PRH Consulting Blog

A recent article in ISPI’s March 17th ”Performance Digest” by Stephen Baker (originally published in Business Week) about HR data-mining described a company that built a program to sift through employee-generated data to generate graphic representations of how much value individual employees add to the enterprise.  The premise is that this brings a scientific and rationale approach to managing people. “‘You have to bring the same rigor you bring to operations and finance to the analysis of people,’ says Rupert Bader, director of workforce planning at Microsoft.”

As far as I can tell, one of the tools looks at how many meetings the individual has with other employees and then generates a chart with circles around each employee. The bigger and darker the circle, the more value they add. When it’s layoff time, look at the small/light-colored circle employees. The article describes the chart as looking “like colorful pop-art doughnuts flying through space.”

There has to be more to it than that…doesn’t there? Or, is this just one more example of how someone is substituting the use of a computer algorithm processing available data for thinking and judgement using information?

Part of this has to be well-intentioned. Managers today are overwhelmed with tasks and information. So, if a computer can “crunch” something easily and spit out an answer, it has a certain appeal. And it feels objective. But it misses the point.

One place the program searches is calendars. First of all, why assume that the employee with lots of meetings is more valuable than one that isn’t? Maybe there are valuable employees, such as engineers and researchers, who are working on developing new products and really don’t meet that much? I would argue that new product development is usually more “value-add” than 90% of the meetings that happen in corporations. Let’s face it…there are a lot of meetings that are held only because they were scheduled. Or meetings where nothing gets resolved so another meeting is scheduled. Then, the first 20 minutes of the follow-up meeting is spent revisiting what happened at the previous meeting because everyone wasn’t there (and even those that were don’t remember what was decided)!

Another factor the tool considers is communications (e.g., emails and documents) generated by employees. The idea is to find terms or phrases that recur and figure out who started them. Basically, who gets quoted. The employees that start the most memes are apparently considered the ”thought leaders.”

Maybe. Or maybe people just forward and copy stuff to others because they don’t have time to think things through. I can’t count the number of times someone sent me an email I didn’t need. Or that didn’t really answer the question I asked–but the email gave the responder the illusion that they “handled it.”

I also can’t count the number of times I have been annoyed at people who spend all day talking and emailing and not PRODUCING ANYTHING!!! (But, that was before I realized that they were thought leaders…)

The article does point out that this approach misses the non-electronic work and communication. This is a serious issue–it is just way too easy to assume everything important that happens is digital. It isn’t. Digital just means it is easy to store and track data equivalent to mountains of paper. But conversations, white board/chalk-talks, and other in-person forums are also ways that real thought-leaders influence others.

What seems the strangest tacit assumption is that the ideas and, in particular, words are the most valuable contribution an employee can make to an enterprise. Actual work output may be other than words…those things would not be counted. And that would give you a skewed answer. Words are often not the best way to transfer ideas. Sometimes a demonstration or picture is better. And lot’s of ideas amount to no actual value at all. Sometimes they are a distraction! But at best, they require the 99% perspiration before any value is realized.

You have to wonder if part of the reason our economy is struggling is that we no longer value work–instead we value the bright idea that allows someone to strike it rich and coast.

One thing I thought was interesting was the idea of tracking employee skills and experience. I’ve seen that attempted before and, without a structure (i.e., categorization scheme or taxonomy) the result was an un-manageable mess. And with a structure, it gets too complicated for most people to tolerate it. And it isn’t really logical to assume that the skills people needed in the past will help identify skills needed in the future. Though, I could see where trends could give you a view of growing vs. declining needs. And it definitely makes sense as a way to manage the inventory…that is, what the organization may be at risk of running short of in the future. But that assumes an intelligent management team understanding what capabilities we will need down the road.

Somehow, we need to tame our fascination with IT and digital information. They are tools that we can leverage to get work done…not an end in themselves.

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A phenomenon I (and others) have noticed is that the first person to come up with a new idea almost never gets the credit for it. Instead it is someone who says the same thing later. If you don’t believe me, try an experiment.

If you doubt this, watch people in a meeting and pay attention to who makes which suggestions. Then, after the meeting, ask others who came up with the winning suggestion–I would expect it not to be the first person at least 80% of the time.

This happens, I believe, for two reasons. 1) If the initial suggester is really coming up with a new idea, that means nobody is familiar with it. The idea may require thinking about things differently, and even changing existing assumptions, processes, etc. So, they may be too tentative…they may assume that their idea is too obvious…”There must be some reason nobody has thought of trying this already…” So they put something out there gently as a suggestion or even a question to “test the waters” rather than declaratively to avoid looking foolish. And, nobody notices.

2) People hearing a new idea take time to process it. Normal thinking patterns are hard to change. If something that doesn’t fit the norm pops up, your first instinct is to dismiss it. But your brain keeps trying to reconcile the dissonance in the background. And that may result in an unnoticed change in thinking. When somebody else mentions the new idea again (i.e., the second person) everyone is now more ready to hear and process it. BUT, they all think the second person had the idea because they didn’t notice the first one.

The challenge is how to manage and credit ideas in our current world where more often than not, intellectual property is a primary source of wealth creation. Yet, more and more products are “mashups” where multiple existing ideas are put together for new applications. Who owns it? How would you know?

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I was recently quoted, by Hwan Young Jang in the July 08 issue of Performance Improvement about whether HPT (referring to “Human Performance Technology”) should lose the H and just become PT. Mr. Jang referred to my position as “reactive and conservative” because I think we need to keep the H.

A cogent version of my response will be published in the PI Journal in March as a commentary. This post provides some additional supporting information and, admittedly, rambles a little bit more.

What Does the “H” Refer To?

Before you can decide whether you need an “H,” you need to know what the “H” refers to…the root cause, the solution, the focus? I’m thinking the “H” refers to improving the human work…things that are driven by individual performance (whether part of a process, organization, culture, etc.). 

Some business results can be improved that have nothing to do with human capability. For example, when Southwest offered lower fares because they speculated on fuel futures (and “won”) can they claim superior human performance? Well, their fuel purchasers performed well. Is this the kind of thing a “Certified Performance Technologist” would be tasked with? Was their performance based on skill? Is it repeatable? Was it driven by economic factors? Was it just taking advantage of an opportunity (which is good but, again, not repeatable)?

Key: Most HPT consultants tend to target repeated performance (such as business processes) because then the benefits of any improvements are accrued over time.

Another factor is the size of the audience. If lots of employees are doing something and you can improve the performance of most of them, you will get a bigger bump. But, in today’s business environment, where know-how is often highly leveraged, that may be the wrong way to look at it…there may well be small groups of performers (knowledge workers) who have a disproportionate impact on results.

Another complicating factor is the technical complexity of the performance. Some jobs just aren’t improveable by the non-expert. One example is the CEO’s performance–unless he or she wants coaching, you probably aren’t going to be “skilling them up.” Another example is a chemist who creates molecules for development into medicines. There are things about their performance that can be improved by an HPT approach. But the majority of things are outside our capability.

So, most situations require some thinking to decide if they are “in-bounds” or “out-of-bounds” for an HPT consultant. Picking the supplier for a given part is a one-time performance. But if we repeatedly select poor suppliers across a number of products, this may be an opportunity to analyze the “H” components (e.g., the process, tools, measures) and find causes and develop solutions to improve the repeated human performance.

Big Q or Little Q?

H or no H? This is not unlike the decision that the quality discipline faced a few years back—“big Q or little q?” Clearly, quality control was “in bounds” for quality. That was “little q”—the narrow definition. But if understanding customer needs impacts quality, then customer needs should be under the quality umbrella—and now we are on the way to “big Q.” If employee satisfaction impacts quality, then employee satisfaction should be part of quality.

It is hard to argue with a logical application of principals that work. But you do lose some clarity when you pull back the focus to far. Following this reasoning, ultimately anything needed to be done to run a business in a smart, effective manner becomes part of quality. Seems a little over the top.

It is a good insight though—everything is integrated, everything affects everything else. We shouldn’t wear HPT blinders to the extent that we don’t see the value of other disciplines in our client/employer companies. This is why I think the focus during analysis should be broad. But, when it comes time for solutions, we need specialists to implement.

Doesn’t the “H” Limit Us?

Specifically, does “keeping the H” mean we don’t worry about business results? Does it mean that we only care about individual performance? No, it absolutely does NOT mean that! We should be improving human performance because we are trying to improve a business result. We should be targeting the performance of the organization. If the intervention ends up being targeted at individuals (e.g., training) then fine. But if we can build a tool or change the process and address more of the problem/organization more quickly, we should. Still, it is all about “human” performance.

Example: Chemical Manufacturing
Imagine a scenario where demand for a given chemical compound is growing. Based on the business plan and sales forecasts, the production line is asked to increase their output for the following year. But, they are already working at pretty close to full capacity.

Perhaps, we can find ways of improving the human performance and improving yield somehow. Maybe the steps could be performed more efficiently. Maybe there are ways of reducing waste due to operator mistakes. It would take some analysis to find these things but that feels like “HPT” work.

On the other hand, it is possible that increasing the temperature or agitation speed or changing the reagent at a certain point in the process will speed up the reaction and we can improve throughput that way. Or, maybe we could replace a tank with a larger or more efficient type that would increase output. Hmmm. This seems like a chemical engineering problem and not something the majority of CPTs are qualified to take on. I would say this is “non-H.”

By the way, this same logic can work for any field of engineering. For example, if you need improve computer transaction speed, you could look at the human-related processes and find ways to speed up data-entry, etc. But, if you are considering different network equipment or more servers, you need a computer engineer.  Or, if you need to reduce fuel consumption on a commercial airliner, you could look at human performance, i.e., things individual pilots can do to save fuel. But if you want to reduce drag on the airplane, you need an aeronautical engineer. Etc.

Why Does the H Matter? Ultimately, the “H” only matters if it helps other people understand what we do. It is part of our “brand.” If it confuses people, we should elimiunate it. But if eliminating it creates more confusion, we should keep it. I think there is a risk that calling ourselves “Performance Technologists” will provide no information to anyone outside of our field who hears it. Let’s keep the “H.”

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The goal is to figure out how to eliminate or minimize “Category 1 Tasks,” that is, things that you have to do, but don’t want to do…or maybe a better way to say it is “but wouldn’t do if you didn’t have to.” 

Examples of Category 1 Tasks include things like

- Laundry
- Shopping
- Paying bills
- Errands
- Cooking (usually)
- Chores (e.g., cleaning the house, mowing the lawn, weeding the garden)
- Routine work (for me, the non-creative stuff like sending out invoices, cranking out documents, arranging travel, making revisions, etc.)
- Helping other people do things…okay, this one can be on the border between 1 and 2.

The question is, how can we reduce these things without getting in trouble? Our choices for dealing with Category 1 tasks would logically appear to be

Options for Getting Rid of Them

1. Delegate them
2. Obselete them
3. Avoid them by not committing to them in the first place
4. Avoid them by just not doing them

Options for Minimizing Them

1. Figure out how to do them faster
2. Figure out how to automate them
3. Figure out how to do them less frequently

These all sound good in theory…but really, how do you do it?

Options for Getting Rid of Them

1. Delegate them–Not always an option, especially for personal tasks. Still, there are probably things that could be handed-off to kids, businesses, lower-cost resources. The office manager where I worked years ago used the rule “if it is recurring work, such as cleaning the house, mowing the lawn, etc., delegate it. If it is a project, i.e., has a defined beginning and end, then do it yourself.”

The downside of delegating is that you have to be willing to give up some level of control. And, you won’t be able to completely delegate, that is, you won’t be able to hand it off, walk away, and never think about it again. Finally, it can help to “look micro.” Maybe you can’t have the kids do the laundry but you can have them fold clothes, put things away.

2. Obselete them–Here is where technology can maybe work or maybe it actually add work instead. Paying bills on-line saves lots of minutes writing checks and addressing envelopes. (But in some cases, it may still be faster to balance your checkbook using the paper statement.)

Quite often, the tried and true “time and motion” study can help you really understand the work and where your time is really going. This method will work well if used for a number of household tasks. Like anything, you have to observe the work closely for a little while to be able to find opportunities for improvement (and to see where you are doing things just because you are used to doing them).

3. Avoid them by not committing to them in the first place.

There are always those opportunities to take on new responsibilities. That committee you are asked to join. That volunteer activity that you are uniquely qualified for. They may be fun at first but it is important to be careful with commitments. Often it seems like the time commitment is minor. But, when things get going, they tend to expand rather than contract.

4. Avoid them by just not doing them

Well, #4 is a non-issue. By definition, if it is something you have to do, you don’t have the option to avoid it. For example, paying taxes. You can try to just not pay them but sooner or later, it will come back to bite you. Same with not mowing the lawn or maintaining the house…in these situations, it is usually pay me some now or lots later.

OK, what about at least reducing the drain on your time?

1. Figure out how to do them faster.

This is another case where technology can help. But another, low-tech approach is simply to avoid peak traffic. Going to the home improvement (or grocery) store on Saturday takes a lot longer than during the week. If your lunch hour is flexible, you can probably get rid of a lot of miscellaneous errands by doing them at 11am on a Tuesday. It is probably too obvious to mention that making a list is important. Obviously, a list will help prevent having to go back for things you forgot. But, I find that a list also helps me to focus–just get what I can for and go with no distractions or trying to remember “is that everything?”

Another low-tech approach is to understand your personal energy level at different times during the day. For me, writing is much easier before noon. After noon, or even worse, after dinner, is no time for me to do something that requires mental energy. But if I do something active, I can get quite a bit done. (This is partly why I think facilitating meetings works better when you use a flipchart instead of typing on a computer–the movement, even though not extreme, generates energy.)

2.  Figure out how to automate them. By automate, I mean get them done with no effort…you don’t have to remember or do anything. About the only thing in that category that comes to mind is the auto-bill paying function many banks offer.

3.  Figure out how to do them less frequently. We have found significant time savings in managing our grocery shopping process. We put together a weekly menu and, as a result, make fewer trips (ideally, just one) to the store.

Ultimately, it might just come down to continually pushing yourself to do things as quickly as possible. In the case of category 1 tasks, working at a leisurely pace to allow reflection and creativity is pointless. The only good thing about these tasks is getting them done and over with.

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Just a thought–people often complain about complexity. We don’t like complex instructions. We don’t like complex explanations when we want someone to do something for us. As a rule, we don’t like politicians to give us complex scenarios regarding the economy or foreign relations.

But, listening to sports fans discussing strategy during a game or professionals discussing their technology makes you wonder if our dislike for complexity is selective.

It is. Basically, we only dislike complexity when dealing with things we don’t care about. If you just want to turn on your new computer and start sending emails, you don’t want a complex set of steps for configuring everything. But, if you are a computer professional, it may not irritate you…you might even find it interesting.

Ultimately, for human performance professionals, the primary focus is your audience. When we are creating user instructions or designing a tool or process, we put a lot of effort into stripping out excess complexity. To the user, the task they are doing is what is of interest, not using your tool or process. If your tool/process works in the real situation, it will have had to address complexity but made it manageable. The end user should see it as a way to give them an advantage in doing their thing.

We’ve all seen solutions that are “simplistic.” (To say “too simplistic” is redundant–simplistic implies oversimplified.) Simplistic solutions don’t accommodate the complexity in the real world and, as a result, do not give the user any advantage in getting their task accomplished.

One of the key disciplines to develop as a human performance professional is the ability to deal with your master performers’ and subject experts’ enjoyment of the complexities of their domain. They probably won’t recognize it but they use tons of jargon, love to discuss esoteric details (things that are the exception, not the rule), and they DON’T like to explain the fundamentals. (They might like to talk about the importance of the fundamentals but they assume everyone knows what they are.)

So, we need to get acquainted with their world enough to understand their conversations but then also extract the basics that learners need.

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Tom Gilbert, in his book “Engineering Human Performance,” asserts that the purpose of performance improvement should be to generate leisure. It could be argued that this is the purpose of time management as well.

Unfortunately, the reality is that, because we exist in a competitive enviroment, any time that is freed up by performance improvement (or good time management) rarely ends up being available for leisure. (There is a lot of truth to the cliche that the reward for getting more work done is getting more work to do. Our neighbor used to say that all he got for working his fingers to the bone was bony fingers!) GTD (or any system) won’t change the way the planet operates.

Is there a way to win at this game? Here is the problem. I have always thought of my complete set of “things to do” as being broken into the following three categories.

1. Things I have to do

2. Things I ought to do

3. Things I want to do

My frustration comes when the things I have to do crowd out everything else. When I analyze it, I believe the ideal internal state is reached when you completely eliminate category 1. And, I don’t think I am alone. Consider what people say/do when they have enough money to make virtually any choice a feasible alternative. They hire assistants (to do the crud), they have things delivered (to avoid errands), they quit their jobs (to avoid selling their time), etc…all of which eliminates or minimizes category #1.

The GTD method is great for making sure you don’t miss anything in category #1 but it actually seems that, by being more rigorous, you actually find more category #1 stuff to do!! (Technically, that’s probably wrong…but it feels that way.)

Since most of us will never become completely free of category #1, the key to getting to #2 and #3 stuff can only be to find ways to at least minimize category #1 tasks. Either by doing them faster or by eliminating them entirely, either through delegation or discontinuance. In process improvement terms, category #1 tasks are essentially non-value-added tasks. (They are a little different–they do need to be done–they just don’t provide much of a sense of accomplishment or meaning.) Next post we will look at ways of minimizing or eliminating category 1, stuff you have to do.

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One of the toughest decisions is whether to use paper or electronic tools for running meetings, managing to-do’s, even taking notes. Paper wins for speed, flexibility, and the ability to look at more of it at once…you can spread it out.

Electronic wins though for portability…and who doesn’t want to eliminate paper?

In general, we use paper for facilitating group work sessions because that is the only way to keep up. Using a computer to enter data creates a drag on the entire process, no matter how fluent the operator is. And it is next to impossible to facilitate the group if you have to look at the screen and think about your typing. And, by papering the walls, you have a visual point of reference to point to during the discussion as needed (as well as edit to incorporate later ideas).

For managing to-do’s, it is trickier. There are lots of good task management programs and, by using the computer (e.g., Outlook, Vitalist, etc.) you avoid having to re-write the same items when you cross off most of them but still have a few left. And you can sort by due date, by project, by context (e.g., calls, errands, office, internet, etc.). And, many of the programs work on your cellphone as well as your computer, so you have the information available at pretty much all times.

The most subtle challenge may be in creating output. I have gotten fairly fluent with the mainstream Microsoft Office Suite but somehow it is hard to create the first version of something using the computer. When I need to move quickly, handwriting the original and then having someone enter the data works the best…even if I have to tweak every page.

Probably the root question is organization. When creating output, you need to be able to capture and massage ideas as they are generated…which is not always the final sequence. Paper allows you to jump around, easily go back and make changes, get the gist of the content documented without bogging down to fix minor cosmetic details.

Finally, I had a client mention something I had never thought of…that the handwriten flipchart pages are more pleasant to look at! (Most of the production staff who have had the task of transcribing the data would probably disagree!) But maybe they are easier to look at than a computer or projector screen. Maybe the use of diagrams or multiple colors used make it easier to read/consume the information.

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Well actually, GTD is great. (GTD is a personal productivity system by David Allen…sort of like time management for the internet age.) I bought the book on CD and have listened to it multiple times. (Partly because one hearing was not enough–it is hard to grasp this kind of information by listening–but also because the information was useful.) I have implemented a bunch of the ideas.

But the very first listen flagged a problem for me and it still nags at me. The presumption is that we really can’t control how we spend our time (or, in GTD parlance, the actions we perform). Again, the system works pretty well because capturing everything makes it all visible and then you can “intuitively” make a decision “in the moment” about what you will actually work on. But it seems like this approach still puts you at the mercy of demands and requirements that you can’t control. Which, in many ways, is real. But that is the crux of why people want time management systems in the first place. So they can get out from under outside demands that cause stress and take you away from getting your goals met.

Ultimately, the danger of deciding “in the moment” and “renegotiating commitments” when we can’t meet them is that deadlines get missed. When you don’t plan ALL the steps you need to take to get you to the finish line, you are building in guaranteed future slippage. If everyone is overbooked and only worries about the next action, the entire organization will eventually grind to a halt when they look up at the deadline and only have half the actions completed.

In the end, the only options still end up with us needing to either do things faster or to do fewer things. The key is not to continuously renegotiate commitments (like an endless chain of continuances in a court case) but to make them more carefully in the first place. Ultimately, it means the job of leadership is to provide focus and to exclude unproductive activity so that the time and energy can be applied to meeting the organization’s goals. This is difficult. It is risky. But it is vitally important work that only leadership can do.

Disclaimer: David Allen does talk about project planning and commitment management. I’m pretty sure his focus on the next action is really a strategy to get people to stop talking about things and start doing them. We’ve all been in (usually large) companies where meetings are endless discussion of big picture ideas with little specific next steps to move things forward.

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It is much easier to do something well when nobody is bugging you…isn’t it? Look at Rex Grossman, Bears (sometime) quarterback. Every mistake he makes is analyzed in the media until I would have to imagine he can’t do anything without second-guessing himself. If you watch other teams play, it turns out their quarterbacks throw interceptions and fumble occasionally as well.

On the other hand, if there is no oversight and no competition, it often creates an environment that performs horribly. The stereotype is the government office or monopoly business where you wait in interminable lines only to be told when you get to the window that you need a different form and to go wait in a different line.

Somewhere in the middle is probably the “sweet spot” for being both productive and supportive. This is really the challenge of line management. Too much competition and pressure leads to backstabbing, stealing credit for ideas, hoarding ideas, playing politics, and a host of things that make work a stressful nightmare for many.

But if every mistake is excused and management takes the blame for every problem (we didn’t provide good enough instructions, we didn’t plan well enough, they didn’t have access to the right information, responsibilities are unclear, etc.) performance degrades to the lowest common denominator.

Performance technology has a lot to say about pressure and performance.

For one thing, to perform effectively (which is the main point, true?) employees need to know what is expected, how it will be measured, and what will happen to them if they don’t meet or exceed expectations.

Another, the performers need access to the right environmental supports. The right tools. The information they need. Work processes that make sense.

And, the performers need to be capable of performing. They need to have the skills and knowledge they need to perform the tasks they are asked to execute.

If management can see that the above has been met, it seems fair for them to demand results. But they need to be within some subjective range of what is acceptable in the culture. In some workplaces, management can get in employees’ faces and in others that would be harassment. (I’m not advocating getting in people’s faces by the way.) But the culture is where fuzzy lines are drawn about how much pressure is enough and how much is too much. Some raises the bar. Too much frustrates and antagonizes employees.

At a call center we once worked with, there were hourly sales promotions where agents would push specific products and services and management would keep score. The highest-selling agents received points and prizes–very immediate feedback. But also an hourly re-set…if you did poorly in the morning, you still had a chance to win in the afternoon.

In a financial services business, security traders and trade processors have daily deadlines for completing trades and sending payment, etc. Failure to meet the deadline could result in fines to the business. Also, a high-pressure work setting. They normally get it done. Pressure, in this setting, results in performance.

Ultimately, it seems that pressure is a necessary evil. Creative and knowledge workers often lament deadlines and insufficient cycle time that “keep us from doing really do good work.” But, some of the best solutions we’ve come up with have been because we needed to…we had a deadline and, as a result, we were focussed, we eliminated distracting ideas quickly, and we found the shortest path. If you are a manager, ask yourself, are you applying the right amount of pressure in your organization to ensure performance?

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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 justs 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 participatns, 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.)
7. 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!!

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