The Right Approach

There are volumes of work that have been published detailing the success of quality management systems based on ISO 9001, AS9100, TS 29001 and other similar standards; the same goes for the documented success of problem-solving and improvement approaches, such as Six Sigma, Lean, TQM, RCA etc. If you research any of these on-line, your results will show hundreds of success stories, illustrating how such approaches can be successfully applied in virtually any industry or profession.

When we consider the documented success of such approaches, it’s amazing that any organization which has not adopted such sophisticated measures remains in business at all. Surely they can’t be as competitive as their peers in the marketplace with such superior capability. The progressive organization has learned to execute their operations with the precision of a laser scalpel; the dinosaur relies on outdates processes with the exactitude of trying to eat peas with flimsy, plastic cooking spatula. The organization who has the lowest DPMO, the most procedures, great process maps and the most black belts must always win.

With such overwhelming success, I’m surprised that I continue to regularly encounter folks who are steadfast in their belief that these approaches are nonsense; that they don’t work. To these individuals, such approaches are nothing but “flavor-of-the-day” initiatives, a combination of buzzwords and over-hyped methods, gestures or tricks with no end result other than to line the pockets of consultants at the expense of the well-meaning organization. This later opinion is inconsistent with the documented results - surely there is something missing. With so many documented success stories, there can’t be anything wrong with these approaches, can there…?

Unfortunately, many of these later opinions are based upon valid reasoning; they are the views of individuals who have seen the failures personally; they have suffered through poorly managed projects, tutelage under the guidance of less-than-capable consultants, and have experienced the disastrous results of ill-conceived initiatives. Huge costs have been incurred by the organization, countless hours have been wasted, personnel have been reassigned and morale has been left shattered. What began as an optimistic attempt to improve the condition of the business has either made no impact, or has left the organization in a worse state than ever before.

Which side is right here? Are these approaches successful or just hype?

We need to quit trying to address with this subject in absolutes. There is no “one-size-fits-all” solution; there is no global solution that can be applied in all cases. Each business has their own unique needs, circumstances and business objectives. Such approaches can be wildly successful; they can also be absolute failures. You can’t just say the “ISO 9001 doesn’t work", “Six Sigma doesn’t work”, or “Lean doesn’t work”. It just may not work for you. The same goes for saying that any of these approaches does work, without exception.

We incorrectly attribute the success (or failure) of an approach almost exclusively to the methodology itself, without taking into consideration the context in which it was applied, or the need which it was intended to address. Each of the aforementioned approaches (ISO 9001, Lean, Six Sigma, etc.) has some degree of merit, and each has been successful in their own right. Each has its own unique strengths and weaknesses. The "right" approach however, is the one that fits best with your organization.

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And Finally...

Two Six Sigma Black Belts (SSBB's) walk into a board room...

They've been asked by company management to review customer feedback data that's been collected over the past year. Based on a scale of 1 thru 10 (10 is highest), each item scored an average of about 7.5, with the exception of one category: "On-Time Delivery".

The SSBB's reviewed this data, and reported their findings at a follow-up meeting. The first Black Belt explained that, based on statistical testing, he "could not reject the null hypothesis". The second Black Belt chimed in "based on the data, this issue is statistically insignificant".

The company went bankrupt six months later. Their dissatisfied customers had all taken their business to another supplier.

This point of this story isn't about whether "On-Time Delivery" was significant or not. The SSBB's where so absorbed by their methodology that they missed the obvious - the customers were unhappy. The actual issue was that the company averaged only a mere 7.5 out of 10 overall.

Bah-dum-bum.


No actual company was harmed in the writing of this example.


Mark
http://www.masquality.com

Why Six Sigma Doesn't Work (Part 1)

I’ve been promising for several months now that I’d get around to writing on this topic. While I initially intended to write only one article, this has now evolved into a series - there was just too much to say on the subject. We’ve all heard and read about the successes at GE, Motorola, Honeywell (Allied Signal), etc. that have been attributed to the great methodology that is Six Sigma; I wanted to take a look at the down-side of Six Sigma, as I don’t think its failings receive nearly as much attention.

In consideration of this topic, I took some time to discuss the failings of this methodology with a number of Six Sigma professionals, and my commentary that follows is partially based on these discussions. For the Six Sigma practitioners reading this, I want to point out at the outset that I’m not going to attempt to present my results with any sort of statistical terms; I’m not trying to address Six Sigma using Six Sigma. I’m presenting my own personal opinion, based on my own professional experience, supplemented with any common themes that emerged.

Since this is the first of several articles on “Why Six Sigma Doesn’t Work”, I think it’s only fitting to begin with the fundamental step of selecting (or in the context of this discussion, erroneously selecting), Six Sigma as our problem solving method. I’m not saying that this is the primary reason why Six Sigma fails, however it definitely is towards the top of the list. It just happens to be that, when we look at the “big picture”, this issue is first in sequence.

The great American playwright Mark Twain once said “if all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail”. While nearly every Six Sigma practitioner is quick to parrot this sentiment (apparently their “Six Sigma toolkit” also came with a book of quotes), there is an overwhelming irony here, as it’s these same individuals that often go on to validate this statement in their application of the methodology. Rather than considering Six Sigma as a business tool, which should be used to compliment other business problem-solving approaches, Six Sigma is promoted in a dogmatic fashion, as a panacea for all of the problems a business may encounter.

Your business may not need Six Sigma. Before you launch an organization-wide Six Sigma initiative, consider what you’re trying accomplish. For example, I have a pool at my house and a two-year-old toddler. For my son’s safety, I don’t need a Six Sigma initiative; I need a fence around my pool. We select Six Sigma as part of our solution before we’ve considered the problem to the extent that we’ve exhausted all other possible solutions. Other companies have been successful with Six Sigma, so we feel that we should be able to replicate the same successes. There may, in fact, be other options more appropriate to our specific situation.

I was once told, by a successful and respected Six Sigma professional, that the best approach to problem solving was to “begin with MSA, followed by DOE, then finished with SPC”. There are only a few things I could disagree with more (several of these with follow in later articles). If we apply the analogy of driving a car from point “A” to point “B”, wouldn’t we need a different set of directions based on each unique starting point? You wouldn’t use the same directions to drive from Houston to Chicago that you would if you started in San Francisco or New York. What if you were to fly instead of drive, or even take a train? In this case, we’re detailing our problem-solving approach before we’ve really considered what the actual problem is.

Improperly selecting Six Sigma as our problem solving approach is first on my list of why Six Sigma fails. We didn’t need it to begin with, and as a result we’ve committed to using an approach that isn’t relevant to our situation. Six Sigma doesn’t work because we’ve tried to solve our business problems with a buzzword.


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