T-Six Sigma Roles and Phases

Six Sigma Roles and Phases
Section 1: Six Sigma Players

Section 2: Six Sigma Phases
© Lean Methods Group. All rights reserved. No portion may be copied, rewritten, reproduced, or published.
Page 1 of 41
Module Objectives
In this module we're going to learn about the roles of all the different Six Sigma players and what they do within a
Six Sigma deployment. We're also going to make sure that every phase of the methodology is discussed in detail
and that we understand which players are responsible for the majority of work in each phase.
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Section 1: Six Sigma Players

Introduction to the Roles
One of the most powerful and exciting aspects of deploying Six Sigma is understanding that it touches everyone
in an organization. It engages all levels to make it happen -- everyone, from the executives to the shop floor
people to the financial folks to the HR folks and anyone and everyone in between. And this makes this
methodology and this culture change possible.
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Six Sigma Phases Overview
Before we can actually describe the roles of each of the Six Sigma players, we have to give you a bit of a sneak
preview relative to the methodology and the phases that a company deploying Six Sigma goes through.
Many people think that Six Sigma is just about implementing the M-A-I-C process using Black Belts. That's really
a misconception, and there are actually some phases that come before M-A-I-C.
More specifically, we have a Recognition phase -- and we'll talk about the individuals that make that happen.
We have a Definition phase.
Then we embark on training Black Belts to execute the M-A-I-C methodology, followed by a Realization phase.
So don't be fooled to think that Six Sigma is only about M-A-I-C.
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Executives
At this point we're going to talk about each of the players within Six Sigma and what their role is within the
methodology. As we go through each of these roles, you can see at the bottom which phase these roles have a
primary responsibility.
Now when we talk about deploying Six Sigma, nine times out of ten companies deploy it top down, which means
the executives play an incredibly vital and important role in the success of the initiative. It's not to say that you
can't do a bottoms-up Six Sigma approach, but it's certainly not the standard and certainly doesn't have the
oomph or the success rate that it has when it's driven from the top.
So who are these executives? Executives are typically top level management personnel, individuals such as the
vice presidents of operation or quality, the CEO and his direct reports. These are individuals who have a strong,
strong focus on the finances of an organization and that's why they can try to utilize Six Sigma to improve the
bottom line of their companies.
Their roles are really to initiate the Six Sigma implementation team and that usually involves assigning some kind
of director-level individual to run the program. They also need to provide top level support to make sure that Six
Sigma is implemented correctly. They need to define and own the vision and objectives of Six Sigma, drive the
Six Sigma direction for the company. They're, at the end, responsible for integrating Six Sigma and the results of
it into the company and they also lead the culture change for the company.
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Champions
Champions are probably the single most important role within Six Sigma. Champions take the vision and the
direction from executives and establish specifically the organizational goals that need to be addressed using Six
Sigma.
Secondly, they actually select the Black Belts. And we haven't talked about Black Belts yet but they are, indeed,
the problem solvers that bring home the bacon, so to speak. So the selection process of these Black Belts is
incredibly important.
They also select project ideas which then get assigned to each Black Belt. One problem we face within the
execution of a Six Sigma Black Belt project is long cycle times to close the projects and we find that long cycle
time is sometimes directly affected by the ability of the champion to define specifically what the project will entail.
So we work very hard with champions to teach them how to properly define and scope project opportunities that
then get assigned to Black Belts.
Also important, they work with finance reps to cost estimate each and every project opportunity and how much
savings, potentially, each project opportunity will deliver to the organization. And we all know the reason we do
Six Sigma is to deliver financial results to the company.
Once the Black Belt actually starts training, champions assist these Black Belts and their teams in overcoming
any organizational barriers that might stop the project from being successful. And lastly, they are responsible --
and incentivized usually -- for the financial success of each and every Six Sigma project and, hence, the success
of each and every Six Sigma Black Belt, as well.
Some people want to know what level of the organization champions are usually at. Traditionally, they are
business leaders who lead a division or a geographic region of a particular business. They can also be individuals
that head up a plant or directly report into a plant manager.
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Many companies identify both local champions and executive champions. Local champions are more hands-on
individuals that have direct contact with Black Belts and then executive champions are higher level individuals
who are really responsible and feed the deployment of Six Sigma.
Champions usually receive roughly three to five days of intensive Six Sigma training where they learn how to do
everything we just talked about.
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Finance Reps
One of the biggest reasons why Six Sigma gets so much attention and recognition is because it takes an
extremely aggressive approach toward validating and tracking the financial impact of each and every project. The
individuals that are responsible for making that happen are called finance reps.
The finance leader assigned to support Six Sigma creates buckets or categories of savings for each Six Sigma
project. In this manner, we can create consistent guidelines upon which each Six Sigma project can be validated.
So each project can have some element of hard savings, some element of soft savings, some element of
potential savings and other categories that may apply to your organization. The responsibility of defining those
finance buckets and validating how much impact each project will have in those buckets is the key role of the
finance person.
The finance rep is also a key consulting member to the Black Belt and ideally will actually participate on the
project team. He also assists champions with original forecasts of potential project savings, which we'll talk more
about on the following slide. Ideally, he or she meets with the Black Belt once per training phase or roughly about
once per month throughout the execution of the project and this individual is the independent check and balance
of the financial results of the Six Sigma project.
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Process Owners
Another key player in our cast of characters here is an individual called the process owner. The process owner is
usually a functional manager that's responsible for an area that a particular Black Belt project or Six Sigma project
is being worked in.
As a functional manager, he also helps to lead the culture change by providing and supporting team members for
the Six Sigma project. He also assists with the identification of future project opportunities because he's the one
that usually knows the process intimately and feels the pain of any issues we have in our processes.
One of the most important and significant roles that the process owner has is to assist in the implementation and
the ownership of the solution that's delivered by the Black Belt. He carries the torch after the Black Belt closes the
project.
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Master Black Belts
The role of a Master Black Belt can vary dramatically from company to company. Sometimes we say that the
Master Black Belt can wear many different hats in an organization and those hats, like I mentioned, are different
from company to company.
First and foremost, an MBB or a Master Black Belt can serve as an instructor and an expert or guru in the DMAIC
toolset and they usually go through extensive training to make sure they understand these tools, how to apply
them and how they work.
Secondly, one of their roles can be to mentor Black Belts and Green Belts through their projects, in addition to
being their trainer.
They can also spend time developing training material to service a particular industry or the industry that they're
working in. They can assist champions and executives in strategizing the best way to deploy Six Sigma. They
also take on administrative and management responsibilities that drive Six Sigma within a company.
Longer term, once organizations develop their own internal Master Black Belts and may stop using external
consultants for these responsibilities, they take over champion duties, which means they can actually select and
define projects and select Black Belts for those projects to be assigned to.
And lastly, they generally work larger-scoped projects within an organization, projects that might stem across
functional areas or even across plants or facilities or projects that include or involve customers or suppliers.
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Black Belts
Now we've spent some time talking about many of the supporting Six Sigma roles like the champion, the finance
rep, the executive, the process owner, but the Black Belts are the ones that really drive the projects, which means
they drive the financial results to the bottom line through closing out these projects.
In most companies that successfully deploy Six Sigma, Black Belts are 100 percent dedicated resources to Six
Sigma. That means they spend all of their time working projects for the organization.
That is not to say that organizations that do not have full-time Black Belts can't successfully deploy Six Sigma.
That's not true. You can be successful in Six Sigma without full-time Black Belts, but certainly those organizations
that do dedicate Black Belts as full-time resources see the benefits of Six Sigma at a much faster rate.
Black Belts also work and deliver the projects, which we mentioned earlier. They are the messengers of the
change to the organization. They actually are trained in all the DMAIC tools. That means five weeks of very
intense training that each Black Belt will go through.
They're the role model for the right problem-solving methodology and that problem-solving methodology, called
DMAIC, is statistically based. They serve as teachers and mentors of the team members. They also are technical
resources within the organization that can help others apply the methodology in different areas.
The most important role and responsibility of the Black Belt is to deliver a solution to a business issue to the
process owner and that's how they help make sure that projects get done and get done right.
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Green Belts
The next supporting role we're going to discuss is the role of a Green Belt. Green Belts within companies are
traditionally only dedicated part time, meaning they have another job that they do so they can't spend all of their
time on Six Sigma.
Secondly, they're only trained in some of the Six Sigma tools, not all of the tools. Some organizations give Green
Belts four hours of training. Others give Green Belts one week of training. Others give Green Belts two weeks of
training. So the amount of training a Green Belt receives varies dramatically within and across industries.
Many times Green Belts participate on Black Belt teams and help them with data collection or the application of
simple tools to actual Black Belt projects. Green Belts also usually carry out very small-scoped projects within
their area of expertise.
So we like to say that Green Belts can apply Six Sigma directly to what they are responsible for on a daily basis.
More importantly, they become local advocates of change and local advocates for Six Sigma and the Six Sigma
toolset. They can also be very key to accelerating your deployment by helping an organization reach something
called critical mass, which we'll talk about later in this module.
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Team Members
The most exciting roles of Six Sigma are the actual team members. These are typically individuals who haven't
been formally trained in Six Sigma but get energized and excited because they get to participate on a Six Sigma
project.
They also are key people that help Black Belts execute the project and they do that by receiving training on basic
tools at a very introductory level. They can then come in and assist with things like data collection,
experimentation and other tasks associated with implementing a project.
They're also critical because they help the Black Belt get buy-in from other experts in the process. And the last
reason they're incredibly important is because they provide the Six Sigma team with the process expertise
needed to get the job done.
I often get asked the question of how large a Six Sigma team should be and although there's no right or wrong
answer, we find that four to seven team members is a good, manageable size for a project team.
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Everybody Else
Everybody else in the organization that isn't directly involved in Six Sigma should receive some awareness
training relative to what's going on and, over time, will embrace the Six Sigma culture and facilitate the
implementation of Six Sigma within an organization.
These people are key as well, because they will help with achieving critical mass.
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Critical Mass
We're going to demonstrate the concept of critical mass by telling a story that's based on something that actually
happened. Around 1952, off a small island in Japan called Koshima, there was a clan of monkeys that ate sweet
potatoes. By the way, sweet potatoes are much healthier than white potatoes. So if you ever have the choice, go
for a sweet potato.
These monkeys were constantly getting dirt in their teeth because their sweet potatoes, which grow under ground,
grow in dirt. So they would get sand and dirt on their sweet potatoes and then end up having grit and grime and
dirt in their mouths because they were eating these sweet potatoes dirty.
So one day, one particular monkey -- and if I recall correctly, she was a female, thank you very much -- decided to
wash her sweet potato before eating it. What a novel idea!
Immediately, she was outcast from the rest of the group and isolated completely. This was a very bold and
revolutionary idea that she had. Slowly, over the course of the next six years, one by one each clan member
would decide to wash their sweet potatoes and around the time that 30 percent of the clan members started
washing their sweet potatoes, the whole clan converted.
And so we have kind of used this as a guideline to what percentage of a population of individuals needs to believe
something is true in order for the whole population to believe it and that number is somewhere around 30 percent.
So within Six Sigma we say when about 30 percent of the organization has been somehow positively impacted or
affected by Six Sigma, that's when the whole organization will start to really come around.
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Achieving Critical Mass
The way we achieve critical mass within Six Sigma can be illustrated by the following slide.
 The Y-axis is the number of people positively touched through Six Sigma.
 The X-axis is the implementation time from the first day Six Sigma starts within a company.
If you notice, the number of Master Black Belts stays consistent within an organization. Usually when you first
start Six Sigma you use external Master Black Belts or consultants and over time you build your own. But the
level of MBBs stays consistent.
Now Black Belts -- you have to ramp up the number of Black Belts you have in the earlier phases of your
implementation time to make sure you're working enough projects and achieving enough savings for your
company. But over time, as more and more of your business issues are solved, the number of Black Belts should
actually decrease to some stable level as you move towards a mature implementation time.
Team members -- the number of team members will increase, obviously, with every Six Sigma project and the
more projects you work, the more team members you'll have that have participated on a Six Sigma project team.
And that's really where you get the majority of your critical mass.
Green Belts -- Green Belts are localized advocates, as we mentioned earlier, and usually don't start training until
shortly after Black Belts. Because Black Belts need to support Green Belts, we need to train some Black Belts
first before Green Belts get going.
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Roles in Your Organization (Activity)
(No narration on this slide.)
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Section 2: Six Sigma Phases

Six Sigma Phases Revisited
You may recall this slide from earlier. In this portion of the course, we're going to take a look at each one of these
elements individually.
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The Recognize Phase
We're going to walk through each phase and within each phase we're going to give you an overview, look at the
process involved in implementing that phase, see who the key players are, and look at the tools that those key
players can use to implement the process.
The Recognize phase is where the organization recognizes the need for Six Sigma, identifies areas of opportunity
and prepares to implement Six Sigma by assigning those areas of opportunities as Black Belt projects.
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The Recognize Phase (Continued)
The process that typically executives and high-level managers use to implement the Recognize phase is, first and
foremost, they have to understand the potential benefits that they can reap from Six Sigma.
Secondly, they help document and rank business goals, objectives and issues.
Third, they drive the development of organizational infrastructure to support Six Sigma.
And lastly, they actively remove barriers and support the remaining Six Sigma players.
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The Recognize Phase (Continued)
The tools that organizations can use to achieve these items are specific to every organization. The tools listed
here are not part of standard Six Sigma. They are tools that organizations already have preexisting, things like
EVA, which stands for economic value add; ABC or ABM, which stands for activity-based costing or activity-based
management; balanced scorecard; strategic planning; value stream mapping; FMEA and many others.
This collective group of tools allows organizations to identify project opportunities. Each of these tools or
techniques is independent and not linked, necessarily, to Six Sigma. Each individual one can serve as a good
foundation for project opportunity identification, which is the key output of the Recognize phase.
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The Define Phase
In the Define phase, projects are identified and defined. Black Belts and key team members are also selected.
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The Define Phase (Continued)
The process that is utilized to execute the Define phase is, first and foremost, champions and other players need
to understand the fundamental concepts of Six Sigma.
Secondly, after they understand these fundamental concepts, they can identify, prioritize and define projects that
are related to business goals, objectives and issues.
Then they can select Black Belt candidates and assign these projects to each candidate.
And lastly, finance reps get involved to estimate the financial impact of each project opportunity -- one of the most
important steps.
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The Define Phase (Continued)
The tools that we use to make this process happen are project scoping tools, project definition and management
tools, project management tools, descriptive statistics, macro mapping and financial estimates.
The Define phase is the most important time to make sure that we understand what the project is, but, more
importantly, we understand what the project isn't.
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The Measure Phase
The Measure phase begins the MAIC process by studying the current state of the process. The process is
mapped, measurement systems are evaluated and process capability is established.
You may remember from before, we can think of MAIC as a funnel where we're trying to reduce the number of
variables that are impacting our process as we go down the funnel. The top of the funnel where all the Xs come in
is the Measure phase.
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The Measure Phase (Continued)
The process that is utilized to execute the Measure phase is, first and foremost, we refine the project definition
given to us by our champion -- “we” meaning the Black Belt.
Secondly, the Black Belt, the team members -- which may include some Green Belts, as well -- document inputs
and outputs from the process. That's usually done through some process mapping.
Next we analyze our measurement systems through attribute and variable Gauge R&Rs and then we determine
our process capability.
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The Measure Phase (Continued)
As I mentioned earlier, here are some of the tools that we use to make this happen. Detailed process mapping --
sometimes it helps tremendously if you have a software package that can help you create these maps.
Then we use cause and effect matrices to correlate Xs to Ys. We can also use fishbone diagrams -- a great team
brainstorming tool.
We usually find that data collection systems are lacking. Either we don't have data in the areas we need them or
the data we do have is not appropriate for the project we're trying to figure out.
Lean tools can help us out here, as well, just basic Five S of the area and standardizing our jobs. Measurement
systems -- which is Gauge R&R -- and capability analyses finish up the Measure phase deliverables and tools.
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The Analyze Phase
In the Analyze phase data is collected on process input and output variables and then graphical techniques and
statistical techniques are used to identify the critical variables that we should work on.
As we proceed from the Measure phase to the Analyze phase, hopefully we will have reduced the number of
variables that are critical.
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The Analyze Phase (Continued)
We execute the Analyze phase through identifying possible drivers of variation and this is done through
something called exploratory analysis. All kinds of graphical tools are utilized here. Also, we can use FMEA --
failure modes and effects analysis -- to help make that happen.
Then, once we've used exploratory analysis to identify key drivers, we take that analysis and determine if each of
those key drivers is, in fact, significant through statistical analysis.
Lastly, we can brainstorm any potential designed experiments to be executed in the future.
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The Analyze Phase (Continued)
The graphical techniques that we use here -- just to name a few -- could be box plots, dot plots, marginal plots
and other plots available to us to really, really get insights into our data. We can also use statistical techniques
like correlation and regression, hypothesis testing from means and sigmas and proportion, ANOVA techniques
and failure modes and effects analysis, called FMEA for short.
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The Improve Phase
Improve phase is incredibly exciting. That's when we get to use experimentation like fractional factorials, full
factorials and 2ks to characterize the process and, hopefully, if we do our job well, we can obtain the transfer
function Y as a function of X. We can also keep moving further down our funnel and go from 12 to 15 possible
variables to maybe only three to six or seven.
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The Improve Phase (Continued)
The process that we use is, first, we screen our critical inputs through fractional factorials -- that's a specific
branch of designed experiment.
Then we take the critical Xs from fractional factorials and create full factorials to search for interactions among
these critical variables.
And lastly, if we do our job right, we will get an equation, Y as a function of X, which characterizes our process --
yahoo! – of truth.
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The Improve Phase (Continued)
Designed experiments are most commonly used in the Improve phase, but we can augment these experiments
with techniques like multiple regression and logistic regression.
Designed experiments and multiple regression are most commonly used for quantitative output variables. Those
are variables that are measured on a quantitative scale -- things like cycle time or thickness or weight.
Or we can apply experimentation techniques to attribute response variables like pass/fail data through techniques
like logistic regression.
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The Control Phase
The Control phase is really our moment of truth. It's really when all the work from Measure, Analyze, and Improve
comes together and is supposed to be sustained. So here we take our outputs and we optimize them and we
generate control plans which are implemented to maintain and sustain our gains long term.
Once we hit the Control phase, we should have really narrowed the number of Xs that are important to possibly
two to five critical ones.
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The Control Phase (Continued)
The process that we go through in the Control phase is the optimization of our output variables, the
implementation of the Control plan for these input and output variables and we start the transition process of
taking our learnings and making sure that the process owner and the team members can successfully implement
these learnings moving forward.
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The Control Phase (Continued)
The tools we use here are advanced optimization DOE techniques, transition plans -- that's when we actually
document all the activities that need to be done to transition the project from the Black Belt to the process owner
and team members.
We write structured control plans.
We can utilize SPC or statistical process controls to verify that our output variables, and input variables, stay in
control and implement other control methods such as mistake-proofing to also help us sustain our gains long term.
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The Realize Phase
Although the Control phase was the moment of truth for the Black Belt, the process owners and the team
members, the Realize phase is the moment of truth for the champion. Remember, the champion is on the hook
for the financial gain and in the Realize phase, this is when we start realizing -- hopefully, if the project is done
right -- the financial gains.
So there are two major things, two major activities that happen in the Realize phase.
One is the project is officially handed back to process owners and team members once and for all, which means
the Black Belt can move on to other projects, and secondly, project results are tracked by the finance rep for a
period of 12 months.
This is where we figure out if the rubber met the road on our Six Sigma forecast and we add all the savings
across all of our Black Belts and all of our projects to make sure we are successful in our deployment.
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The Realize Phase (Continued)
We execute the Realize phase by making sure our process owners and team members understand, embrace and
buy in to the team solution and hopefully these folks have been part of your team from day one, so this should be
a no-brainer.
Secondly, most importantly, we track our project gains for 12 months. That's the role of the finance rep.
And lastly, process owners can assist with the selection of new projects. As Black Belts finish up existing projects,
it's not uncommon that spinoff smaller projects get identified.
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The Realize Phase (Continued)
The tools that we use in the Realize phase -- first, the control plan. Although we designed the control plan in the
Control phase, now is when we make sure it becomes a living document and is implemented.
We also finish up any last remaining activities off the transition action plan. That's where our team members and
process owner finish up any loose ends.
We also have a final financial validation for the project and that is how much money it's going to save.
Also in the Realize phase, the Black Belt writes a final report which can be used as a historical record of all the
activity that has gone on relative to this project over time.
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People and Phases (Activity)
(No narration on this slide.)
Page 40 of 41
Module Review
Just a quick recap of what we've done here.
 First, we discussed the roles of the Six Sigma players. I won't review each of the players, but just
remember they all have a key important role to play.
 Secondly, we discussed the phases of Six Sigma -- R for Recognize, D for Define, M for Measure, A for
Analyze, I for Improve, C for Control and R for Realize. This is, in fact, the breakthrough strategy that
yields organizations breakthrough financial results.
 And lastly, we discussed the tools used in each phase. Remember, these tools, applied in this order, are,
in fact, what makes this strategy so unique.
Six Sigma -- a structured problem-solving methodology that will deliver bottom-line results.
Page 41 of 41

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Six Sigma Roles and Phases

Section 1: Six Sigma Players

Section 1: Six Sigma Players

Six Sigma Phases Overview

We have a Definition phase.

So don't be fooled to think that Six Sigma is only about M-A-I-C.

Master Black Belts

Achieving Critical Mass

Roles in Your Organization (Activity)

(No narration on this slide.)

Section 2: Six Sigma Phases

The Recognize Phase

The Recognize Phase (Continued)

The Recognize Phase (Continued)

The Define Phase

The Define Phase (Continued)

The Define Phase (Continued)

The Measure Phase

The Measure Phase (Continued)

The Measure Phase (Continued)

The Analyze Phase

The Analyze Phase (Continued)

The Analyze Phase (Continued)

The Improve Phase

The Improve Phase (Continued)

The Improve Phase (Continued)

The Control Phase

The Control Phase (Continued)

The Control Phase (Continued)

We write structured control plans.

The Realize Phase

The Realize Phase (Continued)

The Realize Phase (Continued)

People and Phases (Activity)

(No narration on this slide.)

Just a quick recap of what we've done here.

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