Page 199 - The Six Sigma Project Planner

greater the level of detail, the easier the translation of the customer demands into
internal specifications. The tradeoff is that the process quickly becomes tedious and
may end up asking the customers for input they aren’t qualified to provide. Customers
are notoriously impatient with providing detailed information about their likes and
dislikes! In the case of this example, we’d probably stop at the second level.

Global Importance Weights
The subcategory weights just obtained tell us how much importance the item has with
respect to the category, not with respect to the ultimate goal. Thus, they are often called
local importance weights. However, the subcategory weights don’t tell us the impact of
the item on the overall goal, which is called its global impact. Global impact is calculated
by multiplying the subcategory item weight by the weight of the category in which the
item resides. The global weights for our example are shown in Table 10 in descending
order.
Table 10. Local and Global Importance Weights

Category Subcategory Local Global
Weight Weight
Easy to learn Intuitive interface 68.3% 18.0%
Internet connectivity Online billpay 43.4% 15.5%
Internet connectivity Download statements 23.9% 8.6%
Internet connectivity Download investment information 23.9% 8.6%
Works well with other Hotlinks to spreadsheet 75.0% 7.9%
software
Easy to maintain Free Internet patches 35.7% 7.8%
Easy to maintain Great, free self-help technical assistance 30.8% 6.7%
on the Internet
Easy to learn Good documentation 20.0% 5.3%
Easy to maintain Reasonably priced advanced technical 20.0% 4.4%
support
Internet connectivity Works well at 56K 8.9% 3.2%
Easy to learn Interactive tutorial 11.7% 3.1%
Easy to maintain Automatic Internet upgrades 13.5% 2.9%
Works well with other Edit reports in word processor 25.0% 2.6%
software
Easy to use quickly after I’ve Savable frequently used reports 43.4% 2.3%
learned it
Easy to use quickly after I’ve Shortcut keys 23.9% 1.3%
learned it
Easy to use quickly after I’ve Short menus showing only frequently used 23.9% 1.3%
learned it commands
Easy to use quickly after I’ve Macro capability 8.9% 0.5%
learned it

The global importance weights are most useful for the purpose of allocating resources
to the overall goal which, you may recall, is Determine where to focus product upgrade

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