Improvement Project Reporting

I just had breakfast with a Six Sigma Champion from a large pharmaceutical company. Want to know what his pet peeve was? 

Power Point! 

He felt that belts spend far too much time getting data from here, graphing it there, putting the results into Power Point presentations, transferring the results into some project data warehouse. Taking a chart from Excel and pasting it into Power Point doesn't really add value. He said: "It's NVA" (non-value added work). He said he'd like to see belts spend one-tenth the time preparing presentations and use the other nine-tenths solving more problems and adding more value. 

When teams present, all he wanted to know was:

  • What tools did you use in each phase?
  • What did the tools tell you? How did they guide your analysis and solution?

Seems pretty simple doesn't it? 

Using Excel and QI Macros for Project Reporting 

Rather than create your charts and diagrams in Excel and copy them into Power Point, why not tell your story directly from Excel? 

Any Excel workbook can hold up to 255 charts that refer to a worksheet. Workbooks can hold as many worksheets as memory will allow.

To create your project report in Excel, simply:

  1. Move/Copy all of the charts, diagrams and analysis into one workbook.
  2. Rearrange the order of the sheets to be in DMAIC order so that they tell a comprehensive story of how you solved your problem.
  3. QI Macros create interim data sheets for most charts. To hide them, click on Format-Sheet-Hide or just move them to the back of the workbook. If anyone asks you where the data came from, you can unhide them to reveal the detail.

Now you have the improvement project documented in one workbook. This workbook serves as the data repository of the entire project. It can be stored as a resource for future projects. 

To present your project, just click from sheet to sheet as you tell the story of the improvement project. 

Pretty simple, huh? 

Here's My Point 

Don't get caught up in trying to make your project pretty. Results speak for themselves. Use QI Macros to analyze your data. Use Excel as your data repository and reporting tool. Solve more problems. Create more value. When you've got a good story to tell, no one will miss Power Point.


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