Business enterprises whether its a manufacturing firm, software firm or transactional firm around the world share common objectives such as minimizing their production/operational costs and producing unique products/services to ensure a bigger share in their respective markets and earn higher profits. For achieving such organizational goals, every business has realized the importance of adhering to some form of quality maintenance or process improvement methodology.
The professional project managers across the world widely using the project management standards established in Project Management Book of Knowledge (PMBoK) (promulgated by the Project Management Institute). Both six sigma and the PMBoK's Project Management share some common goals and intent. Both of them try to reduce the failure, control costs and schedules, prevent defects and manage the risk. Professional project management treat every project as an unique therefore project goals achieve by encouraging sound practices on a project by project basis where six sigma is more concentrate toward solution of problem to their root cause and prevention of their recurrence in contrast of attempting to control potential cause of problem on a project by project basis.
The integration of process control strength of project management and trouble shooting strength of six sigma help the organization to create a highly effective consistent, control and predictable process trouble shooting system. Combining a Six-sigma approach with project management guidelines helps in completing project-related assignments in a cost-effective manner, and ensures that organizational guidelines are followed. The integration will begin with the project life cycle and this integration will completely customizable according to the business need so it is not too much expensive process. The integration of tool/techniques of Six Sigma like "DMAIC" etc into the project management life cycle will help to reap up the maximum benefit of business like reduce the probability of human error and oversight. The DMAIC stands for Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control when DMAIC integrate into the project life cycle of PMBoK's project management the probability of failure and redundancies will reduce subsequently.
We can integrate the important defining processes of six sigma into the definition phase of project management like pareto diagrams, fishbone diagrams. It helps to identify the root cause for failure or less performance of project life cycle processes. Similarly we can merge other important techniques of six sigma in each phase of project life cycle.
For example, if some company facing a problem of ease of navigation on its website then with the help of six sigma's pareto diagram analysis we can find out the root cause of the problem and recommend a solution with the estimated cost and on the basis of that the project manager can define their project scope and work break down structure and then project can be executed accordingly.
Aim: Increase the organization benefit by integrating the important tools and techniques of Six Sigma in the project life cycle of PMBoK's Project management from conceptual to closeout phase to accomplish process enhancement, cost reduction and development of new processes and their faster implementation.
Objectives:
To understand the basic differences and similarities between project management and six sigma methodologies.
To identify the important tools and techniques of Six Sigma for integration in the project life cycle of PMBoK's.
To analyze the effect on the overall project management of six sigma's techniques which will use in project life cycle.
To develop a improve project life cycle including important six sigma techniques in it, which can be used in both Transactional & manufacturing organizations.
Motivation:
Project management techniques are focused on project development, including its conception, task execution, and hierarchal control but fail to guarantee the adherence to the defined quality standards throughout a project's lifecycle where six sigma-defined management tools have been found to be highly effective for raising the organizational competency in terms of assisting the management of ongoing projects. As a result of this, organizations are increasingly becoming aware of Six Sigma methodologies as an efficient project management tool.
The integration of the two suggested techniques blends the monitoring aspect of project management tools with the problem-resolving and quality-centric troubleshooting features of Six Sigma. While six sigma ensures that qualitative objectives are met, project management contributes in monitoring/reporting every small step (often called 'project milestones') along the project's lifecycle. Six Sigma uses many assessment tools such as R&R (Repeatability and Reproducibility) and FMEA (Failure Modes and Effects Analysis). Combining them with project management features such as budgeting, resource management, and scheduling ensures that every small task in the project's lifecycle is comprehensively managed. This means that an organization is guaranteed consistent performances across various projects without needing to adopt any new management tools.
Project Consideration:
The major considerations were the, issue resolving strengths of six sigma tools and techniques by finding the root cause of the problem. The project management life cycle structured step by step approach.
Project Assumption:
The major assumption of this project is that the integration of these two techniques will create the positive results and increase the efficiency of the project life cycle. The project life cycle is enough flexible to accommodate the external tools and techniques in it without any hassle.
Project Limitations:
The major limitation of this project is that there are so many six sigma techniques available but we cannot use or study all the techniques in such a short time. So project has to identify only two or three major techniques and concentrate on it.
The Project does not cover any risk management activity in any phase of project life cycle to highlight or resolve the problems arise throughout the life cycle.
Moreover, within the procedures of this study, there were no major constraints present, except the availability of specifically related data.
Budget/Resource Requirements
There were no major budget related issues faced by the researcher during the course of this study. This can be a reason of research orientation that is kept secondary in nature. Further, along with the exclusion of primary research, this research doesn't required any type of consent or permission from higher authorities, which made it the process of data collection free from the aspect of financial contributions.
Conclusion:
This chapter highlights the need and background of the topic. It highlights the probable constraints, and assumption of the topic. In this chapter the major thing which want to convey is that generally six sigma uses in manufacturing organization, where project management finds its best application in bigger and complex projects. The merging of both these processes creates an extremely effective integrated tool which will suit almost every kind of organization from Transactional to manufacturing, from small to big/complex projects. With the increasing competition by the minute, the need of integration of Six Sigma with the Project management will felt even more in the coming days. Those business/organization who will manage to accomplish this, will be able to do justice with the voice of customer and will be in a better position to increase their benefit and market shares.
