Chapter 10: Basic Six Sigma Team

Management
Six Sigma is typically managed on two levels within an organization. First, the culture of Six Sigma must
be managed at an enterprise-wide level, usually by a group or council of senior managers, such as
executives, with the guidance of a Master Black Belt or Black Belt. Ultimately, this group sets the tone
for Six Sigma within an organization, provides final approval on projects, and holds others accountable
for metrics, performance, and success. While many of these individuals might also work as sponsors or
champions on projects, as a group they don’t tend to get involved in the day-to-day project details.

Some roles of a high-level Six Sigma leadership group include:

• Creating a rationale for the use of Six Sigma in the organization and supporting process
improvement as a cultural goal.
• Setting clear objectives for Six Sigma initiatives to ensure that project goals align with business
goals.
• Holding Six Sigma teams and the organization accountable for improvements and performance.
• Demanding and reviewing measurements of results
• Communicating wins and losses to the team in an honest manner.
• Rewarding teams and individuals for Six Sigma successes.
• Advocating for resources and funding for necessary improvement projects.

Six Sigma must also be managed at the team level, which is the primary focus of this chapter. We’ll
cover building a team, detail the various common roles within a Six Sigma team, and talk about
managing a team with timelines and schedules, milestones, budgets, and a defined measure of success.

Building a Six Sigma Team

You can’t simply have a pre-made team ready to begin work on every project that comes up. Six Sigma
teams must be uniquely tailored to the goals and processes at hand. The same Six Sigma experts – Black
Belt leaders, data analysts, or project managers – might work across multiple projects, but individual
subject matter experts and team members only bring high value to the team if they are familiar with the
process or have some related education, knowledge, or skill to offer. Not all team members will serve
consistently throughout the entire life of a project, either. This is often why companies send existing
employees for Six Sigma training rather than hire Six Sigma experts.

Executive leadership groups working with Six Sigma leaders and experts usually put teams together. Any
process improvement team should have, at minimum:

• A Six Sigma leader

• A process owner
• An expert on the process
• Someone to manage budgeting and accounting

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Some of those roles might be handled by the same person; the process owner might also be the process
expert. Depending on expectations of needs, the team might also need to include technical resources,
such as a programmer or IT leader, as well as individuals from human resources, compliance, legal, or
other ancillary departments.

Three Types of Team Members

When putting teams together, organizations should remember that three basic team member types
exist with relation to a Six Sigma project. First, there are the regular team members. These individuals
participate in all activities of the team and attend all or almost all of the team’s meetings. Regular team
members include project leaders, process owners and experts, and identified subject matter experts
who the team or executives feel would be critical components of their group.

Second, ad hoc team members provide expertise on an as-needed basis. Usually, these are subject
matter experts or employees who work directly with the process. You don’t want to take these
employees from their job functions for every single team event, as that would negatively impact the
state of current production. Instead, these employees are included in team meetings as needed when
additional information or assistance is required.

Finally, resource team members are only included when the project team leader feels they are needed
in a meeting or team event to provide expert information, counsel, or help in accessing resources.
Resource team members are usually members of ancillary departments such as accounting, human
resources, or compliance. Resource team members might also be managers or leaders in departments
that are related to the process being improved. For example, if a team is seeking to improve a customer
service department, they might need help with inputs from the marketing department; someone from
the marketing department could be added as a resource team member.

Tips for Selecting Team Members

Most Six Sigma process improvement teams are relatively small: five regular team members is
considered a good number on average. Adding too many regular team members can create
communication problems, make it difficult to manage brainstorming sessions, and cause burnout. When
all of a company’s Six Sigma teams are large, there’s a good chance that team members are serving on
multiple projects. While ad hoc or resource team members can serve several projects and handle their
own work on a daily basis, regular team members should not be asked to serve on more than one team
and handle daily workloads. In fact, organizational leaders might want to consider reducing work
requirements for team members who are serving as full-time members on a project.

Other tips for selecting team members include:

• Choosing employees who are knowledgeable about the customer, product, or process related
to the project.
• Choosing employees who have shown a willingness and ability to work toward improvement in
a team environment.
• Selecting employees who have access to and an understanding of the data required to learn
about and measure the process or problem.
• Picking employees who can provide at least five hours of work per week to the team.

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 • Matching the skills of employees to the projects at hand; if a project is likely to include all
technical improvements, you would be less likely to add a team member who is skilled in
marketing.
• Removing political obstacles through team selection; if a specific person in an organization is
likely to be an obstacle to a team, sometimes putting that person on the team can increase the
chance that they will buy into the process.

Team Member Roles

The team member roles described in this section are based on Six Sigma process improvement best
practices, but best practices also say that teams and team leaders should not be overly rigid.
Experienced Six Sigma leaders and experts understand how to work within best practices while also
creating unique team structures that are tailored to the project or process at hand.

Sponsors and Champions

We’ve briefly touched on sponsors and champions in previous chapters. In most Six Sigma
environments, these are the senior-level leaders who oversee projects at the highest level. Even the
Black Belt must report to the project sponsor or champion. The senior leader is usually responsible for
the final result of a project, which means he or she usually wants regular reports about progress;
sometimes, the sponsor or champion is the liaison between the team and the leadership council. As the
senior leader, the champion or sponsor is also responsible for assisting the team with obtaining funds
and resources to ensure project success. Some additional duties within this role include:

• Coaching the team, particularly at the project charter stage. The sponsor often provides input
into what is in scope on a project and who might be included on a team.
• Locating resources for the team, including support from other departments, money,
equipment, time, and labor hours.
• Handling matters of politics within a corporate structure so the team doesn’t have to.
• Working with other managers within the organization to help the team succeed in improving a
process and transitioning improvements to a daily work environment.

Business or Process Owners

The business or process owner is usually someone who is directly responsible for the process in a
leadership capacity. Usually, the process owner is the person who is going to “receive” a solution
implemented by a Six Sigma team once that solution is ready to be rolled out to all team members or
used on a daily basis. Because of this, the process owner is usually included in the team because he or
she must understand how and why any change is made. The process owner must also be familiar with
methods of control that are created by the Six Sigma team as he or she will become responsible for
maintaining and monitoring those controls once the process is transitioned from a team environment to
day-to-day production.

A process owner usually also acts as a process expert on a Six Sigma team. The process owner has
insight into the existing process, understands the needs of the customers and employees related to the
process, and might already have access to data regarding the process. The process owner isn’t always

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the only process expert on a team, however; in some cases, the person who owns the process doesn’t
have enough day-to-day interaction with the process to be an expert.

When leading or managing a Six Sigma team, Black Belts and others do have to be wary of process
owners who are resistant to change or who believe they have all the answers. Someone who is set in his
or her ways might not want to involve other team members or might believe certain changes are
“impossible” because they are new. Some leaders who are also process owners might be afraid that a
team member will outshine them or threaten their position, which could lead them to block team
members from participating on a team. These are some of the political and human resource problems
Six Sigma leaders run into, and Black Belts and project leaders must work tactfully with champions,
sponsors, and process managers to resolve such issues.

Six Sigma Leaders

Six Sigma projects are usually led by certified Black Belts, although some organizations do allow Green
Belts to act as leaders on small initiatives with occasional feedback and guidance from Black Belts. In
most organizations, the Black Belt holds primary responsibility for the regular work performed by a team
and usually only works with one team or project at a time.

Best case scenarios let organizations align Black Belts with projects in areas they are already familiar
with. For example, a bank might have several Black Belts on staff. Each Black Belt might specialize in
working with certain processes or departments; one might usually work with compliance and audit
processes, another with accounting, a third with customer-facing processes, and a fourth with online
processes. Since Black Belt resources might be limited, this isn’t always possible. Most certified Black
Belts can bring Six Sigma methods to process improvements even in areas they aren’t closely familiar
with. In some cases, various managers or other individuals are certified as Black Belts and can lead
processes in addition to their regular responsibilities, although this can put an undue burden on
employees and isn’t always the best solution.

Black Belt project leaders often work to:

• Help create a rationale for a project.

• Provide input for the selection of project team members.
• Lead teams throughout all the phases of DMAIC, which are covered in depth in Unit 3.
• Educate and support team members as they learn about and use Six Sigma tools.
• Provide oversight through time management, decision making, and planning.
• Maintain schedules and timelines, sometimes in conjunction with a certified Project Manager.
• Provide expertise in the form of statistical analysis or guidance with analysis.
• Assist with project transition.
• Report to sponsor or champion on a regular basis.
• Provide documentation at the end of the project.

In some organizations, Master Black Belts play an overall role in leading multiple Six Sigma projects.
Master Black Belts act as coaches to multiple teams; Black Belts leading Six Sigma teams can work with
Master Black Belts to solve especially difficult problems or seek help for complex statistical analysis.
Master Black Belts provide continuing education to both Black and Green Belts, helping team members
to constantly improve their grasp of Six Sigma methodologies.

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Project Managers
Some organizations use traditional project management techniques alongside Six Sigma improvement
methodologies. In these organizations, a project manager is usually assigned to a Six Sigma project.
While structures vary by organization, the project manager does not usually lead the team. Instead, the
PM offers leader support to the Black Belt by keeping up with documentation and timelines, helping
keep meetings on track, and ensuring items are followed up on after meetings. At first, you might think
that adding a PM to a team would cause problems for a Black Belt, but when the two roles work
together, the Black Belt benefits. With a PM worrying about timelines or whether the meeting is getting
too far off track, a Six Sigma exert is free to concentrate on the brainstorming session or statistical
analysis at hand.

Timekeeper
Not all Six Sigma teams use timekeepers, but they can help keep meetings on track, reduce the chance
of scope creep, and increase overall productivity. The timekeeper can be any person on the team who is
not regularly engaged in leading meetings, brainstorming activities or recording team activities and
notes. The timekeeper shouldn’t police time in a such a rigid fashion that the benefits of fluid discussion
and brainstorming are lost, but he or she should gently steer teams toward following agenda schedules
or provide the project leader with an indication that time is up for the topic at hand.

To function properly, a timekeeper needs an agenda to follow. It is usually the responsibility of the
Black Belt or project manager to provide a detailed agenda for each meeting. The agenda should include
clear indications regarding how long each item is expected to take, though teams should always be
aware that agendas might be changed during the meeting at the discretion of the project manager or
project leader.

Team leaders should pick a timekeeper who is organized and level-headed. In the heat of discussions
and arguments, it’s easy for any member of the team to lose track of time – and the timekeeper is a
member of the team. In addition to regular duties as a team member, the timekeeper is expected to:

• Keep an eye on the agenda and the time

• Let team members know when the time for a certain agenda is almost up; teams might want to
set up a five-minute warning rule so they have a few minutes to wrap up a discussion
• Signal that the time is up for a certain discussion or item

While project leaders can choose to ignore agendas, they should also back up the timekeeper’s ability to
interrupt politely. Timekeepers can’t perform if they are being heckled by other team members for
noting the time.

Scribes or Minute-Takers
A lot of discussion occurs in the midst of Six Sigma brainstorming and team sessions, and someone
needs to record that information. Notes are important because they help team members review what
was discussed, create lists of follow-ups and actions from a discussion, and record charts, graphs, and
diagrams that were created during brainstorming processes. While everyone can take notes, the team
leader should appoint one person as the official scribe for the team. Sometimes, that person is a
certified project manager working in conjunction with a Six Sigma team leader. Other times, it is a
member of the team who is seen as detailed and organized.

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The Black Belt or other project leader should never be the scribe; it is too difficult to take notes while
leading a discussion or exercise. The Black Belt might make some notes during the discussion, but he or
she is likely to miss important details while working directly with other team members.

The scribe should create notes or minutes of the meeting in typed format and disseminate those notes
to all team members as soon as possible following a meeting. Team members can review the notes and
add any missing information if desired; often, organizations create portals or shared file systems so
teams can keep notes and all other documents in an easy-to-access location.

One challenge in recording the discussions of a Six Sigma project meeting is in recording the diagrams
and brainstorming that occurred. This is especially true if teams use whiteboards, paper, or sticky notes
to create diagrams; the scribe is not always equipped with the skills or the software to recreate a
computerized version of such documents. One tip for recording such information that is used by many
modern Six Sigma teams is to take a picture of the diagrams with a smartphone or digital camera. The
images can then be uploaded into the team’s shared workspace; if necessary, a Black Belt or Green Belt
can convert the raw diagrams to a computerized version for the purpose of presenting information to
leadership or other departments if desired.

Team Members
In the beginning of this chapter, we covered the three major types of team members: regular, ad hoc,
and resource. Selecting members for each of these roles is up to the project leader, the sponsor or
champion, and the overall organizational leadership team. In addition to the project leader, process
owner, and process expert, Six Sigma teams are usually comprised of one to three other regular team
members. In addition to acting as timekeeper or scribe as directed by the team leader, team members
also:

• Participate in brainstorming sessions, discussions, and other team activities.

• Collect data and perform analysis under the direction of the Black Belt. Often, team members
performing these functions are Green Belts.
• Perform work between meetings as required by the project leader.
• Report the results of and progress on individual assignments to the team.
• Review work performed by other team members and the team as a whole, offering suggestions
and feedback.

Timelines, Scheduling, and Milestones

Scheduling and maintaining that schedule is an integral part of the Six Sigma project process.
Organizational leaders need to understand how long a project will take, when results can be expected,
and when team resources will be freed up for other endeavors. Without this information, leadership
can’t plan for ongoing improvement and employees can feel trapped in a project that seems to stretch
on forever. In this section, we’ll cover two methods for creating a project timeline or schedule and touch
on the importance of milestones.

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Phase-Based Timeline
Six Sigma projects usually follow a specific series of phases; we’ve briefly introduced the concept of the
DMAIC method. DMAIC breaks a project up into five phases: Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and
Control. Experienced Six Sigma experts with some data and information about a project and process can
usually provide a very basic and raw estimate of time by assigning a certain number of weeks to each
phase. It’s also worth noting that most of the phases are likely to overlap.

To create a raw timeline for a project, a Black Belt or other Six Sigma leader usually starts with an overall
time requirement. He or she either estimates the total time required for an improvement or works with
a deadline imposed by the leadership group. For example, the leadership group might say that an
improvement needs to be completed within four months.

Using a four month timeline and what information is already available about the process, problem, and
resources, the Black Belt might create an estimated timeline for the DMAIC process that looks
something like the figure below.

The estimated timeline is for 16 weeks; the expert believes the Define phase will take 3 weeks and the
Measure phase will take 5. The Measure phase overlaps with both the Define and Analyze phases, which
is normal with Six Sigma projects.

The benefit of this approach is that you can generate a timeline quickly. The disadvantages are that
someone without experience of Six Sigma and a fair amount of knowledge of the process being
improved can easily misjudge the time required for each phase and leadership might consider this a
hard timeline, which can create unrealistic expectations. When presenting such a timeline, make sure
everyone knows that it is a rough estimate and the time for each phase can change as you go through
the process.

Critical Path Method

The critical path method is a more detailed way of defining timelines for various elements of a project,
but it does require more information and input from a project team. This means you probably won’t be
able to provide a detailed timeline until the project is underway; a critical path diagram could be one of
the activities the team undertakes as part of the Define phase.

Creating a Critical Path Diagram

A critical path diagram can be created for the entire project or for each phase of a project. As we go
through the steps of creating a critical path diagram, we’ll use the Define phase of a project to reduce
bad debt (uncollected invoices) in a medical billing environment as an example.

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1. Identify the critical needs or activities to complete the project or phase of a project.

To complete the define phase of our project to improve bad debt in a medical billing setting, the team
needs to choose a team, charter the project, define the problem, and create a baseline metric.

2. Put critical activities in order.

The order with which the team should accomplish the tasks defined in step one is:

• Choose a team
• Charter the project and define the problem (these tasks can be done simultaneously)
• Create a baseline metric

3. Assign a time to each task.

A Six Sigma expert estimates it will take one week to choose a team, one week to create a charter, one
day to create a problem statement, and two weeks to create a baseline metric.

4. Create a diagram of the tasks, stacking simultaneous or parallel process and including time figures.

The diagram is created from left to right. The items on the left must be done before the items to the
right can be completed. When items can be done at the same time, they are stacked.

5. Draw a critical path through the diagram.

When steps are stacked, the critical path goes through the step with the longest time estimate. For
example, the team might create a problem statement while they are working on a project charter; the
project charter takes from Monday through Friday to complete. The problem statement is complete on
Tuesday. However, the team is not done with all of the steps in that series until they are done with the
project charter.

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6. Add up the longest times from each section.

In this case, the team adds 1 week, 1 week, and 2 weeks to get to 4 weeks total for the Define phase.

We’ve used a very simple example, but you can use the critical path method to estimate timelines for
extremely complex projects or processes.

Milestone Meetings
Once a timeline is established, set up milestone meetings and dates to help keep the team on track and
notify the sponsor or champion of progress. In a DMAIC project, milestones are usually set at the end of
each phase (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control). However, teams can set custom
milestones, and sponsors might require specific milestones if they are approving large resourcing or
funding requests for a project.

You can also set up milestones within a team environment to manage goals and tasks; these milestones
can be kept within the team. For example, a team working for a chain of sandwich shops is hoping to
improve the process by which sandwiches are put together. They have set up the following milestones:

Define: January 21

Measure: February 12

Analyze: February 22

Improve: March 15

Control: April 10

The milestone dates are when the team or the Black Belt will meet with the sponsor to present the
findings or results of each phase of the project. Each date gives the team something to work toward.
However, the team has determined that certain tasks must be accomplished during the Measure phase.
First, they have to create some definitions of terms so everyone is on the same page when discussing
measurements. Second, the team has to gather data about the temperature at which ingredients are
stored and cooked. Finally, the team wants to actively observe sandwich shop employees in order to
measure the time it takes to make various sandwiches.

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The team might set up internal milestones for the Measure phase, stating that definitions will be
created by January 25, temperature data collected by February 5, and time data collected by February
10.

By breaking each phase, and each larger task, into smaller parts, it is easier for the team to stay on track
and complete work. Smaller tasks seem more manageable, so they are more likely to be accomplished.

Budgets
Teams, and especially team leaders, must always be concerned with project budgets. While success is
rated by end customers in terms of performance, quality, and satisfaction, Six Sigma teams also answer
to corporate leadership. For leaders, success is also measured in terms of time and budget. A strong
timeline and good milestones help you meet time requirements, and an understanding of financial
drivers, strong communication, and financial oversight help you keep a project within budget.

One of the challenges when dealing with budgets in a Six Sigma project is that all team members are not
always completely aware of financial drivers. In some cases, financial information might even be
restricted; employers don’t generally want specific data about employee pay made public to various
team members, for example. Some information and analysis might need to be performed solely by a
project-leading Black Belt in such cases, especially if data is critical or sensitive.

Outside of concerns with sensitive data, process improvement projects work best when all team
members are made aware of as many of the drivers and data as possible. When teams know how much
funding a champion is willing to seek on their behalf, they can make realistic decisions about how to
improve a process. Sometimes, the solution that is most likely to generate the most improvement isn’t
viable because of budget. If an improvement project has a budget of $50,000, the team can’t implement
a solution that requires an $80,000 capital investment in machinery, for example.

Budget concerns vary by organization. In some organizations, leaders are most concerned with specific
expenditures by a team, including expenses on new equipment, hiring new personnel, or purchasing
new products or software. Some organizations take a more granular approach to project budgets,
considering the expense of hours spent by the team on the project as well as the expenses associated
with training and implementing a solution outside of the team environment.

Six Sigma team leaders must ensure they understand how leaders and organizations manage project
budgets. Working for the first time with an organization or sponsor means having honest and thorough
conversations about how budgets are calculated, how much sponsors are willing to work for increases in
a budget, and what the Six Sigma leader’s expected role in maintaining budgets is.

Defined Measures of Success

Finally, Six Sigma teams must create a well-defined measure of success. To best manage a Six Sigma
project and team, leaders have to ensure all team members, leaders, and sponsors agree on what
success means. If success isn’t defined at all, the team risks scope creep and getting lost in a project that
never seems to end. If success isn’t well-defined, teams risk concluding a project without satisfying the
customer, sponsor, or all members of the team. If a sponsor and the team don’t agree on what success
looks like, the team could think they’ve concluded a successful project while leadership believes the
project was a failure.

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In the end, successful Six Sigma team management hinges on many of the same concepts as successful
leadership in other endeavors does. Choosing the right people, being clear about expectations,
approaching work in an organized manner, and being honest and open about progress helps every
member of the team succeed and provide value.

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