Did you ever notice how many good ideas are never successfully implemented? I find it incredibly aggravating when that happens, and for a number of reasons:
- It's frustrating for the person who has the good idea. Here he or she is, just knowing that there is a better way, and it just isn't being put in place.
- It's irritating for the people who would benefit from the better idea. Suffering is not fun – especially when you find out – often later – that it wasn't necessary.
- It's costly to the company. Whether a for-profit, or not-for-profit, wasted resources and goodwill are the inevitable result of an inadequate process.
While there are certainly many reasons for this, one contributing factor seems to be assuming that an improvement will somehow magically implement itself. It's like buying a top of the line hammer at a hardware store and somehow believing it will magically do a better job of driving nails. Without good eye-hand coordination, it simply doesn't matter how good the hammer is!
This thought process holds true whether it be for an individual tool, a drawer of tools, or an entire toolbox. Well intentioned people believe that if they identify better individual tools – "Look at this new version of a histogram," new classes of tools – "Theory of constraints can solve all of our problems," or new toolboxes – "All we need is team-based culture" – that the rest will take care of itself.
Duh.
I agree w/ Brenda on this one.
In the name of "no naughty or nice," I understand how organizations want an easy-to-measure return on their investment in training the BBs, hence the push for significant financial returns. However, without projects that influence the underlying patterns within a system, lots of work is put into projects that ultimately result in poor ROIs and bad feelings about Six Sigma.
I, too, appreciate your post -- we look forward to more of them!
Thanks for your interest... You have nailed one of the challenges of the traditional Six Sigma process.. they are not necessarily participative in nature and projects selected that are not as aligned to the business goals or connected to the work. We offer that the project selection is best when co-selected (leaders and employees) based on requirements/goals that are part of the larger business goals. Larry might have additional comments.. thanks for blogging and we look forward to your feedback as you get the additional chapters.