Agility with Six Sigma

INTRODUCTION

Agile is dominating the software development sphere, and have proven to be successful for managing and executing software development projects, which are considered as innovative knowledge work. ?Agile has also entered IT Infrastructure domain and people have started leveraging the thought process in this new field.

Agile focus on quick and short-‐term improvements identified through daily and or frequent ?collaborations or through periodic retrospectives. At Times agile teams need the strategic approach towards process improvement and this is where Six Sigma comes into the picture.

We did discussed about how to leverage Agile in IT Infrastructure domain via the post https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/infrastructure-digital-transformation-projects-how-leverage-singh , let us continue to talk about how we can leverage Agile with Six Sigma in IT Infrastructure world.

Six Sigma as most of us know is a widely used philosophy that provides a set of tools, phases and roadmaps, which can be used by any organization to reduce variation and improve the capability and quality of its processes, products and services. Let me share how we can combine Six Sigma and its ‘DMAIC’ methodology ?as a statistical and analytical problem solving approach with agile. ?I will cover how we can leverage the benefits of both the methodologies in the IT Infrastructure Digital Transformation domain.

Let us understand Six Sigma a little more

Six Sigma?is a statistical-based, data-driven approach and continuous improvement methodology for eliminating defects in a product, process or service.

Motorola developed Six Sigma in 1986. And since its adoption at General Electric in the 1990’s, it has been widely adopted by many organizations in different domains and industries. Six Sigma is very popular mainly in the manufacturing industry, mainly because of its origin and the fact that Six Sigma is related to an objective of reducing variation in production processes.

Six Sigma?is a quantitative approach involving setting up a system and process for the improvement of defined metrics in manufacturing, service, or financial processes. … Improvement projects follow a disciplined process defined by a system of four macro phases: Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control (MAIC).

?Lean management?and Six Sigma are two concepts which share similar methodologies and tools. Both programs are?Japanese-influenced, but they are two different programs. Lean management is focused on eliminating waste using a set of proven standardized tools and methodologies that target organizational efficiencies while integrating a performance improvement system utilized by everyone, while Six Sigma's focus is on eliminating defects and reducing variation. Both systems are driven by data, though Six Sigma is much more dependent on accurate data

Six Sigma in IT Infrastructure

IT Infrastructure projects involves a lot of innovation and creativity and relies heavily on the skills of individuals as a team.

Adopting Six Sigma for IT Infrastructure projects has not been that popular mainly because Six Sigma has always been known as a structured methodology for reducing variation in a repetitive production process as opposed to a human-‐centric and innovation focused process.

In order to assess the benefit of adopting Six Sigma to an IT Infrastructure team, Six Sigma should be looked at from a different perspective. A typical objective of using Six Sigma for IT Infrastructure would not be to reduce variation, but to remove waste and eliminate or reduce defects or Nonvalue adds.

Lean Six Sigma is a philosophy of a structured methodology for process improvement and problem solving, that provides a very powerful set of tools and techniques. It is dependent on using the data along with the right set of tools and right probing to the right stakeholders to focus on the right problems. In other words, it is about solving problems, by focusing on the right problems, which impacts the business and introduce costs to the organization. Six Sigma also, is deals with investigating problems to the level of their root causes and finding appropriate solutions for the removal of that problem.

Six Sigma DMAIC and Agile in IT Infrastructure

Agile states that: “At regular intervals, the team retrospect on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly”. This principle relates to the fact that most agile teams focus on continuous improvement and adaptation to change in the form of PDCA cycles which happens either through daily collaboration or through periodic collaborations. Decision making at this stage sometimes is based solely on observations and this is where Lean Six Sigma comes along that helps us find the solution which is data driven.

For an agile team, Six Sigma would provide them with a structured approach for problem solving. It would also provide them with a set of tools and techniques, which can be used to address the root causes of the problems impacting performance, quality & satisfaction.

DMAIC (an acronym for Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control) (pronounced d?-MAY-ick) refers to a data-driven improvement cycle used for improving, optimizing and stabilizing business processes and designs. The DMAIC improvement cycle is the core tool used to drive Six Sigma projects.

This ?is a data-‐driven process for improving existing processes in a way, which focuses on waste removal, defect elimination and this increase performance and capability.

• Define: Define business problem, goal, potential resources, project scope and high-level project timeline. This information is typically captured within project charter document
• Measure: Measure the key parts of the existing process, and collect data about factors contributing to the problem in order to establish a current baseline for performance from a quantitative and qualitative perspective
• Analyze: Analyze, identify and validate the factors contributing to the problem in order to identify the root causes for the critical factors impacting performance and prioritize those root causes
• Improve: Identify, test , implement and evaluate improvement solutions to eliminate root causes of the problem in part or in whole
• Control: Sustain the improvements achieved and monitor them to ensure continued and sustainable success

ADOPTING AGILE IN MANAGING A DMAIC‐BASED IT Infrastructure SIX SIGMA PROJECT:

Introduction to Iterative Process in IT Infrastructure: Iteration based Agile

• Short feedback loop
• Reprioritizations
• Regular plan updates
• Frequent adaption of process

The project team works in an iterative manner (which is timebox) to complete the deliverables. Like for an example during a DC /SAP/Application Migration there will be an iteration of activities that needs to be completed for each move group created and implemented starting from planning phase till the environment is handed over to support teams.

How Iterations can be leveraged to manage DMAIC Programs in IT Infrastructure:

Six Sigma is about process improvement and problem solving.

DMAIC-‐based program is about improving an existing process and solving problems,

DMAIC programs generally follow waterfall model, the best approach to leverage an Agile methodology in DMAIC environment would be

• Break the Deliverables/Projects into sprints, each sprint will have a definite timeline
• Each Sprint will follow its own DMAIC flow

For an example as per PMI a standard Program life cycle has following 5 phases:

• Phase 1: Conception and Initiation
• Phase 2: Definition and Planning
• Phase 3: Launch and Execution
• Phase 4: Performance and Control
• Phase 5: Closure

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Now all these phases will have their own standard DMAIC sub phases, i.e. all phases will have their own specific sub phases Project wise: ?Define > Measure > Analyze > Implement > Control

Again at Project level based on the deliverables every Sub phase will have its own Define > Measure > Analyze > Implement > Control?

It may sound a little confusing but let me elaborate with an example: let’s assume we are running a Program for an Organization to achieve Digital Transformation and Services Transition. Ideally a Digital Transformation should start post the Services Transition is complete. Services transition will run its own cycle of Initiation > Planning > Execution >Control > Closure and Digital Transformation will run its own cycle of Initiation > Planning > Execution > Control > Closure.

Digging deep, let us assume our digital transformation has various projects running in parallel related to Datacenter and End User computing Digital transformations… each and every project will have its own life cycle of Initiation > Planning > Execution > Control > Closure.?

Let’s move ahead and understand leveraging DMAIC into it. Each phase of Initiation > Planning > Execution > Control > Closure will be running on DMAIC methodology and each DMAIC will follow Agile methodology of PDCA (Plan à Do à Check à Act)

How Six Sigma DMAIC can help Agile:

Mostly agile teams depend on daily collaborations and periodic retrospectives to identify and work on the problems and issues they face. During those retrospectives or revisits teams typically focus on soft observations and short-‐term issues. Any decision making at this stage is mainly based on perceived symptoms of short term and visible problems, this may impact the performance and quality on a longer run

Six Sigma offers agile teams the roadmap (DMAIC), approach and techniques, which will help them define the problems and issues and effectively manage them.

Six Sigma can benefit Agile methodology as :

• It is an powerful and lean approach that leverages analytical problem solving
• Comes with a well-defined tools and techniques and approaches for strategic process improvement and problem solving
• Shifting focus from acknowledging to defining by leveraging quantitative magnitude and impact on the business, also helps in analyzing root cause
• Shifting their focus to be problem driven rather than solution driven. The team should strive to solve the right problem by eliminating its root causes rather than providing a catalogue of pre-‐defined solutions?

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