DMAIC

And so it's a step-by-step structured process for problem solving that we teach to all of our leaders And increasingly to really all of our team members.

And so we follow what is called a DMAIC process and we use a tool called an A3.

The A3 is the document that really gives the structure for the problem solving event.

And we could say problem solving, we could say opportunity realization.

So when I started this initiative around world class customer service at the time, I had zero idea what to do.

I leaned on my Lean Six Sigma background and the project management structure that a lot of Lean Six Sigma practitioners use, and that is a model, define, measure, analyze, improve, control, or DMAIC for short.

I think many people probably are very familiar with that.

Because I was used to that.

I actually was doing continuous improvement before Lean Six Sigma was a thing.

And a lot of people probably do not know this.

When that DMAIC structure actually was MAIC, it was Measure, Analyze, and Improve Control at the beginning, right? And they ended up adding the define for exactly that reason.

People will jump to the solution and implement a solution without really understanding why.

Everything I do, Six Sigma is at the root of it.

But you almost have to detangle or uncouple Six Sigma and the actual DMAIC methodology and the tools and keep it behind the scenes because I learned very, very quickly back in 2005, 2006 that where I was first engaged in Six Sigma and working with underwriters, that the more I leaned into the tooling, unless I had the right audience, the more they started pulling back.

And so I absolutely agree that we need more lean, we need to drive more of that more effectively.

We have to do it in a way where it doesn't feel like it's this robotic science, because underwriters have this natural aversion to that, and then they go into that immediate, it's an art and a science.

Yeah.

Uh, is a part of, like, your flow of MAD, DMAIC, and I've memorized acronyms.

But, uh, all this to say, a lot of those, like, early kinda structures, all on spreadsheets, all about kind of like figure out what's the failure mode, what's the frequency, how can you detect it.

If you can't detect it, you...

And so-

I remember someone saying to me a few years ago, so we learned DMAIC, D-M-A-I-C, I remember when we were studying, and I know it's a Six Sigma, but some Six Sigma tools were thrown in.

I remember was using it for a while, and then somebody who was a lot more experienced than me said, "Why are you using DMAIC? The M should come before the D.

It should be MDMAIC," because everyone's trying to define the problem, and then you move on to the measure.

It should be the measure first.

And actually, it made perfect sense to me that we complain about our problems, and we know we have problems, and we talk about them in management meetings without ever having the right measure.

Yeah.

I think that that's a great example there.