In six sigma projects, the Black Belt is similar to the Project Manager as stipulated in the PMBOK guide role delineation. Then comes the question of what a six-sigma project is? A six-sigma project is a disciplined approach to solving process problems by either designing a new process or improving an existing process. Since every organization troubles can be sourced to their processes, it makes sense to authorize a project solely to this purpose.
There are two viewpoints to six-sigma: As a business viewpoint, Six Sigma approach seeks to improve the quality of process outputs by identifying and removing the causes of defects (errors) and minimizing variability in business processes. As a statistical viewpoint, Six Sigma must not produce more than 3.4 defects per million opportunities or a success rate of 99.9997% where sigma is a term used to represent the variation about the process average
A Black Belt is chosen by the Champion (the sponsor) to manage the project under the framework of the DMAIC or DMADV methodology. DMAIC is an acronym for Design, Manage, Analyze, Improve and Control while DMADV is Define, Measure, Analyze, Design and Verify. Lets use this methodology to solve a case below:
Worldwide, around 70% of the Internet traffic is currently being generated through popular search engines such as Google and Yahoo hence the need to adopt Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy. In order to gain competitive advantage, a measurement-based approach to search engine optimization that focuses on process improvement and variation reduction is adopted. See below, a six-sigma process (DMAIC/DMAIV) to SEO application:
Define: The first step is to define the problem correctly. The obvious problem does not always correlate to its root issue. Once the problem is correctly defined, it’s time to produce the deliverable.
Measure: With Google Analytics, data collection is easy. Everything necessary to benchmark and define success can be found there.
Analyze: Conducts a brainstorming session to explore every conceivable cause of the problem. Once the root causes are identified, compare against the Google Analytics to find relationships.
Improve: Once the root causes are confirmed, a corrective action plan is formulated to solve the problems.
Verify: Don’t assume the job is done right. Check back again and again to confirm all processes are working according to expectation.
Control: With so many safeguards built into every step of the process, it’s easy to control the process and its results.
In PMtutor, we go an extra length to make sure our delegates have not just theoretical view but practical approach to understanding six-sigma project management by using the best practice software tool called Minitab and also add Lean Methodology to give them an edge. We have scheduled an ad-hoc class before the end of the year to allow delegates take advantage of our current price, which we plan to review upward from 2014.
Click PMtutor Lean Six Sigma for details
