In part one and part two of this series, I've outlined some reasons why a lean Six Sigma project might have been deemed a failure. We’ve gathered many of these reasons from surveying and talking with our customers. I'd like to present a few more reasons and then share some advice from Minitab trainers on how you can avoid these project failures.

Forcing projects into DMAIC

Certain quality improvement projects were never meant to be Six Sigma projects that fit neatly into the define, measure, analyze, improve, control (DMAIC) methodology. Examples include:

1. Selecting a vendor for your company’s SPC software
Selecting a software vendor is certainly a good example of an “improvement” project, but not one that makes sense to complete using the DMAIC structure because it’s not focused on reducing defects.

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