I just finished participating in a delightful design charrette. I’m sharing this with you because design can be a very powerful tool in the Six Sigma arsenal, and this little charrette both reminded me of and taught me a few important lessons about the design process.

Lansing Community College, Ferris State University, and the Kendall College of Art and Design are collaborating to attempt to enter the 2015 Solar Decathlon sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy. The decathlon is a college competition to design and create a solar-powered home to very challenging specifications.

Let’s start with who was there. There were 42 people at the charrette, including students and faculty from the disciplines of architectural and interior design, heating, ventilation and air-conditioning, sustainable energy, construction management, marketing, and management and leadership. Although we have not yet defined the customer, we had a pretty broad cross-section of people involved in the design process.

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