Feds may unleash Six Sigma on Terrorism

USA Today ^ | 10/30/2002 | Del Jones

[VaBthang4]

"More bullshit "Think outisde the box" and "New paradigm" bullshit? Management should be less cultish and more based on sound analysis and evaluation."

Funny...I was thinking that posting on FR should be less cultish and more based on sound analysis and evaluation.

~Grin~

[VaBthang4]

"Well, the part of GE I used to work for (before they laid me off, I mean)"

What part of GE was that?

[MattinNJ]

Guys who sit around and think things like this up make me realize that, in the game of life, I'm not playing Jeopardy, I'm really playing Wheel of Fortune.

[VaBthang4]

Did not understand that one bit.

[MattinNJ]

I was trying to imply that people that are as smart as the inventors of this system make my intelligence pale in comparison.

[OKSooner]

Sounds like something that some fascist CEO might use once a year or so as an excuse to decimate the employees of a perfectly healthy corporation to me...

[Cobra Scott]

Fact of the matter is, no quality assurance process will do one bit of good until "quality assurance" is actually defined.

But to do that would require a manager with actual cojones, not unlike the same elusive characteristics lacking in our federal government.

I walked out of the 6s group in front of the CEO, the Executive VP, my director and our client's top brass. The client then chastised the company for not hiring more people like me instead of the Nigerian 6s "expert" who kept droning on and on. Sometimes it pays to be brutally honest.

[Orbiting_Rosie's_Head]

And before Six Sigma there was TQM, and before that.... There's always another catchword that's going to save the world, the only thing that stays the same are the little lego kits they make you put together during the group grope sessions where they introduce this crap!

I'm with you on that! I fondly remember the defense contractor I worked for years ago and their drive towards "TQM". We referred to it as "Totally Questionable Management". It was summarized one day during a big fanfare meeting wherein they rolled out the glorious new era, passing out coffee mugs to all in attendance. The "TQM" logos were printed on the mugs crooked....

[Bobby777]

you should have said ... pick "cheap and fast" or pick "good" ... that's the only real combination to the options you posted (which was your intention anyway) ...

[LTCJ]

Cheap Fast Good
Pick two

One of the first applications I made of "Desktop Publishing" was to produce a sign for my office wall with the above saying.

That's when I learned the pen is mighty likely to really tick off middle management.

[swarthyguy]

For intelligence work; where judgement, intuition and support from your superiors means everything? How does a good FBI/Intel guy benefit from this stuff. Streamline a process for designing chips or to evaluate the risks in financing a project, but for intel?

Would Louis Freeh have been a better director if he had this program?

[Rate_Determining_Step]

Do it online and in real-time... :)

I remember talking to some dweeb who demanded that our software be ISO900x or whatever.

I said, "WTF! Can you find any stuff that does what ours does?!" "Uhhh no" "Can you write this kind of software?!" "Uhhh no" "So you're telling us that software we pioneered and continue to innovate could be made better by filling out a bunch of forms?" "Uhhhhh"

"click!"

[bvw]

More analytic and avaluating ... Except for "That which you do not wish to hear."

Process, procedure, over-focus on method makes for deafness. Ask any good piano player.

[LTCJ]

The first buzzword of this nature that I recall was "Zero Defects" back in the 70s.

Ha! Remember the Zero Defects rallies? I went to one where - honest to goodness - they handed out pencils emblazoned with "Zero Deflects". They were complete with erasers. Erasers which broke off the first time you tried to use them.

That day I stopped being a wide-eyed college graduate new-hire and became a bemused observer of professional management.

Still have that pencil somewhere. I really need to mount it in a shadowbox.

[Cobra Scott]

Sounds like something that some fascist CEO might use once a year or so as an excuse to decimate the employees of a perfectly healthy corporation to me...

The reality is that they will use it as justification for failure by claiming that it is a "statistical success".

3000+ lives lost in one terrorist attack will be easy to define as "an acceptable loss of life" if they compare the number of victims to the number of cigarettes manufactured in one year, or any equally unimportant statistic. Unfortunately, these definitions are always arbitrary, by the very nature of process definition. The idea that you should "strive for perfection" is replaced by the lame excuse "it could be worse".

[bvw]

Let me tell you something.

On FR you have always come across to me, at least, as a person who wants to hear, see, smell, touch, or otherwise sense only those parts of All Creation he feels to be in line with his current views and understanding, and to deny, denigrate, refuse and ignore all else. This is the circumstance of many, of all to some extent and in some times, we are limited, we seek solace in the known and already comfortable.

If that is the case ... and my read on you, is subject to all the lousy and clouding factors relating to anyone at such a remove is -- therefore it could be far from the mark, as such reads oft are ... then wake up, open up, look around before you paint yourself too far into a corner.

[tm22721]

GE's strength is its brandname, not Six Sigma. I speak from 20+ years experience in middle management.

Outside of manufacturing yields, Six Sigma is mostly useless unless you want to turn into a full time statistician and crank numbers all day.

Six Sigma projects at GE tend to be makework projects for those in Engineering, Sales and Marketing.

BUMP

[bribriagain]

I'm not sure what you just said...did you just tell 4Bang to go to Hell?

[bvw]

Just that he should be aware of those things he should be aware that such movements in management by coloring in the numbers as Six Sigma, TQM, etcetera etcetera have been used to make hells for many.

That is what everyone speaking in this thread in objection to the boosterism of procedure that the original poster has made here. People, and respect for people's hard work, acheivements from that work and close insights, wisdom, and natural gifts comes first, before process, procedure. Invert that, and you have made a hell.

[swarthyguy]

Stop substituting process for judgement.

Everybody then spends their time wondering how the progress chart looks instead of the end result of the project.

"I don't know why it broke, we followed all the procedures."