4.5 The 15-Point Project Viability Model & Process-Level Selection

4.5 The 15-Point Project Viability Model & Process-Level Selection

Quick Summary: Section 4.1 covered project selection generally — the business case, the benefit categories, and the qualitative screens. This section covers the specific instrument CSSC publishes in Chapter 9. The Council does not merely say "score your projects"; it defines a 15-criterion weighted viability model, a six-step arithmetic procedure, and a three-band interpretation key. Because the numbers are published, they are testable, and candidates who only learned generic selection matrices lose these items.

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Why CSSC Publishes Its Own Model

Teams can always invent criteria for a homemade selection matrix. The manual states two concrete advantages of using the 15-point viability model instead:

1. It provides weighting, letting teams make some criteria more important than others. A simple matrix treats "is there a sponsor?" and "will this improve customer satisfaction?" as equals; the viability model does not.
2. It removes some of the objective nature of the ad-hoc matrix — that is, it replaces one team's improvised scoring scheme with a consistent published instrument, so two departments scoring two projects arrive at comparable numbers.

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The 15 Criteria

[!IMPORTANT] Criteria 11 and 14 invert. Every other criterion reads "more is better." Required investment and redesign are framed so that a high requirement is a bad sign. On the scoring sheet these appear as the questions "Would a new solution cost little to no cash?" and "Can the process be improved without a full redesign?" — so a Yes answer is still the favorable one. Candidates who score criterion 11 as "yes, we need a lot of cash" invert the whole result.

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The Six-Step Scoring Procedure

Each criterion is phrased as a question, given a weight from 1 to 5, and answered on a five-point response scale: No (1), Mostly No (2), Possibly (3), Mostly Yes (4), Yes (5).

1. Assign a weight of 1–5 to each of the 15 questions, reflecting how much that criterion matters to your organization.
2. Answer each question by placing the question's weight into the appropriate response column — but recorded as a normalized weighted entry rather than the raw weight.
3. Sum each of the five response columns.
4. Multiply each column sum by the number at the head of that column (1 for No, 2 for Mostly No, 3 for Possibly, 4 for Mostly Yes, 5 for Yes).
5. Add the five products together.
6. Divide that total by the sum of the weighted column totals from step 3. The quotient is the project's viability score.

Worked Calculation — the Manual's Own Example

Suppose the five column sums from step 3 are:

Step 3 — sum of all weighted totals:

$1.3 + 4.4 + 4.7 + 3.3 + 4.4 = 18.1$

Step 4 — multiply each column by its response value:

$1.3 \times 1 = 1.3 \qquad 4.4 \times 2 = 8.8 \qquad 4.7 \times 3 = 14.1 \qquad 3.3 \times 4 = 13.2 \qquad 4.4 \times 5 = 22.0$

Step 5 — add the products:

$1.3 + 8.8 + 14.1 + 13.2 + 22.0 = 59.4$

Step 6 — divide by the step-3 total:

$\text{Viability Score} = \frac{59.4}{18.1} = 3.28$

Notice what the arithmetic actually is: a weighted mean of the response values on the 1–5 scale. That is why the output always lands between 1.0 and 5.0 regardless of how many criteria you use, and why the interpretation key can be fixed.

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The Viability Key

The worked example's 3.28 therefore clears the bar: it is a viable DMAIC project.

[!NOTE] The scope caveat CSSC attaches to its own model. The 15-point matrix determines only whether a project is viable within a DMAIC structure. A process might still need improvement even though it does not fit DMAIC. Where the answer is a redesign, the DMADV structure may let a Six Sigma team approach the improvement instead. A low viability score is a verdict on method fit, not a verdict that the process is fine.

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Enterprise-Level versus Process-Level Selection

The manual draws a line that maps directly onto what a Green Belt actually does day to day.

CSSC is explicit that defining projects at the enterprise level is not the Six Sigma team's job. A department responsible for only a few processes may simply be seeking an improvement. In organizations where Six Sigma is part of the culture, departmental leaders are often familiar with the tools and may be Green or Black Belts themselves; they can bring Six Sigma thinking to their department while carrying non-Six-Sigma daily responsibilities. Some organizations let departmental leaders run smaller versions of projects with guidance from on-staff experts, especially when little capital is required.

Departmental staff can use every tool in the chapter, but they are usually close enough to the situation to identify opportunities without a brainstorming stage. When data already exists, the manual's recommended shortcut is to use a Pareto chart to find where improvement would create results, then use the selection matrix to validate those assumptions and prioritize effort.

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Realistic Exam Scenario

A distribution center's operations manager scores three candidate projects. Project A returns 3.6, Project B returns 2.4, and Project C returns 1.7.

The correct reading is not "run A, then B, then C." It is:

• Project A (3.6) — above 3.0, a viable DMAIC project. Charter it.
• Project B (2.4) — in the 2.0–3.0 band. Possibly viable, but the organization should validate further before committing a Belt. Find out which criteria dragged it down; a low score driven by criterion 12 (Belt availability) is a scheduling problem, while a low score driven by criterion 3 (data) is a fundamental blocker.
• Project C (1.7) — below 2.0, not viable for DMAIC. That does not mean the process is healthy. If C scored low because it needs a complete redesign (criterion 14), the right recommendation is to route it to DMADV, not to shelve it.

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Common Exam Traps

• Trap 1: Treating a low viability score as "no problem here." The score measures DMAIC fit only. A redesign candidate scores badly and still needs work — through DMADV.
• Trap 2: Inverting criteria 11 and 14. High cash requirement and a need for full redesign both reduce viability.
• Trap 3: Misplacing the band boundaries. Below 2.0 is not viable; 2.0–3.0 needs further validation; above 3.0 is viable. A score of exactly 3.0 sits in the middle band, not the top one.
• Trap 4: Forgetting the 6-month timeline norm. Criterion 8 is anchored to the manual's statement that most Six Sigma improvement projects run around six months, and that longer timelines reduce DMAIC fit.
• Trap 5: Dividing by 15. Step 6 divides by the sum of the weighted column totals (18.1 in the worked example), not by the number of criteria. Dividing by 15 gives 3.96 and the wrong band interpretation in borderline cases.