Ajay
Mature software development organizations understand that software development is a repetitive business. The fact that you see the differences more than the similarity could be an indication that your organization has a ways to go. It could be that, for you, going after CMM could be a more productive first step than Six Sigma.
Even so, Six Sigma can be an effective help in gettng there. If you have a reasonably well-established Six Sigma culture in your organization, DMAIC can help you bring those processes you already do reasonably well up to snuff, and DFSS can help you wit those places where you don’t have a clue.
Besides the obvious – applying Six Sigma to improve your own methodology, DFSS can be applied quite effectively to decent sized build or implement from scratch sorts of efforts your organization undertakes. Although out of the box, DFSS doesn’t address all the issues that need to be handled, it has strengths in exactly the places most software development methodologies have weaknesses, so it can frequently be a pleasant marriage.
As far as applying DMAIC or DFSS as a methodology in your enhancement projects, that may be a little tougher. I would be surprised if you had enough data to be effective in using DMAIC in conjunction with, or in lieu of, your enhancement methodology. I’m guessing you would need to be at least at CMM level 3, probably higher, for that to be fruitful.
–McD
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