Category: Methodology

I am regularly asked what characterizes an ideal Black Belt candidate. Like most people in the field, I have a list of adjectives and descriptive phrases I can trot out at a moment’s notice. Mine comprises about 50 items under the following headings: 1) Aptitude For Change; 2) Education and Experience; 3) Intellectual Curiosity; 4) […]

It is very important to understand how to create a good key performance indicator or KPI for Six Sigma.This is also true when you add Six Sigma to your strategic plan, as I have. The KPIs that you develop must first be a goal(s) of your organization, department, etc.These should be agreed upon.Remember, these will […]

In a perfect world, every project would lead directly to financial gain. We’d draft a charter that, when well executed, produced savings or income that translated directly to the bottom line. And this would be good because we all like making money. We can put it in the bank, earn interest on it, add many […]

There is a strong tendency for Six Sigma programs to forge an inextricable link between project management roadmaps, notably DMAIC, and statistical tools. This has never made much sense to me. In my experience, Six Sigma programs can not only exist and survive without the use of typical roadmaps, but prosper and flourish. In the […]

When Jack and the lads (and ladies I’m sure) started putting together Six Sigma they got together in many rooms over many months and slowly designed an effective and data based project management and process control structure. For many years now it has worked effectively in businesses across the globe from manufacturing to finance and […]

Sometimes operational people from my organisation approach me with “the” 1000-Euro-question: “Six Sigma guy, can you please help me analyze this set of data.” Asking me to help, they usually have an issue they really can’t resolve themselves. Perceiving Lean Six Sigma too far away from daily operations they turn in despair to the Six […]

In a business process improvement project, a critical factor is documenting the standard work or the “least waste way.” One of the issues I have been dealing with recently is ensuring that documentation is in place and up to date. Unfortunately as the saying goes, “the only constant is change…” and as outside factors change […]

Lean and Six Sigma applications are different between service industries and manufacturing industries. Is that statement really true? There is no straightforward answer. The answer is ambiguous. It can be: no, there is no difference. But it can be: they are the same to certain extend. The answer can also be: yes, the application is […]

Lean Six Sigma’s application to healthcare has been slow at best. One reason for this is that healthcare professionals view manufacturing as an industry that deals with the simple process of making inanimate objects. Healthcare, on the other hand, deals with complex processes that improve and prolong the functionality of the human anatomy. Consequently, healthcare […]

Have you experienced the following? Consider that after implementing an improvement the process capability has improved from 3.5 sigma to 4.2 sigma. Proudly you celebrate this very nice Six Sigma methodology success in your organisation. How many questions did you get after or during your presentation about how important this improvement really is? What does […]

Do all Six Sigma deployment models return the same results – proportionally – to the resources and time invested? The topic of deployment models can be a thorny issue among Six Sigma practitioners. Many claim that the best model is to initiate a Six Sigma program from the “top-down” (ala GE’s Jack Welch, who mandated […]