SC QUALITY GUILDDMAIC roadmap
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Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control: what each phase is for, what it must produce, and a tracker to tick your project through them.
ON THE EXAM · CSSYB I.A · FREE · NOTHING YOU TYPE LEAVES YOUR BROWSER
Q-BotClick for an explanation of this tool.For educational use. This page is a study aid. The method behind it has far more depth and detail than one page and one tool can cover, and what you see here is not everything the method offers or everything this site offers. For full understanding and application, use the governing standards and texts, and seek further education, training or qualified advice. Results depend on the data you enter, so check them before relying on them.
Five questions in order
DMAIC is the improvement method at the center of Six Sigma. Each phase answers one question, and each answer is the input to the next:
- Define: what is the problem, for which customer, and what would success look like?
- Measure: how big is the problem now, and can we trust the numbers?
- Analyze: what causes it, and what is the evidence?
- Improve: what change removes the cause, and does it work?
- Control: how will the gain be held after the team moves on?
The order is the point. Skipping Measure means analyzing data nobody has checked. Skipping Analyze means improving the wrong thing. Skipping Control means the problem comes back.
Phase reviews
Each phase ends with a review, often called a tollgate, where the sponsor checks the outputs before agreeing to move on. The phase review checklist has the questions for each one. The tracker above warns you if the project has moved to a later phase with outputs still open behind it.
Six Sigma and lean
Six Sigma aims to reduce variation and defects; lean aims to remove waste and improve flow. Most organizations now run them together, and DMAIC is used for both. Lean tools such as the waste walk and kaizen events appear inside the phases rather than as a separate method.
DMAIC and PDCA
Plan-Do-Check-Act is the older, shorter improvement cycle. DMAIC can be read as a more structured PDCA: Define, Measure and Analyze are a thorough Plan; Improve is Do and Check; Control is Act. PDCA still has a place inside Improve, for piloting a change.
On the Yellow Belt exam
Six Sigma foundations and principles is topic I.A of the 2022 CSSYB Body of Knowledge. Expect to be asked which phase an activity belongs to, and what a phase must produce before the project moves on.