Measuring Critical Success Factors for Six Sigma in Higher Education Institutions: Development and Validation of a Surveying Instrument

Critical success factors are key elements that enable the success of projects. This research work proposes the design and validation of an instrument to evaluate the implementation of six sigma critical success factors during improvement projects in higher education institutions. Eleven critical success factors were selected from the literature on the six sigma methodology, including managerial participation and commitment, six sigma linkage with the institutional strategy, six sigma linkage with suppliers, communication, and team member selection, among others. The instrument was validated among Mexican higher education institutions, from which 743 surveys were collected. Namely, the instrument was administered to experienced improvement project developers. Then, the collected data were analyzed, first by means of an exploratory factor analysis, and later with a confirmatory factor analysis using software program SPSS Amos (R). Our results demonstrate that the proposed instrument is statistically valid, so it can be used by higher education institutions to evaluate how Six Sigma critical success factors are handled during improvement projects development. Similarly, the survey can help universities detect areas of opportunity when adopting the six sigma methodology and fit models to evaluate how critical success factors interact among them to achieve the expected results of improvement projects.