Lean and Six Sigma “Quick Wins” … A slippery slope!
I was teaching a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt course in Atlanta, Georgia and I had a good question about “Quick Wins” and how to define the term. We teach that in each phase of the DMAIC we will find these “Quick Wins.” These wins are a great tool to sustain excitement and support for the Lean Six Sigma project! If I go four to six months until I show improvement, I’m likely to lose support. If I show sustained improvements in small (and sometimes large) wins throughout the life of the project, then the level of excitement (and consequently support) is sustained. The term “Quick Wins” is open to interpretation. I have sat on many teams that term every opportunity (some call problems) that they see in a process as a “Quick Win”. This is because it is innate in us to want to “solve the problem now” because we are sure that we have the solution and it doesn’t need to be analyzed further. What we may not have defined yet may be the interdependencies in the inputs in the process. My experi...