Is Your Healthcare Organization Ready for Six Sigma?

Six Sigma (and Lean Manufacturing) is an advanced organizational improvement method. The organizations that are successfully using these techniques are, in general, large global manufacturing organizations with engineering staffs with advanced math training. These same organizations have decades of prior successful continuous improvement experience and many are worldwide leaders in their respective markets. They are enthusiastic about Six Sigma and Lean Manufacturing and naturally want to promote use by manufacturing and non-manufacturing organizations.

Are all organizations ready for these advanced techniques? Probably not. Are some organizations ready? Yes. Here is a shot survey to help you assess if your organization is ready or not. You should be able to agree with most of the 10 items before plunging into Six Sigma, Lean Manufacturing or other advanced improvement method.

• 1 to 4 Agree answers - You are off to a good start but have much more work to do to get ready for Six Sigma.
• 5 to 7 Agree answers - You have made a lot of progress and need to make even more progress before starting Six Sigma.
• 8+ Agree answers - You might be ready for Six Sigma. You need to assess the areas you are still weak in and accelerate improvement.

We hope this short survey has been helpful and that you will be able to select the most appropriate improvement approach for your organization.