In Six Sigma, what is value?

What does it mean to look at value from the customer's perspective?

Value is the bottom line benefit derived by a customer -- regardless of the improvement one is implementing in a solution. The Six Sigma approach advocates that a solution must provide value. A concrete return on the investment for the solution must be clearly stated in the business case. The responsibility for creating this business case should belong to the customer, but, when it is not provided, the project manager must step up to the plate and clarify before moving forward with the solution.

It is easy to state this for most IT applications, as our general excuse of the solution being infrastructure preparation (implying that it may be totally out of proportion to the problem it is solving). Not true. Even for infrastructure, ROI can be determined. It may be a longer ROI but, it is important for the customer to know that when they agree on a solution.

I always stress to my project sponsor that it may seem out of the scope of the work they want me to perform to elucidate the business case (after they assign me a specific problem), but, the bottom line value question is important because it dictates the overall strategy, and this is a guideline we should always abide by when providing a solution.