DMAIC Is For Everyone

Last week I was in a Six Sigma Black Belt training class. The program itself is three weeks long, spread over four months. I have already attended the Green Belt training, so many of the terms and acronyms used were already familiar to me. With the expanded format we were able to spend far more time on topics and subjects. In short, the course is structured around DMAIC.

Now, before I go any further, I want to make it clear that I try my hardest to avoid using acronyms whenever possible. Six Sigma has acronyms for everything. There is DMAIC, SIPOC, VOC, VOP, CCR, CTQ, and the list goes on. Many of these terms are only found in a Six Sigma context and it can be hard to follow your first time through. That being said, I will do my best to make certain I explain the acronym before just assuming that the reader knows what it means.

DMAIC stands for Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control. Those five elements comprise most every type of Six Sigma project (I actually do not know of any that would not have them, but anything is possible). At some point during the week I started thinking about how most DBAs I know already apply these five principles to most of their everyday tasks.

For example, let’s assume that someone (call it a customer), contacts you (as a DBA) and says something akin to “The system is slow. It needs to be faster. Please fix.” Now, being the top-level DBA that you are, you get to work. And what do you do?

First step is to define the problem. You start asking questions, trying to get as many details as possible. What system? Which server(s)? Which databases? What do you mean by faster? When did you want/need this done?

Then, you measure the problem by seeing for yourself how “slow” the system is responding. Again, you ask more questions, looking to further define the issue. Most DBAs just lump this into “Performance Tuning” for the example we are discussing, but in general you would look to gather your own sets of measures for whatever the problem may be. Without any measurements, how would you ever know if things got better, right?

Then, you analyze your results. In most cases the analyze phase takes place during the measure phase, but the best DBAs (in my opinion) would gather as much information as possible, take a step back, and then analyze the data in front of them. Your analysis would lead you to an action that you would take in order to do what?

Well, improve the system, which is the very next step. You would apply your analysis in the previous step, formulate a plan of action, and implement the action in an effort to improve the situation. Perhaps an index is missing, or needs to be rebuilt, for example.

Lastly, you would put a control in place to help identify if the system acts slowly again in the future. Perhaps the controls involve configuring a new set of metrics to help you with any additional measures and analysis that needs to be done if things break again. Or your control could be as simple as a report that shows how long the system is running. That way if the customer calls again to say it is slow you can respond back with “our control report says it took five seconds less than the average run time, so any slowness  is either due to a different issue or your (lack of) perception”.

I could go on, but the point here is that many of the Six Sigma processes are built upon common sense (which is not always common), and many of the DBAs I interact with already act in a similar fashion to those processes. Many of us follow a DMAIC process without knowing anything about Six Sigma. And while not every DBA could simply jump into a Black Belt program (although if I can do it then I am 99 and 44/100% certain anyone could), chances are most DBAs would find the transition quite easy. If nothing else, you would be able to follow the logical nature of the processes and probably not be scared by the math involved.

If there is one thing that almost every Black Belt has that most DBAs need, it is a good set of soft skills. If I can take away tips and tricks for a better set of soft skills by the time this is all done, that will be as valuable as anything else I may learn along the way.