extremely frequently and these mistakes being very expensive. Budget is the resources allocated to the project in the form of workers, resources, and money. It’s very important to try to stay within budget as customers won’t be happy about having to pay more than original estimates. Quality is delivering what is asked by the customer in the way that they want it. This involved making sure that customer requirements are met to the best of your ability.

Understanding and utilizing the six sigma methodology can help you manage and contain defects as they rise which can save a ton of money, time, and headaches for you and your team. Hope this helped!