The two previous blogposts gave a quick introduction to Six Sigma, but may have left you with the impression that Six Sigma is only for manufacturing processes. This is not true, for services industries have also benefitted much from implementing Six Sigma. Creating a software is akin to a manufacturing process – it must work in exactly the same way in every system it is installed on. Information Technology based services like database management and website design too are not immune – your webpage should not look different from monitor to monitor.
While over 2/3rds of Fortune 500 companies have now implemented Six Sigma processes in some way or the other, the IT sector still seems ambivalent. For example, here is a survey of 956 organizations carried out by iSixSigma magazine.
55% organizastions have IT as a staff function in their company.
45% include IT as a strategic component of business.
Only 17% of the respondents admitted to using Six Sigma to improve IT processes.
50% of the surveyed companies rarely or never used Six Sigma to improve IT processes.
31% reported that no Six Sigma BBs or MBBs were allocated to IT in their company.
Just 21% of the respondents included IT personnel on their Six Sigma teams regularly.
58% reported that IT project development methodologies (e.g., SDLC, CMMI, PSP) are not integrated with Six Sigma methodologies.
But encouragingly, 55% reported that between 1 and 25 percent of Six Sigma projects at their company are IT related.
Less than 10 companies who had IT as a staff function were always using Six Sigma to improve IT processes.
Why would there be so much resistance to Six Sigma processes?
It may simply because of ignorance of the benefits of the method, which the earlier blogs may have gone some way to mitigate. It may be because Six Sigma calls for a dedicated number of ‘Champions’ and ‘Black Belts’ – employees with the passion and focus to implement Six Sigma from beginning to end and make it stay that way. A small IT company may not be able to afford to pay employees not in core functions. Or it may be that the initial cost of implementation presents a barrier, in spite of the potential savings generated.
When you cannot get someone to d it for you, you have to ‘do-it-yourself’. Which is inherently problematic, for there is a long learning curve, and ironically likely to strip you of much efficiency.
We identified this a critical problem, and have tried to develop a set of solutions. We reason that a set of kits, that contain extensive guidelines, examples as well step-by-step templates might be useful in enabling firms to implement Six sigma processes gradually, without having to hire or dedicated exclusive Six Sigma experts.
