Man, know thyself!

This is an idea that has been roaming in my brain for sometime now and am really glad am putting it down. My brain can now take the desired rest.

I first came across the phrase “Man know thyself” in 1997 when my then mentor insisted I understand this concept and use it for my personal development. Not like I didn’t understand the fact that I needed to know myself in order to understand what part of me needed improvement, but it sounded very catchy that I have come to use it very often. In retrospect now, I look at these days as great days and I dare say, those were days I could describe as good ‘ole days.

Having grown into maturity both in learning and character (after all that is a sure proof of learning), I look at the business of process improvement with the same eye. My mentor would tell me, you would not improve yourself if you first do not understand yourself. This simple but powerful statement is a guiding light; businesses can never improve upon a process that is not understood. The height of a business process improvement is not so much in the strategy adopted, but in the understanding of where process. This understanding is achieved by an analysis of how the original process was designed to function and the current state. Every process owner or business manager knows that understand this understanding is needed to bring a derailing process back to the expected process. The root-cause of any problem is better treated with an understanding of the process.

In my journey into business process improvement especially using the six sigma methodology, I have come to love this simple concept of know thyself, or should I proceed from here to call it know thy process. One fascinating way to bring back home a prodigal process is the DMAIC structured methodology. This is the core of the teachings of Six Sigma. This structured technique has been implemented and used by several organizations in diverse industries to save millions of dollars, reduce process time, enhance quality, reduce rework and wastage, improve service delivery amongst other short and long term gains.

What is DMAIC?
* Define
* Measure
* Analyze
* Improve
* Control

In my mind, I would like to construe these five steps in knowing myself to mean:
* Define the goals of my improvement activities
* Measure the dept of my decay
* Analyze my problems especially the root-cause of my problems and where I intend to be
* Improve myself based on the analysis
* Control the implementation in line with my level of success

It must be said that Six Sigma is a data intensive and statistically inclined. In principle, Six Sigma intends to achieve a quality level of 3.4 defects per million opportunities. This means that out of a million chances of doing it wrong, the process went out of hand only 3.4 times. Sigma itself being a Greek alphabet that was assigned to represent variance or inconsistency is now a significant term in modern day business.

In business sense, DMAIC will mean something similar
* Define the goals of process improvement
* Measure the existing system
* Analyze the system to identify gaps
* Improve the process/system
* Control the new process/system

While the DMAIC technique is best for correcting an ailing process, DFSS (Design for Six Sigma) is used to design a process from scratch. DFSS strategy designs a process to attain the perfection of Six Sigma. In DFSS, the structured technique is DMADV. While the DMA part is same as defined above, the DV represent Design and Verify. After the DMA is performed, the new system or process should be Designed and Verified to be working as expected.

In whatever I want to do in my life and in whichever area of my life I intend to improve, depending on what my main goal is (to improve on an existing skill or learn a new one for instance), I have come to realize that though unwritten most of the times, my best strategy has been either DMAIC or DMADV. What more could be a process of knowing oneself?