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.

Business Value! Business Contribution!

There is an emergence of the mindset of providing value to business. I guess we want to address the age-old problem of IT being viewed as overhead.

I have always said that we should treat out IT projects as if we were a small business. In that world, everything we procure for the business needs to provide a tangible bottom-line value....or, we don't acquire it. If we did this to our IT projects, despite kicking and screaming customers, we would stop being just an expense in organizations.

I say this principle is the essence of Six Sigma.

Now, having said that, I am running into ITIL V3 -- pretty much an evolution of ITIL into the same business value mindset. Basically, it is the same principles from ITIL V2 except, instead of focusing on process, it starts with Strategy, which is really defining value to the business.

6Sigma Project Management if you are not a 6Sigma shop......

It is quite interesting how you can be blocked off by a two-word subject line like Six Sigma. (Heck, sometimes it works the opposite way.)


If one were to perform proper project/program management, it should be following the principles of Six Sigma anyway.

I often get flack from folks in smaller organizations who claim that Six Sigma applies to bigger shops. I retort by saying whatever it is they do is really in line with the general philosophy of Six Sigma anyway. For instance, in a small company, a project wouldn't fly unless a quantifiable return to a customer who matters to the business is deemed worth it. That, by itself, is in line with my generalization of the Six Sigma approach to a project -- identifying my customer, quantifying a value to my customer and communicating that value to that customer.

So, case in point. There is no room to consider any other approach in a smaller organization. It may just not be known as Six Sigma.