Six Sigma is an organizational process. While there may or may not be dedicated professionals to oversee it, it demands commitment from the entire organization. All employees – staff and management – need to understand that there will be changes brought about by implementing Six Sigma processes, and they must accept them willingly. It is therefore crucial to assess what stage of Six Sigma maturity the organization is in currently, and to what stage it must be brought before actual implementation of Six Sigma can begin.

How does one do this?

There are five critical areas which need to be questioned.

Firstly, leadership. You need to ask whether the leadership of the company is fully committed to see it through. Do they what this is all about, are they assigning a sufficient budget and suitable staff to the process? Will they stay equally committed once the initiative has been launched? Have they included Six Sigma among the organizational goals?

This is the most critical of all steps. Several Six Sigma initiatives have failed simply because the leadership switched off after an initial period of enthusiasm. Besides, a half-completed process may leave in in the undesirable state of having an abandoned an earlier process without having finished moving to a new one.

Secondly, you need to have your people in place. If you can, get a full-time team in place, or else see to it that some level of dedication is built into it. Ask whether you are getting external Black Belt experts, or are you training internally? Are their compensation packages and rewards being tied to the results they achieve in implementing Six Sigma?

People are important because they will be the measure of how efficiently you are able to go forward. A fully committed and skilled team can achieve wonders.

Thirdly, what is your infrastructure like? This is not about equipment, because Six Sigma can actually cost nothing. But do you have all the data gathering methodologies in place? How much information are you collecting from customers and other stakeholders, how are you storing it and what tools have you got to analyze it?

This is crucial simply because reliable measurement and analysis of data is the bedrock of Six Sigma.

Fourthly, you must have a culture that respects efficiency. Do you really care about the consumer? Does your organization operate smoothly without disputes, and with a universally accepted system of rewards and incentives? Do you care for all that data you accumulate?

This is simply because Six Sigma can only help an organization that is fundamentally sound.

And Fifthly, how accountable are people in the organization going to be to Six Sigma recommendations? Are people going to implement it? Are they going to share the critical data needed for improvement?

To help you get exact data for these questions, you can use our Six Sigma Maturity Assessment Template. It gives you a step by step way of asking the right questions, and getting answers in a quantitative, measurable way.

Once these questions are answered, you can get your team in place, and begin to get them trained in how Six Sigma actually works on the ground.