Re: Terez on Sloganeering and again Six Sogma

[John Hunter <managementimprovement@gmail.com>]

I think Six Sigma has been a success.  Do I think it the best option? 
No I would prefer a Deming based approach.  But I think Six Sigma can
be a successful improvement strategy.  Like most any management
strategy, many applying it do so poorly (hacks as Deming would say). 
But if most any DEN participant worked with the leading thinkers in
the Six Sigma community you would find they fit very well within the
community of the DEN though with some distinguishing traits.

To varying extents the Six Sigma thinkers might not accept the level
of importance we place on certain items, things like: "joy in work,"
co-operation (vs. competition), the need to change the organizations
culture, the importance of unmeasurable factors, or eliminating
performance appraisals.  But the best minds (as I see it) in the Six
Sigma community share our beliefs, to a large extent.  The approach
they have taken is to work with the current culture more than most of
us would like, if we could instead have the culture move toward a more
Deming based culture.

Many Six Sigma proponents have done great things: Gerry Hahn, Roger
Hoerl, Soren Bisgaard, Bill Hill, Ron Snee, Forrest Breyfogle.   They
happen to all be statisticians, I believe; as were most (though not
all) of those who taught with Deming.  I think there is a connection. 
Statisticians that follow the applied statistics school of thought fit
very well with Deming's ideas, and with the good practice of Six
Sigma.

I am biased, however.  My father worked with George Box, who I see as
a leading figure in the applied statistics community.  They wrote
(along with Stu Hunter) Statistics for Experimenters which is heavily
used in good Six Sigma efforts.  The second edition was recently
published (the first edition was published in 1978).  I grew up with
the ideas of applied statistics and Deming's ideas.

I believe part of the distrust of Six Sigma is because many efforts
are done poorly and deserve criticism.  In addition, the general Six
Sigma community believes things I disagree with.  The whole 1.5 sigma
shift idea is not sensible.  The name of the effort is not good.  But,
many of us (or if that is not accurate, then at least me) who have to
try and convince others to practice Deming's ideas find the "System of
Profound Knowledge" less than an ideal name.  The whole percentage
failure example theme is silly (if we accept just 99.4% success that
means 15 doctors will drop the baby they deliver every day).

Six Sigma efforts are missing some import ideas that would improve it,
in my opinion.  Still, I would rather take a good Six Sigma effort and
then add more of Deming's ideas than take a company that has not had
any such effort (just like I would like to build on a good
implimentation of "TQM" or Lean Thinking...).

Find several good articles by Roger Hoerl:

   http://curiouscat.net/library/hoerl.cfm

You can also see more articles, by those I mentioned above as leading
Six Sigma thinkers, via the Curious Cat Management Improvement
Library:

   http://curiouscat.net/library/


       John Hunter
       www.johnhunter.com