SOFTWARE DESIGN FOR SIX SIGMA (DFSS): A PRACTICAL GUIDE FOR SUCCESSFUL DEPLOYMENT - Software Design for Six-Sigma: A Roadmap for Excellence - page 231

and concepts. This vision of DFSS is a core competency in a company's overall
technology strategy to accomplish its goals. An evolutionary strategy that moves the
deployment of the DFSS method toward the ideal culture is discussed. In the strategy,
we have identified the critical elements, needed decisions, and deployment concerns.
The literature suggests that more innovative methods fail immediately after initial
deployment than at any stage. Useful innovation attempts that are challenged by
cultural change are not terminated directly but allowed to fade slowly and silently.
A major reason for the failure of technically viable innovations is the inability of
leadership to commit to integrated, effective, cost justified, and the evolutionary
program for sustainability, which is consistent with the company's mission. The
DFSS deployment parallels in many aspects the technical innovation challenges from
a cultural perspective. The DFSS initiatives are particularly vulnerable if they are
too narrowly conceived, built on only one major success mechanism, or lack fit to
the larger organizational objectives. The tentative top-down deployment approach
has been working where the top leadership support should be the significant driver.
However, this approach can be strengthened when built around mechanisms like the
superiority of DFSS as a design approach, and the attractiveness of the methodologies
to designers who want to become more proficient on their jobs.
Although there are needs to customize a deployment strategy, it should not be
rigid. The strategy should be flexible enough to meet unexpected challenges. The
deployment strategy itself should be DFSS driven and robust to anticipated changes.
It should be insensitive to expected swings in the financial health of a company and
should be attuned to the company's objectives on a continuous basis.
The strategy should consistently build coherent linkages between DFSS and daily
software development and design business. For example, engineers and architectures
need to see how all of the principles and tools fit together, complement one another,
and build toward a coherent whole process. DFSS needs to be perceived, initially,
as an important part, if not the central core, of an overall effort to increase technical
flexibility.
9.3.4.1 DFSS Sustainability Factors. In our view, DFSS possesses many in-
herent sustaining characteristics that are not offered by current software development
practices. Many deign methods, some called best practices, are effective if the design
is at a low level and need to satisfy a minimum number of functional requirements.
As the number of the software product requirements increases (design becomes more
complex), the efficiency of these methods decreases. In addition, these methods are
hinged on heuristics and developed algorithms limiting their application across the
different development phases.
The process of design can be improved by constant deployment of DFSS, which
begins from different premises, namely, the principle of design. The design axioms
and principles are central to the conception part of DFSS. As will be defined in
Chapter 13, axioms are general principles or truths that cannot be derived except
there are no counterexamples or exceptions. Axioms are fundamental to many en-
gineering disciplines such as thermodynamics laws, Newton's laws, the concepts of
force and energy, and so on. Axiomatic design provides the principles to develop