Scenario: In our Six Sigma program, management identifies and prioritizes the improvement projects that will be scheduled and initiated each year. While individual projects are perceived to be generally successful, the overall Six Sigma program is not having the big impact on organizational performance that management is looking for. Individuals working on projects often don’t feel that they are working on things that are really important to the employees and customers. Management is beginning to doubt that initiating the Six Sigma program was a good idea for the organization.

Your management team has come to you with the above problem scenario that they need you to advise them on and plan a strategy to address. Write and submit a memo to your manager that describes something in your Standards Framework that you believe will address the problem. Your memo should offer a general description of how your chosen Framework component(s) address the problem as described. It should then describe the long-term prospects for what it will mean to implement the component(s) in the organization, as well as a short-term description of how you’ll move toward implementation in the first three to six months. This memo is to your management, not to other engineers. It needs to be brief and concise, and yet contain appropriate technical details to properly explain your position and planning. The best management memos fit on a single page. Don’t re-explain the problem to them. Don’t go into deep detail that they don’t need to know. Stay focused on how implementing your plan will solve the problem.