Six Sigma for Green Belts and Champions: A Review of Chapters 1

Running head: Six Sigma Chapters 3, 4 & 5
Six Sigma for Green Belts and Champions: A Review of Chapters 3, 4 & 5
Renita A. Duncan
Six Sigma Green Belt II
August 11, 2013
Professor Bruce Stephens
Southwestern College of Professional Studies
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SIX SIGMA Chapters 3, 4 & 5
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Chapter Three: Macro Model of Six Sigma Management (Dashboards)
Chapter Three is about tracking your projects and assignments as well as the costs. We
also learn why we are doing what we are doing. It is important to know what the organizations
mission and goal is so that at every level when it comes to a lean organization knows what the
organization’s purpose and intent is. We learn that there are several benefits to using the
Dashboards they are sub-grouped into strategic and tactical benefits. There is also a structure
starting with what may be the most important part, the mission statement. “A missions statement
is a declaration of the reason for the existence of an organization.” (Gitlow, H. S., & Levine, D.
M. p. 46). There are several methods in which mission statements can be constructed they stem
from the personal mind of the president of the organization to all stakeholders getting together to
develop a mission statement. Dashboards are comprised of Key Objectives which are either
business objectives or strategic objectives. “Strategic objectives are the goals that must be
accomplished to pursue the presidential strategy of an organization and Business objectives are
the goals that must routinely be pursued within an organization if it is to function.”(Gitlow, H.
S., & Levine, D. M. p. 46). It is important to remember that Six Sigma management is a
strategic objective. Key objectives also have categories, there are four categories of the
objectives, they are, “financial, process improvement and innovation, customer satisfaction, and
employee growth and development” (Gitlow, H. S., & Levine, D. M. p. 48). All of those
objectives need Key indicators. “A key indicator is a measurement that monitors the status of a
key objective.” (Gitlow, H. S., & Levine, D. M. p. 49). There are five such indicators Attribute
indicators, Measurement indicators, Binary indicators, List by time period indicators, and Gantt
chart indicators. The chapter lists many additional charts and diagrams that can be used to
measure objectives, indicators, and measurements. We learn the importance of project teams in
SIX SIGMA Chapters 3, 4 & 5
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this chapter and who decides whether a project team is needed. The chapter is summarized by
helping us understand that employees are empowered by learning the key objectives.
Chapter Three Test Questions
1. Departments or areas that are assigned multiple projects or tasks coordinated them through a.
(p. 57)
a. Project management team
b. Local steering team (LST)
c. Dashboard
d. An immediate supervisor
2. Each employee can identify his/her key objectives by ________________. Answer.
Studying his/her supervisors key indicators (p. 59)
3. All are key indicators except? (p. 49) Answer: process improvement indicators.
a. Measurement indicators
b. Binary indicators
c. List by time period indicators
d. Process improvement indicators
4. ________________________ are the goals that must routinely be pursued withing and
organization if it is function? (p. 47) Answer: Business objectives.
5. Tactical benefits of a dashboard include all except. (p. 46) Answer: D.
a. Linking all processes (jobs) to the mission statement
b. Eliminating overreaction to random noise in organizational processes; that is not
treating common causes of variation as special causes of variation.
c. Developing and testing hypotheses about the effectiveness of potential process
improvements.
SIX SIGMA Chapters 3, 4 & 5
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d. Increasing communication between and within the levels of an organization.
Questions for Chapter Four
1. True/False: In the define phase the three main components are, developing a project charter,
creating a risk assessment and identifying SIPOC? (p.62)
Answer: False
2. A___________________ is to describe the problem, opportunity, or objective in clear,
concise, and measurable terms (p. 68) Answer: Problem statement
3. All are part of the background for a project charter except? (p. 66)
a. VoC analysis.
b. Business case
c. A problem statement
d. A schedule of milestones
4. True/False: Market segmentation is the dividing of a market into homogeneous subsets of
customers where any subset may conceivably be selected as a target market to be reached
with a distinct marketing mix? (p. 77) Answer: True.
5. True/False. The problems statement describes the team’s improvement objective. (p. 68)
Answer: False.
Questions for Chapter Five
1. _______________ is a about team members concretely understanding the operational
definition, measurement system, and current capability of each critical-to-quality (CTQ)
characteristic. (p.103) Answer: Measure phase
2. List the three component parts to measurement study(p.111)
SIX SIGMA Chapters 3, 4 & 5
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a. Do not criticize anyone’s ideas, by word or gesture.
b. Do not discuss any ideas during the session, except for clarification.
c. Do not hesitate to suggest an idea because it sounds “silly.” Many times, such an idea
can lead to the problem solution.
d.
Do not allow any group member to present more than one idea at a time.
e. Do not allow the group to be dominated by one or two people.
f. Do not let brainstorming become a gripe session.
3. A/n_____________________ is used to organize verbal and pictorial data consisting of facts,
opinions, intuition, and experience into natural clusters that bring out the latent structure of
the problem under study. (p. 468) Answer: Affinity diagram
4. A/n ____________________is a tool used to organize the possible factors (Xs) that could
negatively impact the stability, center, spread, and shape of a CTQ. (p.472) Answer: Cause
and Effect diagram and matrix.
5. True/False. Statistics is a procedure used to describe the systematic subdivision of a data set?
(p. 476) Answer: False.
SIX SIGMA Chapters 3, 4 & 5
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References
Gitlow, H. S., & Levine, D. M. (2005). Six sigma for green belts and champions foundations,
DMAIC, tools, cases, and certification. Chapters 1, 2 and 15. Upper Saddle River,
NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall