Q. 146  Tollgate Reviews are checkpoints in a Six Sigma project. What are the objectives of completing tollgate reviews? When all should a tollgate review be carried out in a DMAIC or DMADV project? Who must be present in every tollgate review and who are the "if-needed" participants?

 

  

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Tollgate reviews are checkpoints in six sigma projects. Not attending toll gate review meetings by management/six sigma team is one of the major causes of project failure. 

These reviews are conducted at end of each stage/step of DMAIC & DMADV.

It’s important to review the output at each stage and additionally it clearly defines wether the preset/predefined goals are being achieved as per plan and the project is ready to be carried forward for the next milestone. It enables the team to assess the current performance and also make corrective  changes if required to achieve the target/ to be state. It also ensures that the relevant “Y’s” are being answered at each stage to move ahead in the project.

These review in a Project are normally performed by a Master Black Belt or by a Quality Council set up by the department driving projects. However not limited and should also be attended by Green Belts, Black Belts, the Project Champion or Sponsor and other members as appropriate.

Benchmark Six Sigma Expert View by Venugopal R

 

Most of us will be familiar with a requirement by the ISO 9000 standards i.e. Management Review. Organizations that did give importance to this requirement and had senior leaders participate in these reviews derived greater benefits than those who did not. There are certain people who say that the ISO 9000 systems aren’t successful. One of the possible  reasons could be the lack or inadequacy in conducting Management reviews.

 

The “Toll gate reviews” as part of a Six Sigma program are equally important for the success of the projects and the program at large. Good Six Sigma projects require cross functional involvement and senior management approvals. One of the popular ways is to schedule Toll Gate reviews at the end of each phase. However, quite often, there would be overlap of activities across phases, and hence some organizations prefer to schedule the Toll gate reviews at a monthly frequency and the projects will be reviewed at whatever phase they are in.

 

One of the key objectives of the Toll Gate reviews is to provide support, solutions and guidance to the team to overcome any hurdles that they might be facing. It also serves as an approval for having completed the deliverables for the phase and any shortfalls or gaps will be understood by all concerned for appropriate actions, course corrections before it is too late. The Six Sigma program coordinator decides the agenda for the Toll Gate reviews and the required participants. The Six Sigma Program coordinator along with the steering group, Sponsors and leaders of the projects being reviewed, relevant process owners are necessary participants for the Toll Gate review. The ‘If needed’ participants will include Subject Matter Experts, other select team members of the project, any other stakeholder depending on the topics to be discussed.

The Six Sigma coordinator should do some prior planning for the review viz.

1.     Decide the projects that need to be reviewed in the session

2.     Identify the key points for discussions / decisions / approvals on each project

3.     Decide the participants based on the above

4.     Send an invite and agenda in advance to all the participants

5.     For any critical decisions from senior leaders, it would be important for the coordinator to meet / directly connect with those individuals prior to the meeting and provide a prelude

6.     Any issues that need more preparation, information or deliberations may best be kept out of the review and the project leader and team advised to do their homework before taking it up in the Toll Gate review.

 

If the Tollgate reviews are too lengthy, there is a risk of losing the attention and may discourage people from participating in future meetings. It is important for the Six Sigma program coordinator to keep the meetings short but effective and ensure regularity of the review. It is extremely important to set-in this practice and it is sure to pay off in the long run.

A Toll Gate review, as the name suggests itself that its a check point in a DMAIC/DMADV or any six sigma project at which various team members organise a meeting and determine whether the work has been completed or as per plan and whether we have achieved our objective or not.

 

Toll gate reviews are generally carried out at the end of each phase in DMAIC /DMADV project to check all defined objectives for the project to succeed. Toll gate review is a well.planned and standardized series of reviews at the end of each phase in which we have a set of questions and check points to proceed further. Without achieving our defined criteria we are not allowed to move to next phase. 

There are various tools which are used to carry out toll gate review:

1. Check sheet

2. list of Milestones 

3. Project deliverable documents 

The toll gate review process includes a set of questions which is to be answered at the end of each phase. 

 

Following are the objectives to complete a Toll gate review :

1. Standardized evaluation of each phase before proceeding further in next phase. 

2. To verify if the project reaches the expected output, whether it is completed or not 

3. To validate whether the planning is good enough to face the next phase and to work as per defined standard. 

4.to limit the business and project to risk 

5. To make future phases easier by verifying information

6.to find out whether they have fulfilled all criteria which are defined in previous phase to go forward in next phase. 

7. To give recommendations to the dicision maker whether the project can step forward or not. 

8. To find out the projects output for the organisation

9. To discuss and document all the knowledge areas

10. To give awareness to the team and the organisation regarding importance of investing time and resources in a well defined planning. 

11. To access the deliverables performed during the phase. 

12. To give the decision makes a set of information that has a known degree of uncertainty 

13. To reduce the final investment risk. 

 

This review is basically performed by a master black belt or quality council. 

It should also be attended by Green belt, black belt and project champion and sponsor or other member as per requirement. 

Toll gate review is a mechanism to evaluate how the project has concluded its each phase i.e. DMAIC. 

The MBB, BB, champion, sponsor, project leader and team with Business leads and heads are part of these discussions. Basically sharing the storyboard with the group and updating them on the actions taken in each phase and outcomes identified and implemented. They basically want to know if everything is done that was required in the stage and hence team is moving to next stage.   

Tollgate reviews are "MUST Do" pause and review exercises for both the project variants : DMAIC & DMADV.

Why essential? It's the time when all stakeholders get to evaluate the work done this far, make sure the reality is acceptable to the team vs the plan. Team agreement on the direction taken & direction that will be taken is the key achievement out of the exercise. Course correction is ensure if it necessitates.

Who all should attend? Every team member who shares responsibility & accountability towards the stated objective of the project should attend, express their opinion, document the observations & decisions taken. This will ensure there is minimal REWORK and that the end achievement is the "Best Achievable" one.

The chosen best answer is that of Kiran Kumar for brevity and responding to all key points. For a detailed and complete version, read the Benchmark Expert View provided by Venugopal.