Some Basic Criteria for Lean Six Sigma Project Selection

As you identify potential projects for further Lean Six Sigma consideration, here are some basic criteria you can use to choose the most worthy projects:

• Is there a significant gap between the current and the desired performance?  Sometimes the gap is obvious -- your customer wants a quote in three days and the best you can do is five days.  Other times you may have to collect data on your processes and compare it to your customer's requirements.  You need to ask yourself "where is the pain?" in our organization.
• Is the cause of the problem unknown or not clearly understood? Sometimes you can see the effects of a problem, but don't know it's cause.  That's when you need DMAIC to diagnose it and get to the real root cause.
• Is the optimal solution apparent?  The last thing you want to do is start guessing at solutions or shotgunning a solution, which can be very expensive.  Lean Six Sigma provides a way to be sure that the money thrown at a problem hits the right target the first time.  If the solution is obvious, skip DMAIC, and just go do it.