Six Sigma Foundations Continuous Improvement Training Identify Causes Six Sigma Foundations Continuous Improvement Training Six Sigma Simplicity Continuous Improvement - Identify Causes

Key learning point Identify causes means create with the team a list of possible causes (X’s), the things that make your primary metric change We can generate these from many sources as appropriate to the project Continuous Improvement - Identify Causes

Process to identify causes Benchmark your project with previous projects Brainstorm the teams ideas Use any material generated in measure phase Continuous Improvement - Identify Causes

Benchmarking You and your team ask BB/MBB, Associates and contacts inside and outside the company for ideas. See separate section for more detail Continuous Improvement - Identify Causes

Brainstorming Remember that your choice of who is involved in brainstorming will effect the results Perhaps you will record the information as a fishbone or a list See separate section for more detail Continuous Improvement - Identify Causes

Material from Measure phase SIPOC will list Inputs – potential X’s Metric graph may show special / common causes Histogram’s shape may show symptoms of causes such as skew, granularity, multi-modes Continuous Improvement - Identify Causes

Sharing the possible causes Suggestions – write up the list clearly and keep it visible. Email to your champion, mentor, CI facilitation team. This is to help people understand what the team is working on and to make it easy for others to get involved Continuous Improvement - Identify Causes

Pitfalls If you have few X’s (Say less than 10) you might miss the opportunity to make big improvements you are constraining the teams in case of conflict over resource you may not have enough subject knowledge the project’s momentum is easy to stop people may not have been involved early enough in the project to accept the teams There is high potential for misunderstanding the scope of the project.

Six Sigma Foundations Continuous Improvement Training Identify Causes Six Sigma Foundations Continuous Improvement Training Continuous Improvement - Identify Causes