10.6 Improve Tollgate Review

Recall that at the end of each DMAIC phase, you will participate in a review to determine whether the team has made proper progress to move towards the next phase and complete all activities. The assessment for the Improve phase varies according to the project particulars. There is no rigid sequence of steps that every team must follow and no tools that every team must use. You can perform experimental design or simply use change concepts to generate straightforward change ideas that you can readily implement. You and your team need to use logic and learning about the project and context to determine which steps to follow and to select appropriate tools. There are, however, three general deliverables:

1. Identify alternative ways to perform the relevant process

2. Select the best alternative method (change concept)

3. Discuss potential risks and run a pilot test

Like the previous tollgates, executives will assess whether the benefits are worth continuing the project and whether they justify the time and resources. If they conclude that the results from your pilot test are not satisfactory, you need to examine what went wrong, tweak the solution, and conduct another pilot test. On the other hand, if the pilot test results meet or exceed expectations, the next step is to implement the newly improved process fully.