How NOT to use Six Sigma to improve the Helpdesk

If I were a bad Help Desk Manager:

and Moses (the CIO) would tell me: "You have to lower the costs for the next budget year with 10% or you'll be fired", I could do the followings:

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  I will think at a quick win and I will define the goal of the project: reduce the costs with 10%;
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  I would say to myself that cannot be too difficult after all because most of the times the biggest costs are generated by the headcount, so there should the place to investigate first;
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  I will start to measure the number of calls each employee takes daily and by knowing their wages I can calculate the cost per call. The employees with the biggest costs per call are probably the ones to consider for firing;
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  I will even do a SQL script that looks in the Incident Database for the times per call. After 1 day of testing I believe I have the correct report: the employees that earn the most take the fewest calls per day! It's incredible!!! So, my boss Moses was right: the costs are too high...
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  I would immediatly inform Moses that I will manage to reduce the costs so that he can prepare the new financial projections: he will be thrilled!
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  I will invite in my office the 2 employees that generate the biggest costs and present them my findings;
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  I will then realize that I did a tremendous mistake: they generate these costs because they are the most experienced from the team and they actually solve the most difficult problems instead of transferring them...
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  I call Moses but it's too late: the new projects are already in the budget for next year (the stakeholders are already informed)...
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  All I can do now is to fire any 2 inexperienced people...I cannot fire the experienced team members;
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  Soon, the Help Desk goes out of control...what were my mistakes?

I soon realize that I did everything wrong...read my next blog post ;)

Adaptation from "Six Sigma for IT Management", Sven den Boer, ITSM Library, 2006