Organization Structure - the organization hierarachies should support easy, rapid lines of communications and non threatening management support - both cross and vertical structures.  There should be a limited number of layers - and/or there must be a well recognized facilitation for non threatening communications and effective management.   A key issue here is that there can not be isolated groups which sit like silos of insularity and work completely within their own power base.

Culture -  the culture of the organization should be skewed to the entrepreneurial end of the 'dictatorial --entrepreneur' spectrum.  There should be an openness to new ideas and fertile ground for listening and growing those ideas.   Restrictions should be the minimum necessary to effective management.

Business Processes - All the industry standard processes should be in place.  This includes strong functional processes, as well as, strong project management, change management, strategic and tactical planning, enterprise architectures.  

People -  The people of the organization make the Six Sigma program work or not work; successful, strongly successful; or a dismal failure and waste of time and resources.   The people should be open to change; creative; and willing to participate.   Of course, you cannot ensure that these characteristics are a part of every person, but on the whole, you should see these characteristics, if at all possible.   If not, you should consider the very real possibility that the organization has created the attitudes.   A good marketing and awareness program should be helpful in creating a reasonable ground for the program.  Successful implementation should provide the growth and changes in people's attitudes and level of contribution.

IT Framework and infrastructures -  The BI asset base is part of and housed within the broader IT framework and infrastructures.   Those IT infrastructures, standards, procedures should be at a maturity level which includes strong, basic operational and transaction systems plus the automated software,  good management practices and standard industry tools and practices.   If the transactional, operational systems and overall IT framework and infrastructures are not mature, then they become additional impacting factors in the assessment and improvement of BI.   This adds a complexity to a process which is already very complex.   It is possible to work within this set of constraints - but it is best to assess and upgrade these IT infrastructures and systems prior to beginning a Six Sigma BI program.

Resources -  The people who will be impacted by the Six Sigma BI initiative are essentially everyone within the organization.   So it will be necessary to provide training for everyone with in the organization - e.g. general Six Sigma and Six Sigma BI training, as well as, creative use and integration of BI.   However, there should also be a core team who will guide and drive the Six Sigma program.  These resources have to be identified and trained before the program can begin.   You will need to decide how many people you will need; roles and responsibilities; how will you train and support them; what is the nomenclature you will use for them -- will you have martial arts names or will you slant your focus in a different direction?   These are just a few of the decisions and actions which will need to be taken as a first step in any Six Sigma BI initiative.

Management Support -  Management commitment is critical.  Management support should result from the management commitment.   That management support must be tangible, with the commitment of resources and talent, infrastructures and policies and direction, wherever necessary within the organization.   Once there is a commitment to the Six Sigma BI initiative and it is started, then there should be a sustained commitment for at least a guaranteed period of time.  Success is not gong to be overnight and management needs to recognize that.   

Business-IT Relationship -  Have the business and IT management and specialists worked closely together on other IT initiatives and on a project by project basis?    Just like successful  indivicual Business Intelligence projects,  the Six Sigma BI initiative cannot be driven by one or the other group.  It must be a dual commitment.   If not, table this.  It is not going to be successful and will be a waste of resources.

Accountability -  The Six Sigma BI process is rigorous and metrics driven.   There must be some way to identify and define metrics, collect data and validate results.   The basic processes must be put in place as part of the initial thrust of the initiative (if they are not already a part of the infrastructure).