Six Sigma Team Building (Champion) - Part 1

*) Identify the role of Six Sigma Champion

Any business uses a number of processes for its operations. Improving many of these may lead to significant measerable gains. However, we must select a small number of these processes for improvement in a Six Sigma project.

A Six Sigma project is a team effort. We create an implementation team and clearly define specific designation as wess as job responsibilities for team members. We should also obtain complete commitment from senior management for allocation of adequate manpower and other resources.

The Six Sigma Project Team

We create a Six Sigma project team by selecting member that have deep process knowledge from all levels of the organization. A Six Sigma project team usually comprises a Champion, a Quality Leader, a Master Black Belt, a Process Owner, Black Belts, and Green Belts. It isn't always necessary to involve all these members, especially in smaller company, or in an initial improvement effort, but the functions of each role should be present and defined.

The Six Sigma Champion

The leader of the Six Sigma team is referred to as the 'Champion'. The champion acts as the project sponsor and interfaces between user departments and senior management.
These functions requere the champiton to be a part of the senior management of a company, usually the ECO or a Vice President.

Factor Affecting the Selection of a Champion

There are a number factors we should consider when selecting a champion. A champion should be familiar with the cross-functional issues and their relevance to the existing processes. The champion should have a deep undestanding of Six Sigma and be comitted to its success in the organization. The champion should also be capable of comunicating Six Sigma initiatives at every opportunity.

Understanding the Factors Affecting the Selection of a Champion

The department haeds in an organization would not be good candidates for the champion role because of ther unfamilarity with cross-functional issues. However, a Vice President fits well in the role because of his or her deep understanding of cross-fuctional issues and access to the senior management of the company.

Champion Attributes

*) Authoritative
To implement a Six Sigma project succussfully, a champion must be authoritative, open-minded, and persuasive.
Being authoritative enables a champion to make organizational divisions adopt or 'buy in' to the Six Sigma initiative. The position of authority also enables a champion to make manpower other resources available to organizational divisions.

*) Open-minded
Champions should also be open-minded to view disagreements with a team-member or an employee from that persons perspective. This often requires the champion to understand the problems of team members and other employees and suggest solutions.

*) Persuasive
Implementing Six Sigma often means a change in working methods for all employees leading to resistance to the Six Sigma initiative. The champion needs to be persuasive to increase employee 'buy-in'.
The champion also needs to be persuasive to get management support for the initiative.

Other Six Sigma Team Members

** Quality Leader / Manager

To ensure the success of a Six Sigma project, the champions need to be backed by a motivated team whose members act as driving forces for the implementation of new processes.
The Quality Leader or Manager is responsible for representing the needs of the customer and improving the operational effectiveness of the organization.

** Master Black Belt

Another team member, the Master Black Belt, typically provides the technical leadership in a Six Sigma project. This position also involves examining a specific area within the organization and coaching other in the Six Sigma methodology. The area may be a functional area, such as human ersources, or a process-specific area, such as order processing.

** Process Owner

Process Owners are the individuals responsible for a specific process. FOr instance, the Vice President of the Legal department would be the Process Owner of the processes followed in the Legal department.

** Black Belt

Black Belt are techinically oriented individuals who lead quality projects and work full time on them. They are usually familiar with computer usage and data analysis techniques.

** Green Belt

Employee trained in Six Sigma woho complete projects and provide project status data to the Six Sigma team are called Green Belt. They perform their regular work responsibilities in addition to their responsibilities as Green Belt. They are also capable of taking their projects from concept to completion.