Selecting a valuable and feasible project

Learning objectives

• Select projects that are both valuable and feasible.
• Score candidate projects against consistent criteria.
• Avoid projects with no sponsor or no baseline data.

Two filters, not one

A good Black Belt project must be valuable to customer and business and feasible within the belt's authority, timeline and data. Either filter alone leads to failure: valuable-but-infeasible projects stall, feasible-but-trivial projects deliver nothing worth reporting.

Screening criteria

• Customer or business pain with a quantified gap.
• Baseline data available or achievable in 2–4 weeks.
• Named sponsor with authority over the process.
• Scope achievable in one DMAIC cycle (typically 3–6 months).
• No pending redesign or reorganization that would invalidate results.

Garment-factory example

A proposal to "redesign the whole cutting room" fails feasibility. A narrower project — "reduce end-bit waste on the top three knit fabrics on Line A by 30% in 4 months" — passes both filters and has a willing sponsor.

Method

1. List candidate projects with rough value and rough effort.
2. Score against the criteria above.
3. Confirm sponsorship before finalizing.
4. Retire candidates that cannot pass both filters.

Common mistakes

• Choosing a favourite topic without a sponsor.
• Selecting a project so large it will not finish in one DMAIC cycle.