Integrating Six sigma and design thinking

I read an interesting article on NY times about how Design thinking and Six Sigma approaches can coexist in symbiotic nature. The author Sara Bekam who is also the director of Management of Technology Program at UC Berkeley compares Design thinkers to quantum physicists, who are able to consider a world in which anything — like traveling at the speed of light — is theoretically possible. The Six sigma advocates, she says, think more like Newtonian physicists — focused on measurement along three well-defined dimensions.

While working as a designer in User Centered Design team at Honeywell, I was responsible for bringing in design thinking to new product development and apply design methods to improve user experience of the Honeywell products. But Honeywell’s strong emphasis on Six Sigma process meant that, I had to be proficient in Six Sigma process and tools. We were required to be green belt certified within 3 years in the company (yes I am GB certified).

As a designer I initially was resistant to this process, but after following it for some projects, I quickly realized that it was an important tool to keep you focused on the users and business needs. Some of the tools like Quality function diagram really help you to justify the business value of your intended product features. It is important as a designer to wear two hats and know when to wear one. In the initial phase of the product development, too much emphasis on sixsigma process can limit creativity and free-flowing brainstorming sessions. Yes six sigma has tools like Tmap (thought process map) for the initial idea generation phase, but they are very rigid and aren’t really useful (may be because sixsigma is more apt for process improvement/optimization).

It is here one can rely on design thinking to give you novel ideas and feed them into sig sigma process chain.

Tim brown also agrees with me