Recycled Bullsh-IT

Have you been confronted by a Black Belt recently? Unless you are into martial arts then this has most likely happened at work when you have been hit by a Lean/Six Sigma initiative (or possibly operative if you got in their way). I am using Six Sigma here to encompass both the Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma concepts, particularly as many organisations tend to use a hybrid of the two. What started off as a way for manufacturers to actually work out how to build something that didn’t disintegrate/explode/maim unexpectedly as soon as the punter got the product home, has turned into a quasi-religious movement that comes with its own zealots and sacred texts. 

This quality initiative was all good sensible work, but hardly rocket science (NASA excepted). Getting consistent repeatable widgets coming off your production line at a reasonable cost is what manufacturing is all about. If you can’t do this, you should get a McJob, or become a “life coach”.

So why has Six Sigma appeared in many office environments recently as the saviour to all known problems? There is a touch of the Type 2s here (see my previous blog, ‘Blue Sky Thinking’), where experts with a solution that works for one problem apply it to all other problems. 

Admittedly some of the Six Sigma techniques are useful in identifying systematic waste and some process design and implementation issues. I particularly like the concept of Poka-yoke or fail-proofing. The idea here is to design the process or product to be as idiot-proof as possible. For example, the CD/DVD design is not Poka-yoke as it is easy to put the disk in upside down, particularly in a vertical slot. However, the old 3.5” diskette had a notch placed on one corner making it impossible to put in the wrong way. How many business processes do you know that were consciously designed to avoid mistakes by its users?

Some of the accompanying terminology and self-importance of the Six Sigma faithful is a bit off-putting. Why on earth do they keep using the Karate belt analogy? I don’t know about you but if a Six Sigma Black Belt started telling me what to do, I’d be tempted to counter with some Ecky Thump (© The Goodies). I’d back a seasoned black pudding against a Lean guru any day. The use of belts, and other assorted exotic (normally Japanese) terms hinders rather than helps the understanding and adoption of Six Sigma by normal folk. Add to this the increasingly impenetrable statistical techniques being used, and the inflated importance given to the Master Black Belts (used to keep their oversized trousers up) I have not been surprised by the large number of disaffected victims, sorry recipients, of Six Sigma I have come across recently.

At one large traditional British industrial giant (we still have a few), I uncovered a dog’s breakfast of a failed attempt to introduce Six Sigma to their sales and marketing function. Such was the gulf between the Black Belts and the sales team that I think they narrowly avoided coming to blows and ended up completely ignoring each other until the project was canned. 

Once again, the application of some common sense would have helped to identify which procedural aspects of their work may have been improved with Six Sigma, and which bits (typically the relationship and knowledge management areas) to leave well alone. Unfortunately, the people aspects of change fall lamentably behind the technology and process sides and fail to deliver real benefit. 

So, if you see some bandana-ed fighters covered in Greek squiggles, spouting Japanese phrases coming for your area of the business, confuse them by saying you’ve moved onto Seven Tau and that your Grandmasters can kick their puny pious pyjamaed posteriors any day.

John “Reversible Belt” Moe