The process of Six Sigma helps an organization highlight the 8 main kinds of waste that delay or slow down the production process. Finding out what they are and getting rid of them enables an organization to streamline their methods of production and get the best results while saving plenty of time.

1. Waste as a result of defects

This is waste that comes from things like employing low skilled laborers to do a job, poor communication, incorrect information being as well as defective processes. Waste caused by defects can easily be dealt with by having an open line of communication, dealing with the correct information, employing skilled labor and updating equipment or tools used during work.

2. Waste as a result of overproduction

When an organization is overproducing, it simply means they are making more than they should at a fast pace. This causes an inventory mess as they will have a massive pile of stock that isn’t being used. An example of overproduction can be buying a bulk of perishable products and not using them all to a point where some of them rot.

The best way to deal with overproduction is by making sure that there is a balance between supply and demand. This requires the doors of communication to be open as well as an organization making sure that make, purchase and produce products based on accurate estimates.

3. Waste a result of waiting

This is the most common form of waste as it deals with things like waiting for deliverables, at queues or even transport. Waiting causes a great deal of stress and significant delays can make an organization and even people lose revenue. An organization can deal with waiting by hiring private transport for their deliverables and if someone is waiting for output on their co-worker, they can move on to other tasks.

4. Waste as a result of not using talent properly

An organization can have a huge amount of waste on their hands if they don’t use the talents of their team properly. Not performing well in this department brings about what is known as opportunity costs. An organization might choose to retain such talents over upgrading its infrastructure and being competitive in their field. The best way to deal with this is by making sure that every team member knows their jobs and has something they are working on which suits their talents.

5. Waste as a result of transportation

This is brought about by unnecessary placement and movement of materials or people from one place to another. One of the best ways of dealing with transport waste is removing any form of wasteful transportation. If a particular job can be done at home, for example, employees should be allowed to do it there. If a meeting can be held over Skype via video conferencing, let it be done.

6. Waste as a result of poor inventory management

Inventory waste is any materials that have no purpose or haven’t been used during the production process. An example of inventory waste can be ordering 70-floor tiles to upgrade a bathroom while only needing 35 tiles. Dealing with inventory waste is very simple, money should only be spent on things that their utility and purpose can be justified. Another way is by estimating the requirements and need accurately to avoid breaking the bank.

7. Waste as a result of motion

A bit similar to transport waste as it involves an unnecessary moment of equipment and people to various workflow processes. This causes things like a waste in resources, delays, and consumption of energy. The best way to bypass this problem is to have a plan in place, creating a checklist of all the tasks that need to be done does help in getting things done systematically.

8. Waste as a result of processing methods

This is where plenty of time, effort and money is spent on achieving something that brings very little result. An example of waste processing can be cleaning and washing a car for hours for no logical reason. An organization can prevent excess processing through a method called parametric estimation. Before any task is done, questions like how much effort is needed to get the job done need to be asked. If the effort needed is not clear, management can base it off tasks that are similar to it.

Conclusion

It is clear to see that the process of Six Sigma helps an organization highlight the 8 main kinds of waste that delay or slow down the production process. When each of the 8 types of waste is dealt with the right way, an organization is able to streamline their methods of production and get the best results while saving plenty of time.

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If you’re not paying attention, issues with your customer service can quickly slip past you unnoticed and cause a lot of problems for your organization. And while it’s true that they are generally not that hard to deal with if you have a planned approach in the first place, it’s also important to know what kinds of actions you need to take when something like this occurs, and how to minimize the potential impact of the situation.

You should also keep in mind that the below advice is more general in nature. In reality, there will be various unique circumstances that you’ll have to deal with on your own, developing an approach that works properly for your specific situation.

Don’t Delay

The biggest mistake you can make in customer service, by far, is to ignore problems until they’ve become too big. This is the fast track to ruin in this area, and many companies put a lot of effort to ensure that there’s minimal delay between an issue being communicated to them and taking action to remedy it. This is especially true today – thanks to the internet, people expect even faster and more reliable services these days. And it’s important to satisfy them in this regard. Because if you don’t, someone else surely will.

Not All Feedback Is Useful

You’re going to get a lot of feedback on the quality of your customer service, and you will have to take some time to sort through it properly. And always keep in mind that not all feedback is equally useful. In some cases, you’re going to gain a lot from simply ignoring what people have to say instead. But to get to that point, you’ll need to develop a good intuition for spotting actual problems and telling them apart from the rest.

Some modern analytical systems can prove helpful with that, especially on the AI side. You will have to feed them enough data about your operations before they get to that point though. The way most of these systems work is based on training, and until you’ve gone through that period, the reliability of that feedback will likely be lower.

Be Proactive

You should also try addressing problems before they’ve even arisen in the first place. This is another area where modern tech can be very useful. In some cases, you will get alerted that something might be wrong with one of your users, and it will be very easy to follow the trail and figure out what’s wrong. Do it right, and your users won’t even know anything was out of the ordinary in the first place!

Of course, try to prioritize to some extent as well. You will have limited resources for these proactive solutions, and you should only use them for cases where it really matters.

Analyze Past Incidents

No good business has evolved without learning from its past mistakes, and yours is not going to be an exception to that. You’ll have to study your shortcomings in detail and ensure that you’re always on top of any problems that you’ve dealt with in the past. Keep a database of the issues you’ve already addressed, and try to leverage that knowledge to its full potential the next time you have something to deal with.

With time, you’ll find that you can likely categorize a large number of the problems you’re dealing with on a regular basis, and you’ll be able to learn a lot from some of them. Using that knowledge correctly and putting it towards your future progress is going to be one of the biggest boosts you can get.

You’ll keep running into various issues with your customer service over time. The important thing is to always stay on top of them, learn something from them, and learn how to anticipate future problems of the same type. This is the only way you’re going to see good results in the long run, and it’s one of the most important lessons for you to learn in the course of developing your company. On the bright side, you have lots of resources available for that purpose as well, so make good use of them.

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While there are so many concepts out there that businesses and individuals can adopt to get better, there is no denying that Six Sigma is one of the most popular ones. Just like any other concept out there, it has its fair share of benefits for people in a particular organization. Below is a look at some of the personal benefits one will experience when they use Six Sigma.

1. Six Sigma makes a person more effective at their job

No one wants to be a failure at their job, we all want to excel in our field of work. When you implement Six Sigma as part of your business practices, it gives you a robust problem-solving methodology. It doesn’t matter what the problem is or how complex it is, you will find a solution to it thanks to six sigma.

When a person has the ability to solve a wide range of problems effectively, it puts them in a position where they can work for any industry in the world and excel. Six Sigma is a process that steers a person in the right direction by making sure they are organized, come up with creative solutions and enhances their analytical skills.

While you can apply different techniques to deal with work-based problems when they arise, there aren’t many better techniques that produce the same results as six sigma. You are always in full control when you use six sigma.

• Six Sigma can help you grow as a leader

When an organization is carrying out its various projects, it is only right that they use Six Sigma. Implementing Six Sigma as a project is being carried out gives you a chance to showcase your skill to management as well as colleagues.

It can be a moment in the spotlight you were looking for at work. This can let them know that you have the ability to deal with problems when they arise in the organization. Constant interaction with management and colleges does improve one’s communication as well as decision making skills.

When communication and decision making is improved at a workplace, fewer mistakes are made as everyone is pulling in the same direction. This makes an organization operate effectively like a well-oiled machine.

The way in which Six Sigma is structured helps a person get better when it comes to their project management skills. One is able to lead by example, have better time management and motivational skills on top of good communication and improved decision making.

Whenever you improve your skills, you can add them to your CV to make you an attractive employee if you happen to move on from the organization you are working for in the future. You can even earn a promotion within the organization you work for should you impress management with how much you are progressing on a personal level.

• Six Sigma can land you a better paying job as well as promotion

Many organizations, especially the ones in the construction industry will always prioritize candidates who have six sigma credentials during their recruitment and selection process. Expanding from the point above, when one has these credentials, it makes them attractive and opens the doors for a good salary and promotion in the future.

When one shows leadership during a six sigma project, it lets human resource management, as well as senior figures of the organization, know that an employee is ready to embrace more responsibilities. In the United States of America, being an expert in six sigma means you are looking at a salary of $100,000 per year.

Conclusion

Based on the points above, it is clear to see that Six Sigma does help a person be more effective at work by improving their decision-making process. Everything is done in a systematic way and solutions to problems are found quickly. Six Sigma helps one to become a good leader.

One is able to direct people working under them to achieve goals and objectives or get a project done. Lastly, having Six Sixga credentials makes you attractive as an employee to potential suitors and you will be looking at a salary of around $100,000 a year

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The Agile Manifesto has become an extremely handy tool for any software development team. In it, there are four values that help teams produce software that not only works but is also of the highest quality. As long as an organization is using Agile development, these four principles should be used as a guide in one form or another.

1. Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

Without people, there would be no one to use the processes and tools to drive development forward. So this is why the first value in the Agile manifesto is to place more value on people over processes and tools. When you focus on the latter instead of the former, your team will be less responsive not only to each other but to the customer as well.

Communication is heavily emphasized with this value. When you value individuals and interactions, communication among team members is more free-form – flexible and happens whenever something important needs to be communicated. However, when you value processes and tools, communication becomes a rigid process – topics for discussion are set in stone and must be discussed at a specific time.

2. Working software over comprehensive documentation

While documentation is an important part of software development, it shouldn’t be done at the expense of working software. Indeed, in the past, this would have been a strange thing to say, as the road to project completion was bogged down by rigorous documentation. In the end, the development of the software was delayed because developers were being taken away from their primary focus to the point they weren’t able to complete their deliverables.

In Agile, the documentation process has been streamlined. It is now done through user stories, which describe the software’s features (based on customer requirements) in a more informal and natural tone. Customer stories allow the developer to not bother with getting into too much technical detail during documentation and just work on implementing the features. The deliverables are what matter the most.

3. Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

Negotiations are a natural part of any contract. In the pre-Agile days, contract negotiations happened before the work started and after the work was completed. The customer was left out of the loop until the delivery of the contract. There was no room for change after the initial terms had been agreed upon. This, however, would lead to wasted time and effort if the team did not deliver according to customer specifications.

To prevent this from happening, Agile keeps customers in the loop. If the team is going off course, customer feedback will allow them to course-correct. This leaves room for changes that cater to the developing business needs of the customer. The end result will be a product that will meet (maybe even exceed) the customer’s expectations.

4. Responding to change over following a plan

In the old days of software development, changes from the customer were rarely accommodated during development. The belief here is that they were regarded as an expense that must be avoided. This meant that a comprehensive plan was created that needed to be followed to the letter with no deviations.

Enter Agile development, where the customer can chime in with changes after every iteration to better improve the software so the team can tailor it to their needs. While traditional software development focuses on tasks that had the same priority and needed to be completed in a specific order, Agile is more flexible. Priorities are reshuffled and some tasks are labeled as more important than others, allowing the team to deliver working software that satisfies the customer 100%.

Wrapping up

These four values are the core of the Agile manifesto. As you can see, the emphasis here is to move away from rigidity and slowness and move towards flexibility and speed. With Agile development, organizations can do this without sacrificing quality and customer satisfaction. In fact, these values can only serve to improve these things, making Agile development an opportunity for an organization to achieve its full potential.

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Even though Agile development has been gaining traction as of late, it has existed since the mid-90s. Agile is a software development methodology, but with the impressive results it has produced in that field, other companies started using it outside their IT departments. Now many companies across various industries, such as automotive, construction, engineering, pharmaceutical and any industry where project management is crucial, use it.

So what is Agile development? To put it universally, it is a development methodology where the project is delivered in incremental steps rather than waiting for full development to take place. This allows for a less rigid approach to project delivery, allowing for more adaptability and speed. This is crucial for survival in an ever-changing and fast-paced business environment.

To further understand Agile development, we are going to look at its key features and how it works.

Key Features of Agile development

Here are the key features that Agile development cannot do without:

• Sprints: A Sprint is a concept that is at the core of Agile and allows for faster project delivery with little frustrations. Basically, this is where the team breaks the project down into small, manageable chunks. The team then meets regularly to refine them and, possibly, further break them down.
• Scrum meetings: Scrum meetings are held every day and after each Sprint. Scrum is a framework that allows for highly-collaborative teamwork. These meetings are often held at the beginning of the workday to better orient the team for the day’s work.
• Open interaction: This is where an open and honest interaction about the project management process is held between the team and stakeholders. The point is to have transparency in the process. The team can use Agile project management tools for this, such as Trello, Asana, Jira and Kanbanzie, among others.
• Review of products and services: This is a continuous process where the project is inspected and any adaptation needs are identified. All stakeholders (internal and external) are involved in the review. This is done throughout the lifespan of the project and on a regular basis.

How Agile development works

How Agile development works is different for every organization and industry. However, here is a general picture of how it works in software development:

• A cross-functional team, made up of developers, analysts and testers, is created. A Scrum master is then picked (that is if Scrum is being used), who will act as the main liaison between the product owner/client and the rest of the team.
• The team holds a Sprint planning meeting where the critical steps and projects are fitted into a development cycle of 2-4 weeks. A path to project completion is charted out by breaking down the project requirements into tasks and assigning hours.
• During the previous step, the requirements of the project are moved from the “product backlog” and into the “sprint backlog”. As the needs of the business change, stakeholders provide feedback after constantly reviewing and re-prioritizing the “product backlog”.
• All the “work in progress” is then reviewed during a daily Scrum for 15 minutes. Each team has stand-ups that  focus on these three main goals:
  1. What was achieved yesterday?
  2. What is to be achieved today?
  3. What hurdles are you facing?
• In the Daily Scrum, the focus is usually on “task boards” with columns and swim lanes, allowing for better organization. The team can create as many columns as needed and customize them in whichever way makes sense to avoid getting “boxed in”.
• The teams hold Sprint Retrospective and Sprint Review meetings. The main point of the Sprint Review is to “show the world” what has been completed so far and show the completed users stories so that the Product Owner can accept them. The Sprint Retrospective is held to inspect the whole process and then adapt or improve it.

Wrapping up

Agile allows for organizations to become fast and adaptable in highly-competitive and evolving business environments. And by looking at the key features, it is easy to see why. It is no wonder then that Agile development has become extremely popular in and out of software development.

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In 2001, the Agile manifesto was created and proved to be a game-changer in software development. Basically, it is a set of four values and 12 principles that guide software development teams in using Agile development to maximize productivity and collaborative work during a project. They can also be adapted for almost any project across various industries.

 Here, we are going to talk about the 12 principles of the Agile manifesto.

1. Early and continuous software delivery

This is the highest priority principle, as its main aim is to satisfy customers. The reasoning behind this principle is that it is extremely important to customer satisfaction that the time between releases is frequent. The more customers get working software regularly, the happier they are.

2. Change should be welcomed

In an ever-evolving business environment, change is the only constant. It is not wise to stick to a rigid development cycle, without allowing room for change. If customer requirements change, the team should be able to accommodate without delaying the deadline.

3. Frequent delivery of working software

Provide software that works on a regular basis. This can be between a couple of weeks or months. However, preference should be given to the period that is the shortest. This allows for constant feedback and earlier identification of bugs.

4. Stakeholders and developers must work together

Throughout the lifespan of the project, the developers and stakeholders should work together on a daily basis. Both are working towards the same goal, which is why it makes sense for them to be in alignment. 

5. Motivated individuals

Projects should be built around motivated individuals. Individuals should work in a supportive environment where they aren’t micromanaged. They should be trusted to self-organize and do the work without someone constantly looking over their shoulders. Micromanagement benefits no one and is counter-productive in Agile.

6. Face-to-face conversation

For information to be conveyed effectively in a team, it must be done through face-to-face interactions. For this to happen, team members need to be co-located. However, in today’s world, development teams are usually disbursed. If that is the case, efforts should be made to increase the frequency of communication using the appropriate conferencing tools and software.

7. Measure progress with working software

The biggest measure of progress is providing the customer with working software. Always keep your eye on the ball – working software – instead of getting bogged down in the specifics of the plan. You will end spending too much time doing secondary tasks, such as documentation, instead of the primary task.

8. Consistent development pace

Once the project hits the ground running, the team and stakeholders should maintain a consistent pace. This speed should be maintained for every release without delays and crunch time.

9. Technical excellence

To enhance agility, there must be a continuous focus on technical excellence and good design. This makes it easier for the team to embrace change, maintain a consistent development pace and update or improve the product as needed.

10. Simplicity

You don’t need the software to have all the bells and whistles to be classified as working software. Some features are considered to be non-essential. The team should focus on those essential features in order to produce working software.

11. Self-organizing teams

When teams are self-organized, they are able to bring out the best architects, requirements and designs. A team can deliver its best work when it is fully in charge of how it wants to work and owns every decision it makes.

12. Regular reflection and adjustment

The team will regularly reflect on its current effectiveness and identify room for self-improvement. Afterward, it will adjust its behavior to ensure self-improvement is achieved.

Wrapping up

With these 12 principles of the Agile manifesto in mind, software development teams can become more efficient and effective at creating working software. Any organization stands to benefit from having high-performance teams that collaborate with ease. This is the best strength of these principles and can be applied to almost any project.

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We have many process analysis tools in Lean, but the poka-yoke is one of the most popular ones. In any given process with human operators, mistakes and errors are bound to happen. These lead to defects, which are part of the eight wastes of lean. Poka-yoke, also known as mistake- and error-proofing, helps eliminate mistakes entirely.

We will discuss what poka-yoka – pronounced as poh-kah yoh-keh – is, its history, the benefits and some examples. This should briefly introduce you to the concept and why it is useful. While it is mostly used in the manufacturing and service industry, its application is universal.

What is Poka-Yoke?

Poka-yoke is an automatic mechanism, whether it is a device or method, that prevents anyone from making a mistake or error. But if the mistake or error can’t be prevented, a poka-yoke will make it obvious that it has occurred. That way, the source can be identified and eliminated.

A Brief History of Poka-Yoke

The person who coined poka-yoke is Shigeo Shingo in 1960. He was a Japanese industrial engineer who worked for Toyota. Shingo was one of the top experts on manufacturing practices at the time. And apart from the poka-yoke, he is mostly known for standardizing the Toyota Production System (TPS), which is a popular manufacturing methodology for eliminating waste and increasing efficiency.

The term poka-yoke itself literally means “mistake-proofing.” Interestingly enough, it was originally called baka-yoke or “fool proofing.” But it was later changed, considering it had negative connotations and the Japanese have a culture that highly favors politeness.

The Benefits of Poka-Yoke

One of the biggest benefits of poka-yoke is that it minimizes the chance of human error in a process. It ensures that all conditions are right before the next step in the process occurs. The end result is that the process will produce little to no defects.

Other than that, poka-yoke also comes with the following other benefits: 

• Increase in quality: With the poka-yoke making sure that the process doesn’t produce defects, the quality goes up. This means stakeholder and customer satisfaction goes up as confidence levels in your process consistently producing quality products increases.
• Reduction in costs: The biggest problem with defective products is that they increase the amount of waste. And since they need to be replaced, the costs of production rises as the number of defects rise as well. Fewer defects mean fewer costs.
• No high-skill requirement: if a process has a bigger margin for error, it needs operators to be highly skilled to operate it. If the operator doesn’t have the skill, the organization has to spend resources to either train them or hire a more skilled worker. With a poka-yoke automatically preventing mistakes and errors, the skill requirement goes down significantly.
• Increases safety: Safety is a major concern in the workplace, especially when workers handle hazardous materials. With poka-yoke eliminating human error, safety in the workplace goes up by a great margin.
• Reduces the need for quality checks: With an error-eliminating device or method embedded into the process, there’s no need for extensive quality checks. The poka-yoke will detect or predict any problems without relying too much on inspectors.
• Speeds up the process: With less manual inspections needed, work progresses at a faster rate without sacrificing quality. Moreover, the workers focus on what they do best, which makes the work less boring and repetitive.

Example of a Poka-Yoke

You don’t need to go far to see an example of a poka-yoke – they are around us all the time. One example is charging your phone with a USB. When you try to plug it in the wrong way, the USB does not enter. It only enters when you flip it and plug it in the right way.

Another famous example is the automatic car. Manual cars allow you to start your car while in gear, but in doing so the car will move and accidents can happen. An automatic car, however, will not start unless it is in neutral or park – hence eliminating the error.

Conclusion

With poka-yoke, mistake-proofing is built into the process, significantly reducing or eliminating human error. While we’d all like things to go smoothly all the time, when humans are involved things can go wrong. This is why the poka-yoke has become one of the most popular process analysis tools in Lean.

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One of the most impressive operating companies is Amazon and how they fulfill orders and ship to their customers. Their processes are considered state-of-the-art, and they need to be with all the volume of items they handle.

We’ve discussed Amazon many times in the past, including founder Jeff Bezos.

With COVID-19 risks, they have discontinued their tours, but decided to create a video showing their latest technology, including robots that bring the shelves to the packers (instead of have the workers go to the items).

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Six Sigma is becoming increasingly popular with each passing day. Organizations around the world are using it to reduce waste and process variation. In doing so, they are giving customers more and consistent value. In turn, this has allowed the organizations that have successfully implemented Six Sigma to increase both customer satisfaction and their bottom line. 

As with anything popular, there are bound to be myths. These are just misunderstandings that appeal to common sense but fall apart when closely examined. When deciding whether Six Sigma is the right methodology for your organization or not, it helps to separate facts from myths. 

Let’s look at six common Six Sigma myths and find out if there is any truth to them.

Myth #1: Six Sigma is a Fad

If you are hearing about Six Sigma for the first time, you might think it is a fad. However, Six Sigma has been around since 1987. It was introduced by Motorola to compete with Lean manufacturing. The methodology, which is a set of process improvement tools and techniques, has proven so successful that it has seen widespread adoption since its conception.

Myth #2: Six Sigma Causes a Lot of Stress

Six Sigma requires a dramatic shift in organizational culture, which many people think is hard to do. They think change can cause unnecessary stress on employees who have become accustomed to working a certain way. While you might face some initial resistance, when communicated clearly and implemented gradually, people will find it easier to adapt to change.

Myth #3: Only Manufacturing Companies Need Six Sigma

When you hear that Six Sigma is the brainchild of Motorola, a manufacturing powerhouse, you might think it has little use outside the assembly line. That can’t be further from the truth. Six Sigma is an industry-agnostic methodology that works on any process with repeatable steps. This can be anything outside manufacturing, from restaurants and hotels to house cleaning and hospitals.

Myth #4: People Will Lose Their Jobs

Six Sigma was designed to improve processes, which can trigger anxiety in people who think they may no longer be needed once it does its job. This is a myth because employees who know how to use Six Sigma become instantly valuable to the organization. Six Sigma professionals are in high demand, and becoming certified is a good way to not only retain your position but move on to bigger and better Six Sigma projects.

Myth #5: Six Sigma and Total Quality Management are the Same

People in business circles also like to conflate Six Sigma with Total Quality Management (TQM). Yes, both Six Sigma and TQM are methodologies that aim to improve the quality of products (as well as services), but there is a difference in which each one is approached. Six Sigma seeks to improve all processes throughout the entire organization, while TQM seeks to improve only a single process within a respective field.

Myth #6: Six Sigma Needs a Lot of Resources

When talking about Six Sigma and its ambitions, it is natural to wonder just how much time and money it will take to make it a success. Unfortunately, Six Sigma does take a lot of time and money to make it successful. This begs the question: why even do it at all? Well, simply because the benefits outweigh the costs. 

Six Sigma organizations consistently deliver quality products. This means customers are perpetually satisfied and eager to do business, which drives up profits considerably. And with an efficient process on hand coupled with extremely low defects per million opportunities (DPMO), the cost of production goes down significantly as well.

Conclusion

Anything that is widely discussed in the business world as Six Sigma is bound to have myths spreading around. You will probably come across the above-mentioned myths in one form or another. If not armed with the right information, they can turn you off to a methodology that can take your organization to the next level.

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Every organization undertakes projects. To an organization, a project is essentially an endeavor that is carried out by an individual or a team for the purpose of producing something valuable to benefit the organization in some way. It could be an internal information technology system that increases productivity or a product or service for customers that will make the organization a profit.

Projects are temporary. They have objectives that need to be completed within a set amount of time. Most importantly, projects have limited resources that need to be managed properly in order to achieve success. All this brings us to the concept of project management.

What is Project Management?

Project management is a way of managing and organizing the resources of a project in order to meet all its objectives within a specified amount of time. Every project needs a project manager. This is the person with the skills and knowledge to lead team members and coordinate the resources of the project in order to achieve success. 

Basically, a project manager ensures the project is running smoothly. This way, there are fewer headaches for stakeholders – the people the project manager relies on and/or reports to. The stakeholders of a project include senior managers, team members, investors, company owners, end-users, clients, customers, suppliers, contractors and vendors.

Elements of Project Management

For project management to go smoothly, there are four elements that each project manager needs to establish. These are:

• Scope: The scope of a project encompasses everything that is needed to complete the project. This includes the project’s size, objectives, requirements deliverables, milestones, deadlines and costs, among other things.
• Resources: Resources are things the project manager will rely on for the project to be completed. Resources include materials, capital, tools, equipment and the people required during the execution of a project.
• Time: Since projects are temporary or finite in nature, the project manager needs to set a start and end date (duration). On top of establishing that, he or she also needs to arrange the tasks in chronological order, clearly outlining their duration as well.
• Money: When it comes to money there are three considerations. The first one is cost, which can be paying for labor by the hour or buying raw materials. The second one is contingencies, which is money set aside in case costs were underestimated. The third one is profit, which is the amount of money to be made from the project. The project manager’s biggest challenge is to make the company profits while making sure to keep costs down and avoid any contingencies.

Benefits of Project Management

When project management is done right, the organization can experience the following benefits, on top of a project that is completed on time and on a budget:

• Increased customer satisfaction: If the project is being done for a customer, completing it on time and within budget is bound to make the customer happy. It is much easier to turn happy customers into repeat customers (more profits for the organization).
• Increased productivity: Efficiency is something that is at the heart of project management. It is the job of the project manager to create an optimized and structured workflow. This can be documented and reused to speed up future projects.
• Reduced costs: Since project management increases efficiency, resources are used wisely, leading to cost savings and more revenue for the organization.
• Better risk management: A big part of project management is identifying risks and coming up with avoidance or mitigation strategies. This prevents avoidable delays from happening or unavoidable problems from completely derailing the project.

Conclusion

Project management is an essential component of every successful project. If a company hires a savvy project manager, they can experience a range of benefits besides delivering the project on time and on budget. These include increased customer satisfaction, increased productivity, reduced costs and better risk management. Project management is something every organization should take seriously.

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Many organizations usually go the Agile route or the Six Sigma route, and that is perfectly okay. Technology has become a dominant force in modern times, becoming ubiquitous in our daily lives – both personally and professionally. Whether it is a task you have to perform at the office or at home, you’re bound to find an app that can help you with that.

Organizations are on a warpath in regards to innovation because the secret is out: technology has a significant impact on consumer behavior. If you don’t have the technology to help your customers with their ever-evolving needs, they will look elsewhere. And to add fuel to the fire, they demand solutions of the highest quality pronto.

The consumer market is exerting pressure on organizations, and Agile is used to face them head-on. Six Sigma is used in the same vein but is approached differently from Agile, which is why we hardly see them being applied simultaneously. This leads to the question: can these two play nice for the benefit of the organization and its customers?

Enter Agile Six Sigma. But before we talk about how they can work together, let’s briefly look at each one individually.

Six Sigma

In a nutshell, Six Sigma is a methodology that is employed to minimize defects by controlling variation. A big part of achieving this is through root cause analysis to eliminate any issues that negatively impact quality and consistent output. When implemented well, Six Sigma has been known to increase customer satisfaction.

Agile

Agile is popular in software development. It champions the concept of iterative development, which is where the development of large software is broken into small, easily manageable chunks. Agile outlines the guidelines that allow teams to consistently be productive and meet their deadline while constantly and consistently evolving the end product into something that will ultimately satisfy customers.

Agile Six Sigma – How They Can Work Together

While Six Sigma and Agile are implemented differently, it is not hard to see that they ultimately have the same goal. They are both ways to produce something valuable that will make customers happy. If two things have the same end goal, it is safe to assume that they complement each other and can be combined.

For organizations to marry these two concepts, they need to look at what they are trying to achieve and the issue they are trying to rectify. Software development is a process, after all. This means that Agile teams can incorporate Six Sigma to help them improve their performance. For instance, if the team is consistently missing deadlines, Six Sigma has the tools, like the fish diagram or the Five Whys, that can help them get to the root cause of the problem and eliminate it once and for all.

Conclusion

Both Six Sigma and Agile lead to better outcomes for an organization against market pressures. They can be implemented alone or together. But for the latter to happen, teams should look at what problems they are facing within their Agile framework and use Six Sigma to element them. The end result will be a faster and consistent development cycle that produces an end product that satisfies customers.

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DMAIC, which stands for Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control, presents organizations with a data-driven, customer-focused approach to process improvement. Each letter is a phase, and it must be completed in sequential order before moving on to the next one. However, there is still confusion on when exactly the method should be used.

When looking at a complex or high-risk issue with a process, bring out the DMAIC. The method has seen a great degree of success because it ensures that no critical process improvement steps are skipped. That means when looking to increase customer satisfaction or your bottom line or get rid of bottlenecks from time to time, the DMAIC is a no-brainer.

2 Ways DMAIC is Implemented

Another thing that causes confusion is how the methodology is used. For that, there are two major ways.

1. Team Approach

This is where the team leader is well-versed with the method and its tools. The team members still perform their regular duties in the organization while working on the project part-time. The leader, however, can be working on multiple long-term projects at any given time for months on end.

2. Kaizen

If the team approach isn’t for you, then Kaizen is next. Here, the DMAIC steps are usually carried out in a single week. The organization appoints a specialist to help with the process improvement, particularly in the first two phases. After those are complete, the organization organizes a team of people to focus on the rest of the phases until the Kaizen is complete.

Usually, improvements are given a trial run during the Kaizen before they are fully implemented. During the trial run, the impacts of the improvements are monitored carefully, even if the outcomes aren’t particularly good. This allows the team to course correct rapidly before finalizing everything.

Why Control is the Most Important Phase

The biggest challenge that teams often face, even after the improvements produced the desired results, is the difficulty of smoothly implementing the process in its improved state. Time is of the essence here, so there’s pressure to act, but this forces the team to forego any semblance of smoothly transitioning the gains. This makes sustaining the results challenging as well, considering the people haven’t really had the time to buy into the changes – there may even be resistance.

During the Control phase, the team suggests an implementation strategy that will lead to long-term gains. Basically, the team members come up with a set of standard operating procedures that will guide all future process improvement endeavors. That way, results are measured on a constant basis to ensure that all beneficial changes don’t revert to their previous state, and any potential problems can be handled proactively. This is essentially where the plan for continuous improvement is set in motion.

Conclusion

Knowing when and how to use the DMAIC method is key to ensuring that your process improvement efforts are successful. Not only that, but it also ensures that they are standardized for future process improvement projects and that the results are sustained through continuous improvement. As long as the problem is complex and high-risk, you shouldn’t think twice about using the DMAIC method.

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Today, Six Sigma has an impressive track record of improving processes with its wide array of tools and techniques. Sigma Belts – individuals who are trained in some or all aspects of Six Sigma – are highly demanded by companies looking for people to improve their business performance. However, not many people are versed in the origins of the methodology that they rely upon when their business operations are underperforming.

As the 80s were coming to an end, a man named Bill Smith coined the term Six Sigma. At the time, he was working for Motorola and needed an effective quality management tool to improve business performance. So he got work on the methodology, pouring all his time and energy into what would become the future of quality management. Smith had the full support of the CEO of Motorola at the time, Bob Galvin, which made his work smoother.

After Smith was done, Motorola implemented the methodology companywide. The new process management tool proved successful, which led to Motorola being awarded the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in 1988. This award recognizes organizations in various sectors that have achieved operational excellence.

Soon after that, in the 90s, Jack Welch, the chairman of General Electric (GE), adopted Six Sigma for his organization. The company evolved the methodology, making it connected to compensation for executives and return on investment (ROI). In GE’s annual report, they managed to show that implementing Six Sigma led to financial benefits. That’s when corporations listed in the Forbes Fortune 500 list started implementing Six Sigma as well in order to make their business operations more efficient.

Six Sigma borrows concepts from another quality management methodology: Lean manufacturing. While one might be tempted to think that Six Sigma and Lean are competitors, in the real world, the two are used in a complementary fashion. Their combined effect, know as Lean Six Sigma, has been shown to provide business performance benefits that are simply unmatched. Lean offers a hands-on approach to removing non-value-adding tasks to improve efficiency, while Six Sigma aims to reduce variability within organizational processes to minimize the occurrence of defects.

Lean has been around a lot longer than Six Sigma, with its origins rooted in the Toyota Production System (TPS) in Japan during the 60s. However, Lean thinking can be traced back earlier than that to the Arsenal in Venice during the 1450s. And in 1913, Henry Ford was the first to put Lean thinking to practice by fully implementing it. 

Lean gained further popularity when Boeing implemented it as part of its manufacturing process in 1993. Although its initial efforts were unsuccessful (not through the fault of Lean but other outdated manufacturing processes being used), Boeing continually invested in the methodology until it paid off.

As far as Six Sigma goes, its story has just begun since it is considered to be a relatively new methodology in the business world. Many organizations across the world are still working on evolving it to make their businesses more efficient through process improvement. Regardless, Six Sigma and the recently revitalized Lean have left an indelible mark on history.

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Improving the overall effectiveness of your organization is important at every stage of its operation. There is often a lot you can do to keep things running more smoothly and minimize bottlenecks, especially if you apply some modern analytical methodologies to the situation. And when it comes to process optimization, Six Sigma is one of the most prominent names in the field. And for a good reason. It’s been around for a while, and offers a comprehensive set of tools to help leaders streamline their workflows as best as possible.

What Is Six Sigma?

At its core, Six Sigma is a methodology for process optimization and continuous improvement. It’s based on a few fundamental principles, such as eliminating waste. Six Sigma has been around for a while now, and it’s established a permanent place for itself in many industries. Even sectors that were traditionally not associated with the application of Six Sigma have now started to see great benefits from its utilization. And it will be interesting to see where this ends up in a decade or so. But until then, it’s important to take advantage of what Six Sigma has to offer for you, and to integrate it into your company as best as you can.

How to Properly Implement Six Sigma

Implementing Six Sigma comes down to following some established routines these days. There has been a lot of research into the field, and specialists largely understand what it takes to get Six Sigma integrated into the workflow of the typical company with minimal hassle. You just have to work with competent specialists who understand the field and let them guide you through the process. Remember that Six Sigma works in a highly individual manner. This means that its results are going to vary from one company to another when looking at the same implementation strategy.

This makes it important to try different approaches, and to explore what Six Sigma has to offer for your own situation. Don’t just copy established implementation approaches from other industries, and instead try to work out something for your own specific situation. As we mentioned above, working with a competent specialist is important for accomplishing this. They will know exactly what kind of approach would work best for your current situation.

Measuring Your Results

It’s also important to ensure that you’re actually moving in the right direction with your implementation of Six Sigma into your processes. You should do your best to measure your results and see how you’ve been progressing. This is something that can be a bit difficult to get started with in the beginning if you’ve never done any sort of objective progress tracking before. You may need to put some systems in place to collect data and aggregate it for your analysis.

But in the end, this is something you should be doing for your business in any case. If you’re not measuring the results of your actions, you’ll never know if you’re going the right way. And with detailed analytics, you can easily see when you’re making a mistake – and you’ll know exactly what’s wrong, too. This can help you correct your course and improve the organizational effectiveness within your company even more.

Keep gathering that data over time, too. It will become even more valuable in the long run. The more historic analytical data you have to work with, the better you’ll be able to handle future developments. Even if you can’t analyze it now, you can still keep it stored for future reference.

Another important thing to remember is that you should always implement your changes in a way that they will last. Sometimes you might be tempted to apply a band-aid solution to a problem. But this can cause more problems down the road. With the help of Six Sigma, you can not only identify problems and their solutions, but you can also figure out exactly how to approach those problems to ensure that you’re coming up with a viable long-term solution. This is going to become even more important as you progress further into expanding your company, so take note and make sure that you measure your results as best as you can.

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Warehousing is the storage of goods intended for sale or distribution in a warehouse. However, it becomes more complex when this process comes face-to-face with the dynamic nature of business operations. These require a high level of efficiency to minimize costs and maximize profits.

Luckily, Six Sigma, with its set of management techniques, can be used to improve the warehousing process. If done correctly, applying Six Sigma’s data-driven and statistical tools and techniques to warehousing provides organizations with a way to eliminate issues permanently. Furthermore, it helps them discover performance measures that highlight areas of further improvement.

The goal of Six Sigma is to reduce the number of defects to 3.4 for every million opportunities. This is regarded as a sigma level of 6, which is the highest and most sustainable level of optimization. This increases the levels of customer satisfaction, as well as increases the organization’s bottom line.

Here are ways in which Six Sigma can benefit a warehousing operation.

Customer Loyalty

Customers not only notice but appreciate it when an organization has taken the time to improve efficiency and quality. In the end, customers become loyal since they have confidence in the organization’s ability to deliver high-quality and affordable products with little-to-no hassles.

Six Sigma provides an organization with the tools they need to convert customers into loyalists. When customers see that the warehouse is shipping products with speed and accuracy, they will be satisfied, especially if that is a pattern rather than a fluke. But if errors aren’t caught in the warehousing process and customers start receiving products with defects, they will quickly lose confidence in the organization’s ability to deliver. This will make them hesitant to place additional orders because it might feel like they’re gambling on quality. 

All errors need to be identified and corrected right – the hallmark of a Six Sigma organization. Six Sigma empowers the warehousing team with a comprehensive strategy for handling errors by eliminating them at the root so they never happen again. That way, the warehouse operation can focus on satisfying customers instead of resolving their complaints.

Transforms Organizational Culture

Six Sigma is about improving the entire culture of the organization. Everyone in the organization, from sales and finance to manufacturing and warehousing, knows what they need to make the organization more efficient. 

With clearly defined roles and milestones, it becomes easier to rally people behind the common goal. So not only will the warehouse team be able to work towards making their operation more efficient, but they will work with others to ensure the entire organization is efficient as well.

Reduces Costs

Satisfying customers is one of the major objectives of the warehousing team. And what better way is there to achieve this than to reach a sigma level of 6. By streamlining the warehousing process, on top of reducing or eliminating defects, the team can effectively reduce costs and transfer the savings to the customer.

Furthermore, keeping costs down also means that the organization can increase its bottom line. This means that shareholders will also be pleased and more willing to pour more resources into the warehousing process to make it more efficient.

Improves Quality

Naturally, when the warehouse manages to get rid of errors, quality will go up. Six Sigma provides teams with the necessary statistical tools to gather warehousing data. By analyzing the data, they can extract insights that can help them ensure that customers don’t get poor-quality products. 

The data that the warehouse team gathered can also be shared with other departments in the organization. This will help other teams throughout the organization improve their processes as well so they too can produce quality output and cut costs.

Conclusion

The Six Sigma methodology is a great tool for improving the warehousing process. In turn, this increases customer loyalty, reduces costs, and improves quality. Furthermore, since Six Sigma happens on the organizational level, everyone works together to make everything efficient.

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Process behavior charts or control charts were invented by Walter Stewart in the 1920s. They are a great statistical tool that analyzes how a process changes over a period of time. His main aim of inventing them was to reduce variation in the manufacturing process. If this sounds confusing right now, don’t worry. This brief guide will explain what a process behavior chart is, along with its most important elements.

What is a Process Behavior Chart?

Simply put, a process behavior chart is a graph that is used to display changes in the output of a particular process over a period of time (time sequence).

Take a look at the figure below for an example of a typical process behavior chart.

As you can see, a process chart has some important elements that give one information about the process in question. We have a center line (average output), the upper control limit (UCL) and the lower control limit (LCL). The blue line and points represent the actual output of the process and the variation between them. These lines are drawn using historical data. And by looking at the chart, we can tell whether the variation of that particular process is predictable or unpredictable.

We will discuss the elements of the chart in a little more detail below, starting with the most important one: variation.

Variation

You have heard the concept of variation being mentioned a lot, but what is it exactly? Basically, variation is a number that is indicative of the level of variance between each member of a particular group. In the figure above, the blue line between each point displays the level of variation between outputs in a process.

If you analyze each piece of data that has been measured in the real world, you will discover some degree of variation. No matter how hard we try, we can never obtain the exact same results when it comes to any process. Each result will be unique in its own right.

While a little variation is not a big deal, too much of it can be troubling. This brings us to the two types of variations that can be observed in a control chart: common cause variation and special cause variation.

A process that is stable and in control will produce common cause variation, meaning it is predictable. This type of variation is inherent in the process, which means it is expected from its normal operation, and there’s nothing you or anyone can do about it. Special cause variation happens when the process displays unexpected variation resulting from unknown external factors.

You can tell there is common cause variation at play when points fall outside the control limits. This indicates that the process is in trouble. Reducing this type of variation is crucial to keeping the process stable and in control.

The Center Line

As you can see from the figure above, there is a solid black line in the middle of the control limits. This is the average output or center line, and it represents the output you will get from the process on average. It is used to compare how the process performs compared to the average. When the process in control, the points around this line will vary randomly.

Control Limits

By looking at the random variation occurring in the process, you can work out the control limits of the process (red dotted lines). You have the upper control limits and lower control limits, and the performance of the process must not go beyond them if the process is to remain in control. There’s also what is known as specification limits. But these are determined by the requirements of the process, which are then determined by the client, rather than its variation.

So there you have it; a brief look at what process behavior charts are. They are an important tool used by organizations that utilize Lean and Six Sigma methodologies, especially in the manufacturing industry. They offer them a powerful way to analyze the performance of a process, allowing them to make informed decisions, especially when it comes to its improvement.

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After launching a digital marketing campaign, it is reasonable to expect a return on investment (ROI). But when the expected results aren’t achieved (variation), there is a problem that needs to be investigated and eliminated. Six Sigma has a useful tool known as the DMAIC methodology that can help with the investigation and elimination of the said problem. 

DMAIC stands for Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control. Each letter represents a step or phase in the methodology. And here is how it can be applied to solve digital marketing problems and improve the process altogether.

Define

The team will look into the goals of the digital marketing campaign and define the problem being experienced. For instance, a goal could be to increase brand awareness. And the problem could be that target customers still aren’t aware of the brand. This could be the case even after the digital marketing campaign has been launched and running for some time.

For this to work, especially moving forward, the team needs to establish whether the goal is S.M.A.R.T. These goals are those that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-based.

Measure

With the problem defined, the team will then move on to measure it. This involves gathering data in regards to the digital marketing campaign’s performance. For example, if increasing conversions was the point of doing the campaign, the team can look at conversion rates. They can then compare the results they got with what they expected.

It is important to ensure that the data being obtained is comprehensive and accurate. This will highlight the effectiveness of the measurement system. Furthermore, anything that can affect the integrity of the data needs to be identified and ruled out. Otherwise, poor data could affect the improvement efforts and lead to wastage of time and money.

Analyze

With the data in hand, it needs to be analyzed. This will allow the team to identify what can be improved to achieve the desired results. For example, if a website is not converting, an analysis could reveal that you need to reduce the number of distractions on the landing page. That way, when a customer gets on the landing page, they can complete the customer journey uninterrupted.

In terms of the landing page that isn’t converting, the team could uncover that it contains too many outbound links. These are the distractions. When visitors click on them, they get redirected away from the landing page. This is preventing them from completing the customer journey and, consequently, affecting conversion rates negatively. 

Improve

After the Analyze phase, the team will have the necessary insights needed to make changes that will lead to positive gains. Continuing with the landing page example, the outbound links can be removed. These were the biggest bottleneck in the customer journey. And now that they no longer exist, your organization can expect the conversion rates to increase.

This is just one of many examples. Essentially, the team will use this step to eliminate anything that is hindering digital marketing success. And it doesn’t necessarily need to be something that is affecting ROI. It could also be something that is leading to a waste of time and money. 

Control

After the Improve phase, ideally, the problem should be resolved. The team can then use Plan, Do, Check, Act (PDCA) to confirm that the changes have led to the improvement of the digital marketing process. If not, the team should go back to the Define phase and restart the improvement efforts.

If the changes were a success, the team should be congratulated. However, the work has only begun. Procedures for improvement need to be standardized. That way, the team can ensure that the positive gains stick. This is part of the continuous improvement initiative.

Conclusion

Six Sigma originated in manufacturing and that is where it is used the most. One would be forgiven for not thinking that any of its tools and methodologies can be applied to digital marketing. So the next time you experience a problem in your digital marketing campaign, consider using the DMAIC methodology to resolve it.

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As far as approaches management can take to improve performance and guarantee quality go, Six Sigma can be considered to be a huge success. Many professionals across various industries, from manufacturing to hospitality to marketing, are getting Six Sigma certified. And an increasing number of organizations are sponsoring their employees to get the certification.

What is a Six Sigma Certification?

A Six Sigma certification is a professional certificate that shows that you have grasped the concepts of Six Sigma at some level. The levels in Six Sigma are known as Belts. These classify professionals into the following categories:

• White Belt: This is the basic level of Six Sigma understanding. White Belts are given a general overview of Six Sigma tools and techniques. Their job is to assist Six Sigma project teams in coming up with solutions to a problem during brainstorming sessions.
• Yellow Belt: A Six Sigma Yellow Belt has foundational knowledge of Six Sigma concepts. Yellow Belts are part of the Six Sigma project team, usually working in a limited capacity – as part-timers. They cannot work on a project without the supervision of a Green or Black Belt.
• Green Belt: A Green Belt is a Six Sigma professional who has understood the advanced concepts of the methodology, such as DMAIC. They can be leaders of a team if the improvement project is not complex. If it is, they will be part of the team and work under the supervision of a Black Belt.
• Black Belt: A Six Sigma Black Belt has advanced proficiency in implementing Six Sigma. On top of that, they can explain concepts and techniques to others and often serve as coaches to Green Belts. They also have a demonstrable capacity to take on leadership roles and drive projects to success.
• Master Black Belt: This is the highest Belt in Six Sigma. A Black Belt is someone who has worked on the strategic deployment of multiple Six Sigma projects (even complex ones). They are responsible for the development and promotion of Six Sigma curriculums within the organization. Also, they teach Six Sigma to all the other Belts.

Benefits of Getting a Six Sigma Certification

It takes time and money to become Six Sigma certified. Many people often wonder why they should do it. Here are a few reasons why a Six Sigma certification is important:

• Improve performance: When trained in Six Sigma, you will be able to identify the root causes of problems and eliminate them so they never happen again. You will also be able to identify the organization’s main KPIs and metrics, as well as measure and improve them. This is because the tools and techniques you’ll learn will allow you to gain and understand valuable business insights from analyzing the KPIs and metrics and use those insights to make data-driven decisions.
• Leadership roles: During Six Sigma training, you will learn core managerial competencies that will allow you to undertake leadership roles.
• Job satisfaction: A Six Sigma certification offers a self-esteem boost. The training prepares you to think of out-the-box solutions that improve your organization’s efficiency. This means you will experience greater job satisfaction knowing that your contributions are making a huge difference.
• Customer satisfaction and loyalty: With a Six Sigma certification, you can help your organization improve its customer experience. This means customers will be more satisfied and can even become loyalists.
• Best candidate: If you have worked on improvement projects that have helped organizations reduce costs, improve customer satisfaction and increase their bottom lines, you will become more hireable.
• Better salary: Six Sigma certifications allow you to demand better salaries from employers. On average, certified Six Sigma experts are making upwards of $100,000 a year.

Conclusion

By getting a Six Sigma certification, you are ready to apply its tools and techniques to benefit your organization. This is the case no matter the Belt you aim for. Furthermore, you are ensuring that you propel your career forward by possessing skills and knowledge that your peers don’t have. 

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Not many marketers would consider Six Sigma as a means of improving their marketing process. And it is no surprise since Six Sigma is mostly known in the manufacturing industry. The methodology is a disciplined and structured approach that uses various tools and techniques to make processes better. 

One of those tools is DMAIC, which stands for Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control. You can use DMAIC to improve your marketing strategy, and here’s how.

Define

The Define phase is where you identify the needs of your target market. Doing this is a matter of researching the market, and this information will reveal what prospects find appealing about the product or service you’re offering. You can then use this information to formulate an effective marketing strategy that will deliver results.

Measure

In the Measure phase, you’ll collect and measure data to ascertain the performance of the current marketing process. This will give you a clear picture of the current marketing efforts, allowing you to measure them against critical performance measures and KPIs. It is important to use the tools that will help capture the data accurately.

For example, you can use Google Analytics to see the number of visitors, session duration, top traffic source, conversion rate and bounce rate. Once the metrics have been collected, you can form a baseline for performance. This is what you’ll use for comparison after improvements have been made.

Analyze

By analyzing the data from the previous, you can zero in on areas in the marketing process that could use improvement. Here you can use Six Sigma tools like the 5 Whys to identify the root cause of the marketing strategy underperformance. Furthermore, statistical tools like hypothesis testing can verify if you’re looking at the right cause.

Finding the root cause of the problem is important because eliminating it means the issue goes away for good. Anything less and the problem has a high chance of recurring at best, or you end up wasting resources fixing the wrong thing at worst.

Improve

With the root cause identified, it is time to eliminate it from the marketing process. For example, it could be that the marketing strategy is geared towards improving a website’s conversion rate, and you’ve discovered that the website has too many distractions that take people out of the experience. That means minimizing the distractions can maximize focus, allowing visitors to make it to the end of your website’s sales funnel.

Control

Control involves constantly analyzing the results and making further improvements. Six Sigma means you’re committed to ensuring that the previous problems don’t find other ways of creeping back into the process. It is not enough to complete the DMAIC once and call it a success; it is a long-term commitment.

Conclusion

If you’re experiencing a low ROI with your current marketing strategy, it might be time to consider using Six Sigma to improve it. By using DMAIC, you can systematically remove elements that are causing your marketing strategy to underperform. It is not just something that manufacturers can use, but everyone, even marketers.

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Lean Six Sigma is spreading throughout many industries as it is a process that can enhance the success of a firm and its processes. Lean Six Sigma can be used to increase customer experience and satisfaction as it has a 99.9997 efficiency rate which means that it produces 3.4 defects in one million units.

1. Eliminating Mistakes and Defining Customer Service

First of all, to improve the experiences of customers and enhance their satisfaction, a company needs to realize what the customer wants. In this way, it can design services so that they match the needs and goals of a customer.

Lean Six Sigma can help a company identify the main mistakes in its processes and fix them before they lose the customers to the competition. This can enable businesses to also create and design higher-quality products and services that can benefit the firm’s success and popularity in the long run.

Lean Six Sigma also reduces the amount of bad products which can eventually lead a company to financial ruin as they can drive away customers.

2. Customer Oriented Approach

The whole purpose of a company is to provide products and services to people which means that they should help individuals achieve their goals. To do that, companies can use Lean Six Sigma and analyze the services they are currently providing to come up with solutions.

For example, if the problem in healthcare facilities is that patients have to wait too much before they are examined, healthcare facilities can come up with solutions that improve scheduling which can enable them to see more patients.

By creating a customer-oriented approach in which companies create products and services specifically designed for customers, businesses can thrive and increase revenues. Lean Six Sigma can be used to reduce delays and defects from the system and processes. Defects in products and services can result in fatalities or injuries which can make the company liable and lose its reputation.

3. Efficiency and Quality Control

Lean Six Sigma makes a company look at every process in detail and align its resources and workforce toward creating better standards at the company. Employees and specialists can use Lean Six Sigma and identify all the steps that went wrong and resulted in a defect or mistake in the customer service.

This can increase both efficiency and productivity as employees can be more aware of what they have to do and be more careful in the production of assets and services.

4. Innovation

Lean Six Sigma fully enables a company to understand what functions and whatnot at the firm. When a company fully understands that and cannot do anything to either eliminate mistakes or improve the processes, it is driven towards innovation.

Creating innovative products and services can enable it to retain customers and attract some more. Great companies not only improve their processes but create original services designed for their customers which can be achieved with the help of Lean Six Sigma. Innovation can improve customer loyalty as the customer’s vision in terms of quality and efficiency is exceeded.

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