Peer to Peer Magazine

62 PEER TO PEER: THE QUARTERLY MAGAZINE OF ILTA | FALL 2016 FEATURES Six Sigma in E-Discovery Six Sigma will ask you to focus on defects, processes and the root causes of all potential mistakes during a process. Perhaps mistakes arise due to inadequate training or human judgment errors and biases, or perhaps the review platform is just inefficient. Then eliminate wasteful processes or create new processes to bring about lasting improvements. The most basic –– and most powerful –– tool in Six Sigma's arsenal is the insistence that you keep asking "why" until you hit the root cause of the issue. Example: "We went $50,000 over budget on reviewers." Why? "We used a different staffing agency." Why? "The person we knew at ABC agency le, and we did not want to deal with anyone else." Why? "That person understood our needs, and we thought we could replicate this with another agency." Why? Keep repeating until you hit the root cause! Key Takeaway: Six Sigma is all about continuous process improvement. Focus on your mistakes and keep asking why they happened until you hit the root cause problems. Five Phases of Six Sigma There are five phases in Six Sigma you need to understand: Define the processes you want to improve. While mapping all your workflows, determine your critical-to-quality (CTQ) issues; what is really important for success? Measure the performance of your process. Do you have a data collection plan for your process? Can you collect data from multiple sources to determine your current status? Analyze the data you collect to determine the root causes of your defects and the opportunities for improvements. Check for high rates of false positives or false negatives in your search results. Improve your efforts to eliminate random errors and other variability. Design creative solutions to fix and prevent problems or buy off-the-shelf tools to help you with this. Whatever you do, actively implement the improvements. Control and monitor your process to sustain these improvements. Resolve never to return to old habits or technologies that gave rise to defects. Implement continuous monitoring and controls to realize your goal of continuous improvement. Efficiency and Effectiveness As you apply these concepts, ask yourself these questions while a case or project is underway: » What percentage of your day is spent reworking a process or task started by someone else? » What percentage of your day is spent doing tasks someone else might have to redo? » What percentage of your day is spent on activities or tasks that do not add any value to your project? 1 2 3 4 5 DEFINE MEASURE ANALYZE IMPROVE CONTROL DMAIC 6 Keys to Six Sigma Success To use the Six Sigma method, you need to: 1 Visualize your entire case workflow 2 Identify sources and locations of waste (time, budget, people, process, technology) 3 Provide a common language for process discussions 4 Make decisions on appropriate process flows (process maps) 5 Describe how existing processes can change (if needed) 6 Only perform activities if they add value as perceived by your "final" customer

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