1. Project Organization, Selection, and Definition
Chapter 3
Project Organization, Selection, and Definition

2. Organizing for Six Sigma
Project – a temporary work structure that starts up, produces some output or outcome, and then shuts down.
Project management – all activities associated with planning, scheduling and controlling projects.

3. Six Sigma Project Teams
Champions - senior-level managers who promote and lead Six Sigma deployment
Master Black Belts – Full-time Six Sigma experts
Black Belts – Six Sigma technical analysts
Green Belts – Functional employees who work on projects on a part-time basis
Team Members – Individuals from functional areas who support specific projects

4. Project Management for Six Sigma
Project management involves all activities associated with planning, scheduling, and controlling projects.
Six Sigma projects cut across organizational boundaries and require the coordination of many different departments and functions.
The ability to manage a large portfolio of projects, as is typically found in Six Sigma environments, is vital to organizational success.

5. Project Life Cycle
Initiation - Define directions, priorities, limitations, and constraints.
Planning -Create a blueprint for the scope of the project and resources needed to accomplish it.
Assurance - Use appropriate, qualified processes to meet technical project design specifications.
Control - Use appropriate communication and management tools to ensure that managerial performance, process improvements, and customer satisfaction is tracked.
Closure - Evaluate customer satisfaction with project deliverables and assess success and failures that provide learning for future projects and referrals from satisfied customers.

6. Project Life Cycle Accountability Matrix

7. Project Life Cycle Accountability Matrix

8. Project Reviews
Project review – status check that serves to evaluate progress toward achieving the project plan. Good reviews:
Monitor progress
Provide guidance
Check focus and alignment
Display support
Knock down barriers
Share best practices
Recognize and reward

9. Project Review Agenda Introduction by project champion or sponsor
Project team presentation
Evaluation
Closing by project champion or sponsor

10. People Skills Technical skills Soft skills Shared vision
Behavioral skills

11. Skills for Team Leaders
Conflict management and resolution
Team management
Leadership skills
Decision making
Communication
Negotiation
Cross-cultural training

12. Skills for Team Members
Communication
Meetings
Shared decision making

13. Team Dynamics Team life cycle
Forming - the team is introduced, meets together, and explores their new assignment.
Storming - team members disagree on team roles and challenge the way that the team functions.
Norming - issues of the previous stage have been worked out, and team members agree on roles, ground rules, and acceptable behavior
Performing - the productive phase of the life cycle when team members cooperate to solve problems and complete the goals of their assigned work
Adjourning - the team wraps up the project, satisfactorily completes its goals, and prepares to disband or move on to another project.

14. Ingredients for Successful Teams
Clarity in team goals
Improvement plan
Clearly defined roles
Clear communication
Beneficial team behaviors
Well-defined decision procedures
Balanced participation
Established ground rules
Awareness of group process
Use of scientific approach

15. Six Sigma Project Selection
Top Down: tied to business strategy and aligned with customer needs
Bottom Up: Black belts and master black belts choose projects suited to the capabilities of teams

16. Mess Management
Mess - a system of external conditions that produces dissatisfaction.
High costs
Excessive defects
Customer complaints
Low customer satisfaction

17. Process Analysis for Project Identification
Define the process
Describe the process
Describe the players
Define customer expectations
Determine available data
Describe the perceived problems associated with the process

18. Six Sigma Project Levels
“Level 1” projects directly affect an organization’s profit margin (projects have a clear, hard dollar impact on profitability).
“Level 2” projects result in redeployment of resources inside an organization to increase operating efficiency or productivity.
“Level 3” projects directly affect operations by avoiding expenditures or increasing the chances of obtaining higher future revenues.

19. Key Factors in Six Sigma Project Selection
Impacts on customers and organizational effectiveness
Probability of success
Impact on employees
Fit to strategy and competitive advantage
Financial return, as measured by costs associated with quality and process performance, and impacts on revenues and market share

20. Example Project Selection Matrix

21. The Cost of Quality (COQ)
COQ – the cost of avoiding poor quality, or incurred as a result of poor quality
Translates defects, errors, etc. into the “language of management” – $$$
Provides a basis for identifying improvement opportunities and success of improvement programs

22. Quality Cost Classification
Prevention
Appraisal
Internal failure
External failure

23. COQ Analysis Tools Cost indexes Pareto analysis
Sampling and work measurement

24. Pareto Analysis
Pareto analysis – technique to identify the “vital few” from the “trivial many”
Pareto distribution – a frequency distribution in which the characteristics observed are ordered from largest frequency to smallest.
Pareto diagram – a histogram of the data from the largest frequency to the smallest.

25. Pareto Diagram of Customer Calls

26. Pareto Diagram
Helps a team focus on causes that have the greatest impact
Displays the relative importance of problems in a simple visual format
Helps prevent “shifting the problem” where the solution removes some causes but worsens others

27. Project Definition
Project charter - formal mission statement that defines the project, its objectives, and deliverables.
High-level process map (SIPOC)
Customer requirements

28. Project Charter Template

29. SIPOC Diagrams
SIPOC - Suppliers, Inputs, Process, Outputs, and Customers
Provides a broad view of a process and who is the process owner, how inputs are acquired, who the process serves, and how it adds value
Process
Suppliers
Inputs
Outputs
Customers

30. Example

31. Identifying Customers
What goods or services are produced by my work?
Who uses these products and services?
Who do I call, write to, or answer questions for?
Who supplies the inputs to my process?

32. Customer Requirements – Manufactured Products
Product characteristics
Performance
Features
Reliability
Conformance
Durability
Serviceability
Aesthetics

33. Customer Requirements - Services
Reliability
Assurance
Tangibles
Empathy
Responsiveness

34. Kano Model of Customer Needs
Dissatisfiers (“must haves”): expected requirements
Satisfiers (“wants”): expressed requirements
Exciters/delighters (“never thought of”): unexpected features

35. Customer Listening Posts
Comment cards and formal surveys
Focus groups
Direct customer contact
Field intelligence
Complaint analysis
Internet and social media monitoring

36. Performance-Importance Analysis
Low High
Who cares?
Overkill
Low
High
Importance
Strengths
Vulnerable

37. Critical-to-Quality (CTQ) Characteristics
it is critical to a customer’s perception of quality;
It can be measured;
a specification can be defined so that it is easy to determine whether the characteristic is achieved

38. The Seven Management and Planning Tools
Affinity diagrams
Interrelationship digraphs
Tree diagrams
Matrix diagrams
Matrix data analysis
Process decision program charts
Arrow diagrams 38

39. Affinity Diagram

40. Interrelationship Digraph

41. Tree Diagram

42. Matrix Diagram

43. Matrix Data Analysis

44. Process Decision Program Chart

45. Arrow Diagram

46. Project Review – Define (1 of 2)
The team has reached agreement on and has clearly defined the problem or opportunity to address
The project charter is developed and agreed upon
The team understands the strategic and financial impact of the project
The team agrees that the project can be completed successfully
A project plan and timeline have been developed to guide the entire Six Sigma project
The right mix of people are on the team

47. Project Review – Define (2 of 2)
Key stakeholders outside of the team have been identified
All team members have consistent expectations
Team members have received any necessary “just-in-time” training
Appropriate resources – financial and human – have been committed to conduct the project
The voice of the customer and CTQs are fully understood and documented
The team has developed a high-level process map.
Key performance measures have been identified for measuring success of the project