Knowledge Nuggets – Part 3 – Project Charter

Project Charter: 

Once project is selected the team needs to document the project in order to engage the stakeholders. In Six Sigma journey Project Charter is an important task the team must focus.

The following are the typical project charter content:

•       Business Case
•       Problem Statement
•       Goal Statement
•       Scope of the project
•       Team Members
•       Timelines

 I want to share my experience in terms of guidance for charter preparation and common mistakes people commit while preparing project charter to avoid. 

Points to consider:

• Project charter should not contain root cause of the problem
• Solutions are not part of the project charter
• If you know the root cause and the solution, then there is no DMAIC project
• Charter need to be shared with the stake holder, preferably with a round of discussion on the document
• Charter is a live document need to be referred throughout the journey of the project.
• Charter can be revised during the Define and Measure phases but not after the Measure phase in the journey of DMAIC

o   Define Phase: Charter will always go through modifications based on stake holders buy in, problem prioritization by function and the management etc.,

o   Measure Phase: Perception of a problem and high-level data presented or understood at the define phase will be challenged based on process capability studies during the Measure Phase .

o   If you revise the charter at the analyse phase, then its a clear signal that you have not understood the problem well and the team would have spent by now atleast two 40 to 50 days. If you keep changing the direction, scope of the project you lose the interest of the team and it will derail the project completely.

Summary:

Six Sigma brings in lot of discipline in terms of structured thinking and challenging our paradigm we carry about our process.

Six Sigma is a journey of excellence not to be viewed as Problem Solving Tool. Hence, make use of time wisely by following the DMAIC stages religiously.   

 I end this blog by quoting Innovator Rolf Smith. Rolf identifies the 7 Levels of Change and each involves "doing" and "moving your thinking into action to drive change." Level 1 starts by "Doing the right things," ending at Level 7 by "Doing things that can't be done."