Begin with a checklist.

Assessment completed? Yes.

Team chosen and trained? Yes.

Team communications in place? Yes

Now comes when you choose the strategy and tactics – the set of tools you want to use, the key responsibilities you are handing out to each team member, the budgets and timelines.

Strategy is about knowing where you can make a difference, and choosing the methods you will use to make that difference. Tactics is about actually making that difference. Six Sigma is strategy – it can only provide direction. The tactics are many and you can choose what you are comfortable with. We will begin discussing some later in this blog.

First, choose the projects where you can make a difference. Don’t be tempted by taking on the most challenging projects first; a smaller project where you can show results faster may be more pragmatic. Decide when you are starting, and when you hope to finish it. Remember, these projections must be based on measurements, not hunches.

Processes worthy of Six Sigma consideration can be quite common across the IT industry. Based on what we studied across several IT firms, we put together a number of potential processes in the Project Ideas template – which might be helpful to you in identifying those specific processes in your firm which may be amenable to applying Six Sigma.

Once you have chosen you can use our Project Selection template to set down your actionable points firmly on paper. Some critical questions you need to get answers on are

What are the corporate objectives the project will result in (lower costs, greater efficiency, more sales etc)?
How does it benefit the customer?
Who are the people involved?
How much baseline data is available?

Set ‘tollgates’ for each step. Tollgates are points at which process transitions happen – from define to measure, measure to analyze and so on. Assign key responsibilities, and keep track of who is doing what, how trained the person is, etc. Prepare for errors and backlogs, and have a plan B if the roll-out isn’t happening as expected. In our Six Sigma Kit’s Project Management Framework we have included a Program Tracker Template (with a pre-filled example) to help you monitor your strategy.

Six Sigma is an attempt to make management processes more scientific; it thus derives much of its principles from the Scientific Method. This in turn  places a huge emphasis on keeping meticulous records, collecting as much data as is reasonably possible, making hypotheses and testing them. Making sure that you have the capability to store and process all the data is thus very important.

The first tactic comes in making definitions - called Process Mapping. This defines how many steps in a process, the relationships among the steps, and what exactly constitutes a step. Each ’step’ maybe a process in itself, for which again the exercise can be carried out. The way to do it might be to draw a ‘map’ on paper, clearly marking the boundaries between steps. At each step, also mark the cost, wastage and benefit of that step (which is how it differs from a Flowchart). Identify steps which are rate-determiners for the whole process, and steps at which key decisions (such as accept/reject) are made.

Another tool that is useful in defining processes is SIPOC, which simply lists out Suppliers, Inputs, Processes, Outputs and Customers/Clients. e.g. If the process is ‘training’ then,

Supplier = instructor.

Input = training material, course syllabus.

Customer = trainee.

Output = actual learning

Process = interaction between instructor and trainee.

Each of these must be quantifiable and therefore quantified. eg

S – qualifications and experience of instructor, success rate of students

I – textbooks, syllabus, teaching aids etc

P – hours of instruction, rate of coverage of syllabus, number of doubts cleared

O – examination of students

C – eligibility to undertake the course, level of training

More tactics in the next blog.