Building a Data Collection Plan

By Patrick Waddick

Black Belts and Six Sigma practitioners who are leading DMAIC projects should develop a sound data collection plan in order to gather data in the measurement phase. There are several crucial steps that need to be addressed to ensure that the data collection process and measurement systems are stable and reliable. Incorporating these steps into a data collection plan will improve the likelihood that the data and measurements can be used to support the ensuing analysis. What follows is a description of these steps. A checklist, populated with dummy responses, is also provided to illustrate the importance of building a well-defined data collection plan prior to execution.

Three phases -- five steps total -- are involved in building a sound data collection plan:

Pre-Data Collection Steps
1. Clearly define the goals and objectives of the data collection
2. Reach understanding and agreement on operational definitions and methodology for the data collection plan
3. Ensure data collection (and measurement) repeatability, reproducibility, accuracy, and stability

During Collection Steps
4. Follow through with the data collection process

Post-Data Collection Steps
5. Follow through with the results

Next Page > Define Goals And Objectives
Page 3 > Operational Definitions and Methodology
Page 4 > Repeatability, Reproducibility, Accuracy and Stability
Page 5 > The Data Collection Process
Page 6 > After The Data Collection Process
Page 7 > Sample Populated Data Collection Plan