DMAIC Reengineering

A colleague gave a wonderful talk the other day on process engineering.

The key steps to reduce waste (Lean) or variation/defects (Six Sigma) are as follows:

Define — Scope the project.

Measure — Benchmark current processes.

Analyze — Develop to-be processes (with a prioritized list of improvements) and plan for implementation.

Improve — Executive process improvements.

Control — Monitor/refine new processes.

It was amazing to me how similar to enterprise architecture this is in terms of: defining your “current” and “future” states and creating a transition plan and executing it.

Also, really liked the Project Scoping questions:

- What problem do you want to solve/what process do you want to improve?

- Why do you need this?

- What is the benefit? And to whom?

- What are your objectives for this effort?

- Who are the key stakeholders?

- When is this needed and why?

I think process improvement/engineering methodologies like this can be a huge benefit to our organizations, especially where the tagline is “Why should we change — we’ve always done it this way!” ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)