LSS Homework Flashcards
You have developed your project charter. You are using it to educate your team on the project objectives. Which of the following would not typically be part of the project charter?
Process Map
Note: A process map typically is not included in the project charter. They are constructed later as a tool within the project.
Your team is developing the project schedule. You want to see the relationship between all of the project tasks. Which tool do you tell your team to use to show the relationship and sequence of the major activities using nodes and arrows?
Activity Network Diagram
Note: An activity network diagram shows the relationships of the major steps in the project in sequence using nodes and arrows.
You are the Project Manager for an improvement project. Your organization’s goal is to improve the throughput of one of its most critical processes. You are explaining to your team the overall importance of the Theory of Constraints. What would you tell your team?
Identify the areas of bottlenecks in the process so they can be reduced/ eliminated.
Note: Theory of Constraints – a systematic approach to managing complex organizations by identifying and controlling key leverage points within the system or process. This includes identifying the system’s constraints (bottlenecks) and reducing/eliminating them so the throughput increases.
You are developing your team charter. You have identified the primary metric for measuring your project’s success. You now want your team to identify metrics that quantify positive side effects that result from a process improvement after the accomplishment of the primary metric. What type of metrics are your team identifying?
Secondary Metric
Note: Secondary metrics quantify side effects that result from a process improvement after accomplishing a primary metric. They are positive in nature as opposed to consequential metrics which are negative in nature.
Your project team is analyzing the links involved in a complex situation. They want to fully understand the cause-and-effect relationships. What tool would you tell your team to use for this purpose?
Interrelationship Digraph
Note: An interrelationship digraph is used to demonstrate cause-and-effect relationships to help a project team analyze the links involved in a complex situation.
You are a Green Belt leading a complex process improvement project for your organization. You need some advice on some of the technical aspects of the project. Which Belt is the technical expert that is the “go to” person for mentoring other belts on the Six Sigma methodology?
Master Black Belt
Note: A Master Black Belt is a technical expert, a “go to” person for the Six Sigma methodology. Master Black Belts mentor Black Belts and Green Belts through their projects and support Champions. In addition to applying Six Sigma, Master Black Belts are capable of teaching others in the practices and tools. Being a Master Black Belt is a full-time position.
Your team has heard of Lean Six Sigma but you are explaining to them that they are two separate methodologies. You explain that both methodologies are important to the success your organization. You tell your team the ideal relationship between Lean and Six Sigma methods can be best described as what?
Lean and Six Sigma should be integrated so that the overall improvements will be sustained and continually reinforced.
Note: The lean and Six Sigma methods will be more efficient and deliver the intended benefits when conducted together.
You want your team to understand the benefit of your project to your organization, so they understand the importance of staying on budget. You are explaining it in terms of the payback period so they understand that any increase in costs will increase the amount of time it will take to payback the initial project cost. You use the following details to explain the concept: A project is projected to cost the organization $10,000 to finish. The project is expected to give the organization a gain of $2000 per month starting 3 months from project completion. What will you explain to your team is the payback period for this project?
8 months
Note: To calculate the payback period take the cost ($10,000) / gain ($2000) + number of months until a profit is realized (3 months). $10,000/$2,000 = 5 months + 3 months = 8 months.
As a Project Manager you know that much of what you and your team will do is communications. You are having a discussion with your team about ways to communicate as you are developing your communications plan. You explain to them that this type of communication tends to be one-directional in nature and does not require a response from the recipient?
Top-Down Communications
Note: Top-Down Communications tends to be one-directional in nature and does not require a response from the recipient.
Your project team is new to the project, and they are trying to find what is included in the deliverable. What document would you direct them to that defines the boundaries of the Six Sigma project, and sets limits on what is and is not included that will help keep the project team focused, motivated, and aligned?
Project Scope
Note: A Project Scope is the document that defines the boundaries of teh Six Sigma project and sets limits on what is and is not included in teh project, which helps to keep the project team focused, motivated, and aligned.
You want to make sure your project team is successful. You want your team to look at the environment that may have an effect on your project. What analysis technique should you explain to your team as a way to look at their external environment?
PESTLE
Note: The PESTLE (Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal, Environmental) acronym identifies the external business environment factors that can affect the value and desired outcomes of a project.
Your team has created a network diagram to serve as the project schedule. Through your experience you know that stakeholders will not understand the complex network diagram. You tell your team they need to create a version of the schedule that is easy for the stakeholders to visualize. Which chart will the team most likely create to represent your schedule to your project stakeholders?
Gantt Chart
Note: A Gantt chart is a type of bar chart that illustrates a project schedule. This chart lists the tasks to be performed on the vertical axis, and time intervals on the horizontal axis. The width of the horizontal bars in the graph shows the duration of each activity. Gantt charts illustrate the start and finish dates of the terminal elements and summary elements of a project. Terminal elements and summary elements constitute the work breakdown structure of the project. Modern Gantt charts also show the dependency (i.e., precedence network) relationships between activities. Gantt charts can be used to show current schedule status using percent-complete shadings and a vertical “TODAY” line.
Your project team wants to break down a process into increasingly finer levels of detail for further analysis. They want to be able to use this to get to the root cause of a problem. You tell your team this would be the most appropriate tool for this purpose?
Tree Diagram
Note: A tree diagram is used to successively break down and analyze a process into increasingly finer levels of detail, and it can be used when working to get to a problem’s root cause.
You are developing a strategy to look at your team’s performance. You want to use benchmarks to create performance metrics for the project. You want to develop a metric based on the gold standard no matter the industry. Which type of benchmarking would you use?
Best in Class
Note: Collaborative benchmarking take place as part of a group. Competitive looks at competitors in an industry; Best in class looks at the gold standard no matter what industry; and Best in Industry looks at the best within a specific industry.
Your team is having some conflict, and you are starting to see that the conflict has begun to become detrimental to the team. You think you need some assistance from outside the team. Who would you call to assist the team when disputes arise in a Six Sigma project, and help the parties involved move beyond an impasse by collaborating effectively?
Facilitator
Note: A facilitator is the individual who assists the team when disputes arise, encourages members to voice their opinions, and aids the parties involved move beyond differences.
You are discussing with your team a future tool of design of experiments. You want them to start thinking about how they will run tests to narrow down identified independent variables. You are familiarizing your team with some of the quality theorists that played a part in developing the foundations that Six Sigma is built on. Which quality pioneer is best known for developing engineering methods for robust product design and championed the fractional factorial design?
Genichi Taguchi
Note: Genichi Taguchi is best known for his engineering techniques. One aspect of his methods uses the loss function and signal-to-noise ratio as a way of measuring the cost of not meeting an expected value. Methods also involve the use of statistical methods for the design of a product’s systems, parameters, and tolerances. Methods all focus on creating a robust product in the design phase by ensuring consistency.
You and your team are creating a plan that is large, must be completed on time, and has a high cost of failure. You want them to identify and be able to look at what elements could go wrong. What tool is most appropriate?
Process Decision Program Chart
Note: A process decision program chart is used to identify elements that can go wrong in a proposed plan that is large, must be completed on schedule, and has a high price of failure.
You have an accepted deliverable for your project. You have completed the administrative, financial, and legal aspects of project closure. What is the final step in the project closure process?
Conduct a post implementation review (PIR)
Note: Conducting a post implementation review (PIR) is the final step in the project closure process.
Your team is beginning to work on a process improvement project. You tell your team they cannot look at the process as a standalone process. You explain that processes are part of a collection of interacting forces within the organization. What type of mindset do you tell your team they need to have?
System Mindset
Note: A system mindset looks at systems in an organization. Systems are a collection of interacting forces that implement processes and coordinate resources and supporting services to help processes succeed and improve.
Projects take money and resources within an organization. Projects should only be selected that add value to the organization. You want your team to look at the true value of your current project. Who do you tell them ultimately defines a product’s value?
Customers
Note: The customer ultimately defines the value of a product. Customers are interested in specific products, with specific features, at specific prices. If these expectations are not met, the product has less value to the customer. Companies should always be striving to find new ways of communicating with the customer to determine their wants and needs.
There are a number of quality theorists that created concepts that formed the foundations that Six Sigma is built upon. The quality pioneer Joseph Juran created the concept that 80% of the defects can be addressed through focusing on 20% of the issues. This concept is referred to as?
Pareto Principle
Note: Pareto Principle describes the technique that helps to identify the top portion of causes that need to be addressed to resolve the majority of problems. Commonly referred to as “80/20” rule, under the assumption that, in all situations, 20% of causes determine 80% of problems.
You want your team to focus on process level metrics to ensure overall project success within the organization. Your team is confused on what process level metrics are. What would you tell your team?
Measurements made by workers and machinery to ensure normal operation
Note: Measurements made by workers and machinery to ensure normal operations are process level metrics. Once an improvement project has been selected and defined, process level metrics are vital to the measure, analyze, improve, and control (MAIC) phases of Six Sigma.
The team is trying to rank the failures identified in the Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA). You tell them to look at the criticality which they do not know how to calculate. How do you describe to your team how criticality is assigned in a failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA)?
Criticality is assigned based on how the failure will affect the system as a whole.
Note: A FMEA is a detailed analysis of a system. FMEAs examine the system down to the component level and classify items into three categories: failure mode, effect of the failure, and probability of the failure’s occurrence. After an item is categorized, it is assigned a criticality value based on how the failure will affect the system as a whole. Higher criticality values indicate a serious effect on the system.
One of the hallmarks of lean is a pull system. You want your team to learn from some of the industry leaders. You want them to research the lean system developed by Toyota Management Systems which allowed Toyota to meet customer demand at the time of need. What is the system you tell your team to research?
JIT
Note: Just In Time (JIT) is a production management system that determines that everything must be produced, transported or purchased at the exact time. It can be applied in any organization to reduce inventories and the costs arising. With this system, the product or raw material arrives at the place of use only at the exact moment it is necessary. Products are only manufactured or delivered in time to be sold or assembled.