How does Six Sigma differ from past management initiatives?
Past initiatives contain a great deal that is useful, but they usually fail for specific reasons, including: • Lack of executive leadership. Management fails to demonstrate its commitment through deeds. Successes are won by innovative mid-level managers, but matters soon grind to a halt without active leadership from the top. • Failure to deploy. Good results are initially obtained through launch enthusiasm and mentored training, but no process is embedded to keep the efforts going or expand them into other departments. • Seeking shortcuts. Successful pioneer companies develop programs over the long term that incorporate many interlocking elements. Success inspires imitation, but the next generation of companies often tries to emulate the success without the hard work. They may adopt only some elements of the successful pioneer program (or even only the name) hoping for instant success. • Inadequate measurement. In some initiatives, there is no way to properly measure status or progres
Six Sigma incorporates the successful elements of past initiatives and adds something more. There is a measure—Sigma Performance—that evaluates processes based on their ability to meet customer requirements. There are strategies for all three phases of management—process (re)design, process management, and process improvement. There are toolkits of tactics and qualitative and quantitative methods for each strategy.
