&155/ Just Found: Six Sigma On the Downslope?

Tom Davenport published an interesting article on Six Sigma last week. Have a look at it and at all the comments as well!

Tom conludes:

• "First, there was all the statistical mumbo-jumbo it implied — but seldom delivered on in most companies’ implementations.
• Second, it didn’t incorporate information technology — arguably the most powerful force available for improving (or screwing up) processes — in any way.
• Third, it was overly elitist. Instead of relying on Six Sigma expert “black belts” do the process analysis and design, every employee should be a process improver, as I argued last week.
• Fourth, it really only enabled incremental improvement, not radical breakthroughs.
• Fifth and last, it wasn’t a good fit for innovation-oriented work."

One reader adds a point and we especially subscribe to that one:

"No approach works when Leadership does not clearly communicate a coherent strategy to masses and then own the implementation of that strategy. It's like the old mantra 'when the student is ready, the teacher will appear' only it is 'when the leader owns the implementation, the appropriate tools will appear'."

Is Six Sigma really on a downslope?

Read Harvard Business!