Six Sigma: Define

- When an author sits down to write a new book, the first thing he does is to decide what to write about and what not to write about. He defines his book. As the first step in his process, this certainly makes sense, but interestingly enough, when Motorola introduced Six Sigma, they did not include the defined step. They used a four step methodology of measure, analyze, improve, and control. The defined step was added by General Electric a few years later when they experienced some basic problems in implementing Six Sigma in their company. In this critical first step, the Six Sigma team determines what the project is and exactly what it should accomplish. Since Motorola initially applied Six Sigma only to production problems, perhaps that is why they did not include a defined step. They were dealing with projects that had a very clear focus from the beginning, and the expectations were pretty straightforward. But when GE and others applied Six Sigma to support functions and services, the need for a more specific definition became clear. More than one project got off course before GE introduced the defined step. A key tool applied in the defined step is process mapping done at a pretty high level so that the team can understand what this project entails, and equally important, what is not going to be included in the project. You also want to define what you expect to accomplish from this project and the metrics you'll use. As a friend of mine used to say, "When you are successful, how will you know it?" You need to know what indicators you'll use to evaluate that success. It might be a reduction in defects in a manufacturing process or an improvement in delivery time for your transportation unit. Most people agree that a Six Sigma project must include a financial measurement. Success is measured by the financial outcome of the project. It is really important that in the defined stage of your project, you calculate the expected financial benefit in terms such as cost reductions or revenue increases. Once you have done this, I highly recommend that you get the finance department to sign off on your calculation. In other words, finance is agreeing at the beginning of your project, that if you accomplish your goal, it will result in this estimated benefit. If finance has approved your assumptions and formulas in advance, it's much easier to have them approve your calculated results at the end of the project. This financial aspect of measuring your success is really important in the Six Sigma world. But you need to go beyond the project and also define the problem. And again, you want to do that at a high level here. The project usually focuses on a symptom such as a particular product defect. The idea here is to drill down until you agree that the problem is likely process variability in a particular machine at the factory. This is the problem your project will initially address. In defining your project and problem, you always want to keep the customer in mind. In prioritizing Six Sigma projects, you want to first consider problems that are critical to quality from the customer's perspective. CTQ means anything that's impacting the relationship with the customer should come first in determining Six Sigma projects. If you have an improvement that is not really important to your customer, it should be put aside for now while you concentrate on things that are. So, in a sense, in the defined step of the DMAIC process, you have established the strategy of your Six Sigma project. I think you'll agree that GE made a very valuable enhancement to the process when they added this step.