PRH Consulting Inc. Blog

Posted on October 12th, 2007 by Pete | Edit

Ok…I am all for quality improvement and a systematic approach to in. So in a way, I am actually a fan of Six Sigma…but sometimes it just gets annoying.

1. For one thing, they get all the cool projects. Before there was Six Sigma, you could identify a way to improve things, figure out the cost/benefit to the company, and do the project. (In fact, Human Performance Technology was based on this approach and predates Six Sigma…it just didn’t get the visibility…) But now, with Six Sigma, in many companies if your business case is any good, your idea may end up being turned into a Six Sigma project. So some blackbelt gets all the glory and you go back to the same old same old.

2. Based on personal experience as well as comments from others, there are a lot of Six Sigma practitioners who really don’t know what they are doing. Clearly, many are quite competent. But just having the certification does not mean that you necessarily have the capability. Once, while doing a performance analysis meeting, a Six Sigma person observing from the back came up and said that he could see at least ten projects after observing just one day of our meeting. No kidding…we identified them!!! (Well, technically, the meeting participants, the master performers from the client organization, identified the opportunities…we just facilitated and documented their thinking.)

3. Companies may use Six Sigma as a way to avoid really paying attention to the details of the business operation. Instead, they designate people as Six Sigma experts and then figure process improvement is “handled” and they can “check it off.”

4. Fixation with process instead of results. A standard process only provides a logical template for actions. But, if you think it through, you may just as well come up with a sound process without having to add the extra structure and formality that Six Sigma may entail. Sometimes that structure helps. But sometimes it just creates needless bureaucracy.

Remember when process mapping came out and suddenly everybody had to map every process? Teams were running around mapping processes all over the place…instead of getting work done!! Six Sigma, like anything that becomes a fad or trend, is in danger of the same thing, as is lean manufacturing. Instead of improving the business, the risk is that you just add another layer of work processes and more overhead.

5. In most cases, Six Sigma teams find cost reductions. When used for innovation, there is less success. (Some would argue that targeting innovation is an inappropriate application for Six Sigma…but it happens.)

6. Of course the worst problem with Six Sigma is the same as happened with Y2K and many SAP initiatives–it drains budget and attention that could be used for other important consulting…like human performance improvement, curriculum design, training development!!

Originally posted on March 30th, 2007 by Pete

If you think ideas and change are happening more quickly than they used to, you are probably right. On the Conference Board’s website is an article describing how the rate of change is impacting the business of managing organizations. 

“Ideas are circulating faster,” Clark says, “with the consequence that the lifespans of recent management fashions are considerably shorter than those for ideas which came to prominence in earlier periods; their peaks are much higher.” Research confirms this. A recent academic study found that the period of time between the introduction of a fashionable management idea or technique and the peak in its popularity has fallen from a mean average of 14.8 years in the 1950s through the 1970s, to 7.5 years in the 1980s and to 2.6 years in the 1990s.

 (For the entire article, click here http://www.conference-board.org/articles/atb_article.cfm?id=346&pg=4.)

This may mean that we are increasingly impatient for new approaches to deliver results, and when they don’t (or if they take too long) we abandon the approach.  But it may also mean that we have become so addicted to the new and novel that we are ready to jump on whatever the next bandwagon happens to be because we have to be the first in line.

For management consultants, this can result in continuous morphing of your identity. “TQM? Sure, we do that. I mean, Six Sigma? Yes, we have that.” For businesses, it can mean wasting a lot of time and effort training people, creating powerpoint decks, re-positioning initiatives, changing labels on things, and so forth. But little benefit. Running a business requires more than just applying the latest idea. You have to really understand your market, your technology, your value proposition. It isn’t often (ever?) simple.

Originally posted on March 28th, 2007 by Pete

There was an article in Wall Street Journal recently about schools overusing automated phone message systems, resulting in some families getting up to five calls in the same night and some with no real information (e.g., “your child is a pleasure to have in class”)!! The desire to communicate but the ease of doing it en masse and automatically.

Even worse than automated calling out systems is the over-reliance on “knowledge bases” and voice recognition for incoming technical help call centers. There is nothing more futile than trying to get a quick answer to a system technical (usually computer-related) question. It will work like this:

1. Waste a bunch of time trying to find your problem in the “knowledge base” of pre-built questions and answers. It is great if they have your question but, if not, you better get comfortable.

2. Waste more time going on a user forum. These have a worse case of the same problem as the knowledge bases–the information is not organized so you have to use a random search and/or browsing strategy which will likely yeild either no results or the teasing promise of results just around the corner of the next click.

3. Waste more time trying to find a phone number to call an actual person. Once you find the number, you will not get a person who can answer on the first call.

You could always email for help on a non-urgent problem. The likely outcome will be an instant reply telling you to check the knowledge base!! (and probably a warning not to reply to that address…and probably a message asking you to take a survey to report how satisfied you were with how they handled your case).

The only thing worse is calling cellular directory assistance. Technology is great but, when you want an answer quickly, technology really can’t match the satisfaction of asking someone who knows. You can clarify, you can discuss other similar situations…in short, you can actually learn how something works so you can do it yourself next time. Using automation for basic, easily answered questions or for triage is fine but have a person who can help when you need it.