Role of a Process Owner in a Six Sigma Project

The process owner is the person who is supposed to be in charge of the improved Six Sigma process. Since they are the one that have to run the process after it is improved, it is essential that play a role in the Six Sigma project. Although the process owners are not involved in the day to day working of the project, they play an important role in specifying the requirements and validating the final outcome.

The process owner is not required to work in close co-ordination with the Six Sigma Project team members. In fact direct communication between the process owner and the project team must be avoided. Since the Project lead has the responsibility of gathering the requirements and publishing the requirements as a formal document, the Project Lead must be a single point of contact for the Process Owner.

Stage at Which Required

The process owner is required to provide his inputs at the beginning of a process. That is during the requirement gathering stage he/she is expected to work in close co-ordination with the Project lead and validate the requirements that have been gathered.

Also towards the end of the project i.e. at the control stage, the process owner is expected to validate the fact that the project has been successfully completed. Only once the process owner has validated this fact can the Six Sigma improvement project be closed.

Job Description

• The Process Owner is expected to help the lead in creating the requirement document.

• The Process Owner is expected to take the handoff from the Six Sigma Project team and assume responsibility of the process from thereon.

• The process owner is expected to maintain the improvements that have been reached during the Six Sigma project.

• The Process Owner is expected to help the Six Sigma Project team in gaining buy in from the users of the improved process.

• The Process Owner is also expected to facilitate training.

Job Specification

• The Process owner must have complete understanding of the “As-Is” process as well as the pain points involved in it.

• The Process Owner must understand how the “To-Be” process is different from the “As-Is” process and how it will eliminate the pain points.

• The Process Owner must be an expert in the field of Change Management. This is because “Buy-Ins” need to be created for such changes and it will be the onus of the process owner to do so.
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