Six Sigma and your Customer

Why the customer is important is because they are the consumer for the project deliverable, Six Sigma or not. What Six Sigma brings to the table is a toolkit for achieving customer focus.

Step 1 for achieving this is identifying who the customer is for your project. They are the entity that is going to provide you with your project success criteria. It is an important part of this step to make sure you have identified all the customers that have a stake in your project.

This customer base you have identified is going to be the source of your requirement. As simple as this seems, this is not as straight-forward as it sounds. Soliciting requirements from the customer means understanding the customer enough to recognize what they are saying, even if they are not articulating it correctly.

Then, once captured, call it back out to your customer in terms they can understand. Be redundant. Say it how ever many times it takes to have your point clearly communicated.

After having done this, you would have achieved the first goal of your project -- achieving an alliance with your customer. You're on your way!