The Stupid Six Sigma Tricks countdown continues this month with an increasingly common error: “Inadequate Infrastructure.” By infrastructure, I mean those systems and processes that need to be in place in order to support the objectives of Six Sigma.

Regardless of how you define Six Sigma, we expect to see Black Belts working as problem-solving experts attempting to make big improvements. The Black Belts get all the glory but, as is usually the case, the success of the few in the limelight is due to the efforts of many others.

Frequently, those who are making the buying decision about Six Sigma are given the task to call up and ask: “Hello. I would like to get some people trained as Black Belts.”

I’m a trainer, and as such I have one of two responses:

Response 1:
“Great! Send me the money and your trainees,” in that order.

Response 2:
“Great! If you want to train some Black Belts, you must have already implemented Six Sigma. What’s the status of your Six Sigma implementation? What support structure do your Black Belts have? How have you chosen your Black Belt candidates? How have you selected their projects?”

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