Sep

Your Customer never experiences averages

W. Edwards Deming estimated that a lack of an understanding of variation resulted in situations where 95% of management actions result in no improvement. People struggle with variation but as Dr. Deming said if you fail to understand this concept you fail to improve. Understanding variation could be the strongest asset that Six Sigma brings to the marketing process. Variation is the enemy of Six Sigma, removing variation is practically what the methodology was built on.

One of the first things that I learned in Six Sigma is that when applying metrics you must measure variation from a standard. It is not about averages. If you want to improve you must establish a standard and then stabilize the process. Even if it is just placing upper and lower control limes for example. If you operate within this range, you have a standard and you can begin to improve.

Here is a short 4 minute video explaining variation