Bonus content from “The Skinny on Six Sigma,” March/April 2010 issue

Like a university frat, Six Sigma comes with its own language that can baffle the outsider. From Six Sigma originators Motorola, here’s a brief guide to Six Sigma terminology.

Balanced Scorecard
A tool for translating an organization’s strategy into operating terms. It has four columns: Vision, current initiatives, business processes and business results.

Black Belt
A Six Sigma expert highly skilled in the application of rigorous statistical tools and methodologies to drive business process improvement.

Champion
The Champion typically has day-to-day responsibility for the business process being improved and their role is to ensure the Six Sigma project team has the resources required to successfully execute the project.

DMADV
The most popular Six Sigma framework used within DFSS projects. It is an acronym for Define requirements, Measure performance, Analyze relationships, Design solutions, Verify functionality.

DMAIC
The Six Sigma problem-solving framework for improving business processes. It is an acronym for Define opportunity, Measure performance, Analyze opportunity, Improve performance, and Control performance.

Green Belt
A Six Sigma practitioner trained in the methodology and tools needed to work effectively on a process improvement team.

Lean Six Sigma
A business improvement framework that integrates the Six Sigma methodology with the cost reduction benefits of the lean production approach.

MINITAB
A software package used to implement Six Sigma and other quality initiatives. It provides data analysis and graphical data presentations and offers many statistical procedures, ranging from simple to advanced.

Sigma Level
A metric that counts defects per million opportunities (or DPMO). A metric of Six Sigma equates to 3.4 DPMO.

Six Sigma Leadership Principles
Align, mobilize, accelerate and govern.

Six Sigma Master Black Belt
Master Black Belts address the most complex process improvement projects and provide coaching and training to Black Belts and Green Belts.

Six Sigma Quality
A level of quality that represents only 3.4 defects per million opportunities.

X’s
Often referred to as Big Xs, these are the factors or variables that will have the greatest impact on the Big Ys.

Y’s
Often referred to a Big Ys, these are the business results that matter. Big Ys represent measures directly linked to critical customer requirements.