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In this article, I’ll explore how the Six Sigma and Lean Six Sigma programs could work in the IT support center environment. The phrase “could work” is used deliberately because, like any process or quality improvement program, the Sigma’s offer a formal, theoretical process to follow that may not always translate into the daily reality of a support center. Still, I’m seeing one to two questions

a month from HDI members involved in Sigma projects and believe that there will be more such projects, not less, in the months and years ahead.

What’s a Sigma Anyway? There are two Sigma programs: Six Sigma and Lean Six Sigma. We’ll talk about Six Sigma first. Six Sigma is a statistical concept that measures a process in terms of defects. If your operation has achieved a high degree of success by reducing defects at a Six Sigma level, your processes are delivering only 3.4 defects per million opportunities (DPMO). Sigma is the term in statistics (everyone relax...this won’t be as bad as you’re thinking) that measures standard deviation, an indicator of the degree of variation in a set of measurements or a process. It indicates defects in the output of a process; it will help you to understand how far the processes deviate from perfection.

by Robert S. Last

“If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing.” —— W. Edwards Deming

IS SIx SIgMa RIghT foR IT Support Centers?

Strategy

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A sigma represents 691462.5 defects per million opportunities, which is a percentage of non-defective outputs of only 30.854 percent. This is not good performance. A three sigma level of performance is 66807.2 errors per million opportunities or 93.319 percent non-defective outputs; that’s 66,807 defects out of a million. That’s not bad, unless you’re a customer on the receiving end of one of the 66,807 defects. If you hit the six sigma level, your operation is really doing well.

What makes Six Sigma attractive to many managers is that, by applying the methodologies and the culture of Six Sigma, it “…uncovers the layers of process variables—in data terms—that you must understand and control to eliminate defects and wasteful costs. It’s a management approach that aims to achieve the apex of quality by measuring, analyzing, improving, and controlling processes to root out defects and boost bottom-line results.”1

The other sigma, Lean Six Sigma, is derived from a combination Six Sigma and Lean manufacturing methods. Lean is “a set of principles and methodologies for improving cycle times and quality through the elimination of waste…Lean thinking allows us to distinguish between value-added and non-valued-added activities. The immediate result is a removal of unnecessary non-valued-added activities. The objective is to improve cycle times, reduce waste, and increase value to the customer.” 2 Lean manufacturing is good for speed; Six Sigma focuses on quality.

A Little History of the Sigmas Six Sigma was created in the 1980s at Motorola as a quality program, but its roots go back to the early industrial era and Carl Fredrick Gauss (1777-1855), who introduced it as a conceptual normal curve metric. Next came Walter Shewhart (W. Edwards Deming’s teacher and mentor) who showed how three sigma (see above) deviations from the mean required a process correction. Later in 1980, Six Sigma hit the big time when Motorola engineer Bill Smith found the correlation between a product’s field life and how often that product had been repaired during the manufacturing process.

1 Greg Brue, Six Sigma for Managers (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002), 5.

2 Paul Keller, Six Sigma Demystified (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2005), 262.

Later, in 1985, “Smith presented a paper that concluded that if a product was found defective and corrected during the production process, other defects were bound to be missed and found later by the customer during early use of the product. However, when the product was manufactured error-free, it rarely failed during early use by the consumer.”3

This work led Smith and Motorola to discover the link between higher quality and lower cost that led to the development of Six Sigma—“an initiative that at first focused on improving quality through the use of exact measurements to anticipate problem areas, not just react to them. In other words, Six Sigma would allow a business leader to be proactive rather than reactive, to quality issues.”4 The rest, as the saying goes, is history. Today Six Sigma is used worldwide, mostly in manufacturing operations, but increasingly in service operations of all types, and it has become not just a methodology, but a culture that helps organizations improve their operations.

Six Sigma Features for IT Support There are two features of Six Sigma that offer support centers an opportunity to use a consistent approach to improving organizations: DMAIC and a SIPOC/COPIS Table. DMAIC is a Six Sigma acronym for:

Define the problem

Measure the extent of the problem

Analyze the sources

Improve the process

Control the process for sustained improvement

Each step in the DMAIC process is required to ensure the best possible results in a Six Sigma project. “There is a system behind these steps, which mimic the methodology applied when conducting scientific research. In essence, this consists of defining the research, ensuring that the object of research can be measured, conducting measurements and proving or rejecting [hypotheses] on the test subject before writing

3 Mikel Harry, Ph.D., and Richard Schroder, Six SIGMA: The Breakthrough Management Strategy Revolutionizing the World’s Top Corporations (New York: Doubleday, 2000), 9-10.

4 Harry and Schroder, Six SIGMA, 10.

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StrategySIPOC/COPIS Table

Customer Output Process Inputs (and Resources) Suppliers

Call Engaged(Automated)Answer Call

Active Phone Line Phone Service Provider

Internal Call Switch

Switching Software

Information in System(Staff)

Gather Customer Info

Available Rep

IT GroupCall Mgmt. Software

Client Escalation Decision(Staff)

Assess Ability to Resolve

Database Available

Human Resources/Training

Staff Experience/Training

Next-level Support Engaged

(Staff)Transfer Call

Available Staff for Transfer

Call Center Mgmt.

Call Center Mgmt.

Resolution Information(Staff)

Gather Resolution Info

System DocumentationIT Group

FAQ Database

Call Center StaffCall Data Logged to

Customer File and FAQ(Staff)

Deliver Resolution Info

Client Config. Info

IT Group(Web Monitor Application)

Documented Call Resolution

Customer Availability (on Callback)

(Staff) Log Call Data

(Staff)Log Call Data

Call Mgmt. Software

Staff Availability

Staff Discipline

(Automated/Internet)Confirm Resolution with

Customer

Web Monitor

(Customer)Internet Access

up the findings. Six Sigma works in exactly the same way.”5 The process steps are:

Define the customer, their Critical to Quality (CTQ) issues, and the Core Business Process involved.

• Define who customers are, what their requirements are for products and services, and what their expectations are.

• Define project boundaries (i.e. , the stop and start of the process).

• Define the process to be improved by mapping the process flow.

Measure the performance of the Core Business Process involved.

• Develop a data collection plan for the process.

• Collect data from many sources to determine types of defects and metrics.

• Compare to customer survey results to determine shortfall.

Analyze the data collected and the process map to determine the root causes of defects and opportunities for improvement.

• Identify gaps between current performance and goal performance.

• Prioritize opportunities to improve.

• Identify sources of variation.

Improve the target process by designing creative solutions to fix and prevent problems.

• Create innovate solutions using technology and discipline.

• Develop and deploy implementation plan.

5 Sven Den Boer, et al., Six Sigma for IT Management (Norwich, UK: Van Haren Publishing Ltd., 2006), 38.

Control the improvements to keep the process on the new course.

• Prevent reverting back to the “old way.”

• Require the development, documentation, and implementation of an ongoing monitoring plan.

• Institutionalize the improvements through the modification of systems and structures (staffing, training, and incentives).6

The second feature of Six Sigma that is useful for IT is the SIPOC/COPIS Table, the first half of which stands for Suppliers, Inputs, Process, Outputs, Customers. With this information it is possible to develop “a detailed view of all the important customers, their requirements, and the related process step and supplier dependencies.”7 While processes flow in the SIPOC direction, the thought processes (and these are critical, as they’re what make the table so valuable) used to build the table often begin with the customer. The COPIS half of the acronym identifies the Customer, Output, Process, Input and Suppliers. Exercises such as this tend to be rare in the hectic IT support center environment, but they are valuable nonetheless for the opportunities that they provide, first, to understand current operations and, second, to make them better. In other words, you can’t learn to swim without getting in the water.

6 iSixSigma Quality Dictionary, s.v. “DMAIC,” http://www.isixsigma.com/ dictionary/DMAIC-57.htm (accessed April 4, 2008).

7 David L. Hallowell, “A Six Sigma Case Study-Tutorial for IT Call Center: Part 2 of 6 – The Define Phase,” iSixSigma Software/IT, http://software. isixsigma.com/library/content/c040421b.asp (accessed March 21, 2008).

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The question remains, “Is Six Sigma right for IT support centers?” As with most complex questions, the answer is, “It depends.” Six Sigma offers support managers a powerful set of tools, techniques, and cultural norms that they can use to improve the efficiency of a support center. Like any quality program, it can lead to organizational advancement, or it can become a nightmare. Leadership, good planning, professional execution, and reasonable expectations are just as important as the program itself – the journey to success can be just as important as meeting a goal. Read, research, and explore the possibility of using Six Sigma, but don’t forget to be a leader while you are a doing so.

Robert S. Last is the Content Manager for HDI. For more than twenty years, he has been involved in the IT technical support field as a manager, trainer, consultant, and industry analyst. He is the author of dozens of articles, white papers, and HDI focus books on a wide range of topics related to all aspects of technical support and is the author of How to Be a Successful Support Center Analyst (forthcoming). He also supports the HDI membership and staff by managing the “Ask the Expert” service on the HDI Web site.

Robert is a graduate of Cleveland State University with a B.A. in urban studies and an M.A. in history. He is an HDI-certified Support Center Analyst and Support Center Manager, and he also holds certificates in disaster recovery planning, management, and instructional design.

Observations About Six Sigma from Smart People There is no shortage of opinion regarding Six Sigma and Lean Six Sigma, but I’ll keep it simple. First are some interesting observations from a message board respondent who, back in 2003, answered an excellent question: “Can anyone highlight the similarities between the various ISO programs (no small area of interest considering the growing use of ISO/IEC 20000) and Six Sigma?” The respondent, Nitin Sahnl, observed that the ISO standard is based on eight quality management principles that are also applicable to Six Sigma. They are:

Customer Focus – Six Sigma starts with the customer (Voice of the Customer [VOC], QFD, Critical to Quality [CTQ], and Drill Down).

Leadership – You have to have a Six Sigma organization in place (Quality Council and Champion).

Process Approach – Six Sigma relies upon Process Mapping and Process Improvement.

Systems Approach to Management – Six Sigma seeks high-level process mapping and SIPOC.

Employee Involvement – Project Teams, Trainings, Empowerment, etc.

Supplier Relationships – SIPOC, Suppliers, and Business Partners.

Fact-Based Decisions – Six Sigma makes extensive use of statistical tools and analysis.

Continual Improvement – Develop the modifications that lead to a validated improvement in your process or system.8

Finally, Sahnl concludes, “both ISO and Six Sigma...essentially complement each other. Organizations sometimes use ISO as a basic framework for setting up QMS [quality management systems] and then utilize Six Sigma...to troubleshoot chronic pains, leading to a lot of synergy.”9

8 Neil DeCarlo, Craig Gygi, and Bruce Williams. Six Sigma for Dummies (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, John & Sons, Inc., 2005), 42; Nitin Sahnl, “Six Sigma and ISO Similarities (Message #36046),” iSixSigma Message Board, http://www.isixsigma.com/forum/showthread.asp?messageID=36052 (accessed March 17, 2008).

9 Sahnl, “Six Sigma and ISO Similarities.” See also, Jack Welch and Suzy Welch, “Ideas – The Welch Way: The Six Sigma Shotgun,” BusinessWeek, May 21, 2007, http://www.businessweek.com/perm/ content/07_21/b4035114.htm.

Julie Mohr, Principal Research Analyst and author at BlueprintAudits.com, made this response to the following question, “What’s good about Six Sigma in a support center?”

“Six Sigma offers a tool to assist the support center in reaching a higher level of process efficiency. When we evaluate a process gone wrong or a process ‘error’ we can clearly identify ways to improve the process such that these errors are minimized and mitigation is built into the process, roles, and responsibilities.

Trending how often such errors occur, implementing improvements, and showing how the errors are minimized or removed is an excellent tool in continuous improvement of the process.”

Mohr also addressed the opposite question, “What’s not good about Six Sigma in a support center?”

“The danger of Six Sigma is twofold. The first is thinking that Six Sigma is the goal. [Simply stated], obtaining Six Sigma means only having three errors in a million transactions. To get to that level of efficiency would require a lot of resources, money, and time. The goal of how much error should be eliminated must be established where it balances the cost against the quality of the service we provide. The second is that Six Sigma alone will not create efficiency. Six Sigma is [built] around process efficiency. Much of what the support center does—including communication, monitoring, training, knowledge management, and project-based work, among many different types of responsibilities—cannot be managed if it is not measured.”10

Finally, Rick Joslin, Executive Director of Training and Certification at HDI, makes these observations about Six Sigma: “[It] is all about continuous service improvement and a means to identify the variance in satisfying service level objectives (i.e., book 5 of ITIL).”11

10 Julie Mohr, e-mail message to author, March 19, 2008.

11 Rick Joslin, e-mail message to author, January 29, 2008.