By Kim Niles
Context as applied to Six Sigma
Six Sigma context can be thought of as information allowing an understanding of the circumstances, value of, and or interrelated conditions around work performed, statements made, raw data used, facts discovered, etc., long after it is referenced.
Six Sigma is about virtually eliminating all types of mistakes, waste, and rework. Error free communication is crucial to Six Sigma, as it directly correlates with producing error in the product, process, or service. Poor communication can in some cases directly produce errors and in others indirectly produce errors as an interaction effect. Therefore, what makes Six Sigma work is not context poor communication.
Six Sigma context needs to be long term applicable. Everyday communication includes mutual situational understanding, verbal, or visual gestures which all become very short term applicable context (i.e. poor context). Such communication containing gestures such as eye contact and voice inflections to show tense, negation, and duration of activity, must be properly converted to written context where applicable.
Documents can and should be assessed in terms of sigma levels and DPMO (defects per million opportunities) to improve CTQ documents in the same way we do other process-related activities.
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