Are you using formal innovation tools in Lean and DMAIC Six Sigma projects? The opportunity for innovating during a Lean or DMAIC Six Sigma project cannot be overemphasized. During problem-solving it is important to be creative, adaptive and innovative. There are ample opportunities to innovate within both Lean and Six Sigma projects. And combining Lean and Six Sigma multiplies those opportunities!
Innovation in Design for Six Sigma-it's already built in:
Innovation has been a major component of Design for Six Sigma because of the heavy focus on coming up with new product and process concepts. Necessity is said to be the mother of invention. DFSS projects always start by identifying an opportunity by gathering customer needs, converting them into a clear, stable, ranked and prioritized set of product requirements - then the team innovates by generating numerous concept designs to fulfill the key requirements and hybridizing the best elements of each into a final, superior concept.
Innovation in Lean Projects:
If the objectives of a lean project are waste reduction, increased flow and efficiency, customer-focused value enhancement and a push toward perfection, how could they be met without being creative and innovative?
In a lean project, the gap between value in the customer's context on the one hand, and the removal of waste on the other, is the "hot spot" for innovation. These gaps are to be found while searching a given process flow diagram for places to insert value-added steps or actions. The call of Lean should be - remove waste and add value by way of innovation and creativity!
Innovation in the DMAIC Six Sigma Process:
There is plenty of opportunity to innovate during the Improve step of the DMAIC problem solving process. When better to be creative and innovative than during the Improve step of a Six Sigma project. In fact, the Improve phase could be renamed the Innovate phase.
The "I" in the DMAIC model stands for
- Improve when a project needs a fairly obvious corrective action to put the process back where it belongs. The projects' process requirements have not changed, and the emphasis on the improvement is to "put it back" because it had drifted from a desired target.
OR
- Innovate when a project encounters new requirements, and a simple shifting back to target is not the solution. The target and its acceptable range of performance is new or different enough to justify changes in the design of the process - not radical, but enough to require innovation.
It's reasonable to give a DMAIC Six Sigma project team the freedom to discriminate between a shorter, easier Improve step or a longer, more creative and exploratory Innovate step.
To teach individuals to be creative and innovative is easy to do. A very well-defined set of tools, methods and best practices are readily available for helping any kind of person or small team become more productive when they are innovating. There is a plethora of books and workshops to improve innovation skills.
One example is the method called TRIZ or, in English, TIPS. This approach is called the Theory Of Inventive Problem Solving. TRIZ is the Russian acronym that spells the same words. TRIZ is learned while applying it on a real project and is best done in a small team environment when you have conflicting critical requirements that both have to be met in some meaningful way. Both TRIZ and the free-form innovation methods enhance collaborative innovation inside of small teams.
Many Lean and DMAIC Six Sigma programs are beginning to include these methods. Let's build on that trend by emphasizing innovation in our Lean and Six Sigma problem-solving methodologies and breathe a bit of new, invigorating life into them.
This article was adopted from PDSS President Skip Creveling's upcoming book whose working title is The Transformations of Six Sigma, to be published in 2008.
