Project Management and Six Sigma Assignment
Picking a business area, building a DMAIC step chart, connecting it to planning, organizing, directing, and controlling, finding two scholarly sources, and writing the required summary — section by section.
The assignment has two moving parts that students often treat as separate: the project management side (planning, organizing, directing, controlling) and the Six Sigma side (a structured improvement framework). They aren’t separate. Connecting them is what makes the assignment work. This guide shows you how to pick a business area, build the chart, write the explanation, find your sources, and structure the summary — without wasting time guessing what the professor wants.
What This Guide Covers
What the Assignment Is Actually Asking
Read the prompt again, slowly. It’s asking you to do four things: pick one specific business area, use Six Sigma as a tool inside a project management structure, create a chart showing each step, and write an explanation for why that approach will produce results. That’s it. Students lose marks not because they can’t do any of those things, but because they do them as four isolated tasks instead of one connected argument.
The four project management functions — planning, organizing, directing, and controlling — are your spine. Every part of your Six Sigma chart needs to map onto at least one of them. If your chart shows a step that doesn’t connect to planning, organizing, directing, or controlling, either cut it or reframe it.
The prompt says “pick an area in your business.” That means one department, one process, or one function. Customer service complaints. Inventory reorder cycles. Employee onboarding. Production line defects. One area with one measurable problem. Trying to apply Six Sigma to “the whole organization” produces a chart that’s too vague to be useful and too broad to explain properly.
How to Pick a Business Area
The best business area for this assignment is one where you can name a specific defect or gap, measure it with a number, and show that fixing it saves time or money. That structure maps directly onto what Six Sigma is designed for.
Customer Service
High complaint volumes, long resolution times, or repeat contacts for the same issue. Easy to define a defect (unresolved complaint), easy to measure (average handle time or first-call resolution rate), and the data is usually trackable from a CRM system.
Inventory / Supply Chain
Overstock or stockout events, spoilage rates, order fulfillment errors. These have clear financial costs, defined defect rates, and a natural control mechanism — reorder thresholds and supplier lead times.
Employee Onboarding / HR
Time-to-productivity for new hires, training completion rates, or early turnover in the first 90 days. Defect is easy to define (incomplete onboarding steps), and the cost of each defect — a new hire who quits — is significant and measurable.
Once you’ve picked your area, write one sentence that names the problem specifically. “The customer service department averages 14-minute resolution times, against an industry benchmark of 8 minutes.” That single sentence becomes your Define phase anchor and your justification for why this area needs attention.
Six Sigma lives and dies on measurement. If you pick “company culture” or “employee morale” as your focus area, you’ll struggle to get through the Measure phase because neither can be cleanly quantified. Stick to process-based areas where a defect is visible: a missed deadline, an error rate, a cost overrun, a complaint count, a cycle time. Numbers make the DMAIC structure work.
Connecting Six Sigma to the Four PM Functions
Project management defines four core functions: planning (deciding what to do and when), organizing (arranging people and resources to do it), directing (leading the effort in real time), and controlling (monitoring results and correcting deviations). Six Sigma’s DMAIC model — Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control — moves through a similar sequence. They layer on top of each other naturally.
| DMAIC Phase | What Happens | PM Function | Why the Connection Works |
|---|---|---|---|
| Define | Name the problem, scope the project, identify stakeholders and goals | Planning | You’re deciding what the project is trying to accomplish and what resources it will need — that’s planning. |
| Measure | Collect baseline data on the process, map current state, identify the defect rate | Organizing | You’re arranging data collection systems, assigning who gathers what, and structuring information — that’s organizing resources. |
| Analyze | Identify root causes of the defect using statistical and process tools | Directing | You’re guiding the team’s analytical work, making decisions about which causes to pursue — that’s directing the effort. |
| Improve | Design and pilot a solution, implement changes to the process | Directing | Leading the implementation of change requires active direction of people and processes, often against resistance. |
| Control | Install monitoring systems, hand off to process owners, sustain gains | Controlling | You’re tracking outcomes against targets and correcting deviations — the direct definition of the PM control function. |
Your chart doesn’t need to have five separate rows that each say “this maps to Planning.” The mapping should be evident from how you describe what’s happening at each phase. Show the connection in your explanation section rather than labeling every box.
Building the DMAIC Chart Step by Step
The chart is the centerpiece of this assignment. It needs to be readable, organized, and specific to the business area you chose. A generic DMAIC chart copied from a textbook doesn’t satisfy the requirement — it needs to reflect your chosen area’s actual steps, resources, and people.
Choose Your Chart Format
Three formats work well for this type of assignment. A swimlane flowchart shows who does what at each phase — useful if your area involves multiple departments. A phase-gate table (rows = DMAIC phases, columns = actions / resources / PM function) is faster to build and easier to read on a single page. A process map with annotations works if your improvement focus is a specific workflow with identifiable steps. For most students, the phase-gate table is the most practical and the most clearly laid out for grading.
Give Each Phase at Least Three Specific Actions
Don’t just write “Define: identify the problem.” Write what you will actually do: conduct stakeholder interviews, review customer complaint logs from the last 12 months, draft a project charter with scope and success criteria. Specificity shows the grader you’ve thought through the process, not just labeled the phases.
Name the Resources at Each Phase
Resources are people, tools, data, time, and budget. Your chart should show which resources are being organized and deployed at each step. In the Measure phase: data analyst, CRM export, two weeks of collection time. In the Improve phase: IT team to update workflow software, training materials, two-week pilot period. This connects directly to the “organize and control your resources” requirement in the assignment prompt.
Add a Success Metric for Each Phase
Six Sigma is data-driven. Each phase should have a gate — a measurable outcome that tells you the phase is done. Define phase gate: project charter approved by leadership. Measure phase gate: baseline defect rate documented. Analyze phase gate: root cause confirmed by data. These gates are also what you’ll reference when explaining why the approach works. No gate, no accountability. No accountability, no control.
Sample Chart: Customer Service Department
The following is a demonstration of how a phase-gate table might look for a customer service improvement project. Use this as a structural reference, not a template to copy — your business area and specific actions should be your own.
If you submit this chart verbatim, it’s plagiarism. Use it to understand what level of specificity your own chart needs. Your chart should reflect the business area you picked, with actions and resources that are realistic for that context. The structure is replicable; the content should be original.
How to Explain Why It Will Work
The “explain why it will work” section is where most students either write three vague paragraphs about Six Sigma’s general effectiveness or just restate what the chart already shows. Neither earns marks. The explanation needs to do something different: it needs to connect the design of your plan to a specific outcome, and ground that connection in theory or evidence.
Connect Each Phase to a Resource Control Outcome
Walk through how each DMAIC phase exercises one of the four PM functions — and explain what would go wrong without it. Without Define, you’re organizing resources around the wrong problem. Without Measure, you’re directing people based on assumptions. Without Control, any gains disappear when attention moves elsewhere. This logic builds a clear argument for why the structure itself produces sustainable results, not just short-term fixes.
Use a phrase like: “The Measure phase serves the organizing function by ensuring that resources — data analysts, CRM access, and manager time — are allocated based on actual process performance rather than perceived problems. This prevents the common error of investing improvement resources in symptoms rather than root causes.”Cite the Mechanism, Not Just the Method
Saying “Six Sigma will work because it is a proven methodology” is a weak explanation. Instead, explain the mechanism: DMAIC forces decisions to be data-driven at each gate, which eliminates the cognitive biases (availability heuristic, confirmation bias) that typically cause improvement projects to fail. The Control phase installs a monitoring system that catches regression before it compounds. These are specific reasons — not marketing claims about Six Sigma’s reputation.
This is also where your scholarly sources come in. A citation showing that organizations implementing DMAIC in customer service environments achieved measurable cycle-time reductions gives your explanation empirical weight. That’s what the two-source requirement is there for.Address What Could Go Wrong
The strongest explanations acknowledge risk. Not every DMAIC project succeeds. Where are the failure points in your plan? Maybe the pilot phase requires IT resources that are in high demand. Maybe the root cause analysis depends on manager participation during a busy quarter. Naming these risks — and showing how your control mechanisms address them — is more convincing than presenting the plan as foolproof. It also shows you understand what project management’s controlling function is actually for.
One or two sentences on risk is enough. You don’t need a full risk register. Just show you’ve thought past the ideal scenario.Finding Your Two Scholarly Sources
Two sources minimum. Both need to be scholarly — meaning peer-reviewed academic articles or books published by academic presses. Not Wikipedia. Not consulting firm blogs. Not Harvard Business Review case studies (those are practitioner pieces, not peer-reviewed research, unless your professor has specified otherwise).
Google Scholar
Free and fast. Search “DMAIC project management” or “Six Sigma process improvement effectiveness.” Filter by year (last 10 years is usually sufficient). Click “Cited by” to find foundational papers in the area.
EBSCO / ProQuest
Your university library almost certainly has access to one or both. Use the Business Source Complete database. Filter for “peer-reviewed” and “full text available.” Much higher signal-to-noise than general Google searches.
Relevant Academic Journals
International Journal of Project Management. Journal of Operations Management. International Journal of Lean Six Sigma. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence. Project Management Journal (PMI).
What to Actually Type
“Six Sigma DMAIC effectiveness,” “DMAIC cycle time reduction,” “project management Six Sigma integration,” “Six Sigma customer service improvement,” “lean Six Sigma process control.” Mix and match around your chosen business area.
Is It Actually Scholarly?
Look for: an abstract, a methods section, a reference list, and author affiliations with universities or research institutions. If the article doesn’t have all four, it’s probably not peer-reviewed.
APA Format for Journal Articles
Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year). Title of article. Journal Name, Volume(Issue), page–page. https://doi.org/xxxxx. Use your institution’s citation guide if a different style is required.
The American Society for Quality’s Six Sigma resource page outlines the foundational DMAIC structure and links to quality management literature. It’s a credible practitioner reference but not a substitute for a peer-reviewed article — use it to orient yourself and then find the academic sources through your library database. ASQ also publishes the Quality Management Journal, which is peer-reviewed and directly relevant to this topic.
Writing the Summary Section
The summary is not a repeat of the chart. It’s a short, direct paragraph — or at most two — that pulls together: what business area you chose, what the core problem is, what your DMAIC plan does to address it, and what outcome you expect to see. Think of it as your executive summary to a manager who hasn’t read the rest of the paper.
Meeting the Illustration Requirement
The assignment requires at least one illustration or chart. The DMAIC phase-gate table you build satisfies this if it’s formatted clearly — not as a paragraph list, but as an actual visual table or flowchart. Here’s how to make sure it counts.
What Makes a Chart Count as an Illustration
- Has a figure number and a title (e.g., Figure 1: DMAIC Process Improvement Chart — Customer Service Department)
- Is formatted as a table, flowchart, or diagram — not running text with labels
- Is referenced in the body of the paper (“as shown in Figure 1…”)
- Is readable at normal zoom — not squished into a half-page margin
- Includes your business area, not generic phase names without context
If You Want a Second Illustration
- A before/after process map showing the current state vs. improved state in the Improve phase
- A fishbone (Ishikawa) diagram showing the root causes identified in the Analyze phase
- A control chart template showing the metric you’ll track in the Control phase (handle time, resolution rate)
- An organizational responsibility chart (RACI) showing who owns each phase
You don’t need design software. A clean Word or Google Docs table with properly labeled columns and rows is enough. What the grader is looking for is clarity and relevance — not graphic design skill.
Mistakes That Cost Marks
Picking Too Broad a Business Area
Applying DMAIC to “operations” or “the whole supply chain” produces five vague rows that don’t connect to any specific problem. Broad areas have no measurable defect, which means the Measure phase collapses and the rest of the chart is unsupported.
Pick One Process with One Measurable Problem
Choose a single, narrow process — order fulfillment error rate, employee onboarding completion, billing accuracy. One problem you can name with a number is worth five vague themes you can’t measure.
Using General Six Sigma Theory as Your Explanation
“Six Sigma is a data-driven methodology used by companies like Motorola and GE.” That’s background, not explanation. It doesn’t tell the grader why your specific plan will work for your specific problem.
Explain the Mechanism in Your Context
Connect the phases to your chosen area. “The Control phase installs a weekly handle-time dashboard, ensuring that the performance gains from the Improve phase are monitored continuously and corrected before regression compounds.” Specific. Logical. Graded well.
Forgetting to Connect DMAIC to PM Functions
The assignment prompt mentions planning, organizing, directing, and controlling. If your explanation never uses those words or concepts, you’re missing the core requirement — regardless of how good your DMAIC chart is.
Map Each Phase to a PM Function Explicitly
Either in the chart itself or in your explanation, show how Define = planning, Measure = organizing, Analyze/Improve = directing, and Control = controlling. Make that connection visible. Don’t expect the grader to assume it.
Using Non-Scholarly Sources
A Six Sigma blog, a consulting firm’s white paper, or a business news article does not meet the “scholarly source” requirement. These are not peer-reviewed and typically won’t be accepted by instructors who specify scholarly sources.
Use Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles
Search EBSCO or Google Scholar for peer-reviewed articles. Two that work well for this topic: articles from the International Journal of Lean Six Sigma or the Project Management Journal on DMAIC implementation in service or manufacturing contexts.
Every claim that comes from one of your scholarly sources needs a citation — author, year, and page number if you’re quoting directly. Paraphrasing without attribution is still plagiarism. For a full guide to citing correctly and avoiding common pitfalls, see Citing Sources and Avoiding Plagiarism: What Every Student Needs to Know.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Project Management Help Get StartedThe Real Point of This Assignment
Six Sigma and project management aren’t competing ideas — they’re complementary. Project management gives you the organizational structure. Six Sigma gives you the analytical discipline to make decisions based on data instead of gut feeling. The assignment is asking you to show you understand how those two things work together, not just that you can describe them in isolation.
Pick one real problem. Build a specific chart. Explain the mechanism — not just the method. Cite your sources properly. Write a summary that a manager could act on. That’s the assignment. It’s more straightforward than it first appears.