Ten Implementation Myths of Six Sigma
In This Chapter
Dispelling the most common myths about implementing Six Sigma Avoiding mistakes and barriers to implementation
As many times as Six Sigma has been implemented around the world, countless war stories, opinions, and myths have emerged, augmented by numerous urban legends, anecdotes, and hearsay. Misconceptions abound regarding what a Six Sigma implementation is really about.
Like most myths, the myths about Six Sigma are all rooted in some truth. With thousands of implementations and hundreds of thousands of projects completed, you know already from the normal distribution that some have gone poorly and that the failures can be notorious.
Most failures are due to poor leadership, but others are due to bad management. Even worse are those projects that simply suffer bad luck. However, out of these failures — and the agen- das of the people who tell them — the stories take on mythic proportion.
This chapter addresses ten of the most common myths about a Six Sigma implementation.
You’re likely to come across many more, but these are the biggies that you need to watch out for.
Six Sigma Is about Achieving “Six Sigma”
Based on everything you’ve ever read, Six Sigma is 3.4 DPMO, right? So, if you’re implement- ing “Six Sigma,” it only goes to follow that you’re going to keep working at it until you achieve that Six Sigma level of performance, right?
Wrong! Six Sigma is notabout achieving a Six Sigma level of performance. In other words, a Six Sigma implementation isn’t about achieving 3.4 DPMO in every key performance metric.
Instead, it’s about achieving the proper, optimized level of performance of your organization — and it’s very likely not to be precisely 3.4 DPMO.
A Six Sigma initiative is about developing the capabilities to continuously improve the effi- ciency and effectiveness of your organization so that the performance and value of your work processes continuously increase. The precise sigma level at which any given process should operate is a matter of the process characteristics and the customer’s needs. In most cases, it’s below “six sigma.” In other words, it’s greater than 3.4 DPMO, and in some cases, it’s even more than Six Sigma!
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Six Sigma Will Make Us Start All Over Again with Something Different
You’ll often hear Six Sigma devotees using the common refrain “You’ll never do things the same again.” Because of this viewpoint — and because of the natural fear of change — the myth emerged that a Six Sigma implementation causes people to abandon everything and start all over again. Of course, Six Sigma doesn’t do that. You won’t find a more effective way to grind an organization to a halt than to tell everyone to stop doing what he or she is doing!
In fact, Six Sigma isn’t about stopping whatyou’re doing; it’s about changing how you’re doing it. The Six Sigma initiative helps you do what you’re doing now, but more efficiently and effectively. Incremental change is self-perpetuating because project improvements result in measurable gains in performance, which feed more improve- ments, and so on.
Six Sigma Stifles Creativity
One of the biggest mistaken impressions about Six Sigma is that it stifles creativity and only works for high-volume repetitive processes, such as manufacturing, where consis- tency is most critical. This myth emerged because of the way Motorola first applied it — in volume manufacturing. But Six Sigma, which attacks the root cause of any problem, improves outcomes by improving processes. Any processes. Creative processes such as marketing and design are processes just as manufacturing and production are processes. And so are transaction processes, such as billing or procurement. And any such process — creative processes included — can be characterized, analyzed, and improved.
Modeling Processes Is Too Complicated and Doesn’t Go Anywhere
Didn’t it all somehow seem easier when you scribbled process models on the back of a napkin or on a white board — all those little boxes with arrows depicting functions and information flowing between them? Your informal scribblings certainly enabled the discussion in the moment.
However, process modeling became more formalized when you started drawing the functions and flows using computer tools, such as PowerPoint or Visio. The models were shareable and the presentations looked downright spiffy. But, true process mod- eling requires so much more rigor than just drawing pictures, and the effort level for drawing pictures was always just too much work. So, for a long time, as important as it was, process modeling seemed too complicated, and as a result, it was rarely used.
That’s all changed now. The new era of tools, such as iGrafx, enables true process modeling and is a key enabler in a core activity in Six Sigma: the definition and analysis of processes.
Six Sigma Is Another “Program of the Month”
You’ve heard it countless times: The initiative launched with great fanfare and then quietly died after it failed to live up to initial expectations. Quality initiatives, market- ing initiatives, new product initiatives, efficiency initiatives — and the managers who announced them — all here today and gone tomorrow. Why should Six Sigma be any different?
What makes a Six Sigma initiative so different is the prescriptive nature of the deploy- ment. Unlike many initiatives in the past, which meant well, but had little deployment fidelity, a Six Sigma initiative has a thorough script, where everyone’s roles and actions in the deployment are defined and known. Not only does this help the initiative suc- ceed on its own, but it also helps the senior managers understand what their role is and how to fuel the initiative going forward. This rigorous deployment definition is why Six Sigma initiatives in major corporations like GE and Honeywell not only began strong, but also have continued — well past the honeymoon phase and well beyond the tenure of the executives and managers who first announced them.
Six Sigma Is Just a Quick-hit, Cost-Reduction Initiative
Most companies today have committed leadership and are governed by principles and values that better balance short-term opportunities with long-term vision. As a result, most Six Sigma initiatives now create a culture of improvement that continues to pro- duce gains and values for years. Companies like Motorola and Honeywell have Six Sigma initiatives that have lasted well over a decade and continue as strong as ever.
Six Sigma Is Too Onerous and Prescriptive
Does this sound familiar: “We’re different and we have our own way of doing things — and our unique style is what makes us special and competitive in our industry. We’re flexible and individualistic. Bringing in the Six Sigma standardized approach to doing things will wipe out our uniqueness. We’ll be just like everyone else and lose our edge.”
Some people consider the Six Sigma training onerous because of the rigorous nature of the curricula and projects. And, yes, the deployment framework is clearly prescriptive, in that it formally defines the roles and activities in the leadership and knowledge transfer. But the Six Sigma formula is a toolbox and application knowledge set. It’s a language and communication framework.
You Can’t Implement Six Sigma Yourself
The perpetuated myth has been that Six Sigma is too heady, too difficult, too trouble- some, and too dangerous to implement by yourself. The people who want you to believe that myth want you to think that without a group of consultants to assist you at every step, performing your training and overseeing your projects, you’re doomed to failure.
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Given the title of this workbook, you can probably guess that this myth is wrong: You canimplement Six Sigma yourself! First of all, Six Sigma isn’t rocket science — yes, you will have to figure some statistics, to be sure, but nothing over the heads of your top staff. Second, the extensive body of experience across the industry has led to stan- dardization and repeatability in the methods and approaches. Third, Six Sigma is now well-supported, with hundreds of books and guides, dozens of conferences and sym- posia, considerable online resources, standardized training curricula, and more.
The Six Sigma Approach Is Way Too Expensive and Disruptive
The training can be as inexpensive or as extensive as you want, and the implementa- tions can be as rigorous or as informal as you like. And while these choices may be dif- ficult, at least now you have them — Six Sigma teams never used to have the choices you do today.
On the cost front, the intellectual capital of Six Sigma can be bought and applied more inexpensively and seamlessly than ever. It need not be expensive. The training materi- als can be purchased from any number of providers — even on eBay! Most training can be conducted online, which eliminates the time and expense of classroom train- ing. Trainers are prevalent and you can contract with them or even hire them outright to insource your training. Boutique mentors and facilitators can guide you through the implementation.
If You’re Not Doing Black Belt Projects, You’re Not Really Doing Six Sigma
We’ve saved one of the biggest Six Sigma myths for last. This myth is perpetuated on several fronts:
By trainers who overtrain because they make their money based on training days By purists and academicians who make their mark in esoterica
By those Black Belts who have been put on a pedestal and consider anything less to be inferior
Mostly, this myth is perpetuated on these fronts because Black Belt projects have always had their place in Six Sigma — that’s simply the way it has always been done.
This notion that you have to do Black Belt projects or none at all is absurd for many reasons. Most directly, the majority of an organization’s challenges simply don’t require a Black Belt level of analysis to solve. (For that matter, many don’t require any Belt level of analysis to solve!) Only a very small percentage of the problems are this serious. If you’re solving real business problems by using Six Sigma tools and tech- niques at a lower level than Black Belt, you’re still doing Six Sigma.