Archive for October 20th, 2008
When Lean and Six Sigma Don’t Work
Someone on LinkedIn recently asked the question “Are there examples of processes where the concept of Lean, the philosophy of Six Sigma, or other quality tools don’t work?”
Fortunately, there have been plenty of researchers who have asked this question already, and one in particular that I want to summarize. With that said, a persistent in theme in the management and quality management academic literature over the past several years has been to study the conditions under which quality management practices “work”. To me, “working” means that the return on investment (ROI) has been worthwhile – doing the project yielded more benefits than not doing the project. For all of the bottom-line success stories from TQM implementations particularly in the 1980’s and early 1990’s, and Six Sigma from the 1990’s until present, there are a substantial number of “failed projects” that didn’t deliver on their promises.
My favorite overview was written by Benner & Tushman (2003) in the Academy of Management Review. By reviewing the conclusions from tens of other academic articles, they found that “in stable, technologically certain settings these practices may be productive, [but] in uncertain or technically complex contexts these practices may be quite counterproductive.” That is, the more rapidly the competitive environment is changing, the more risk is associated with deriving benefits from a quality management/process improvement initiative.
- Slowly changing competitive environment = Better success with quality initiatives
- Rapidly changing competitive environment = Less success with quality initiatives
Granted, this isn’t a complete conclusion, because the skill and style of the process improvement team can impact its potential for success. But it does provide support for the notion that a company should consider the competitive environment as it sets its own expectations for what a process management initiative can deliver.
Benner, M.J. & Tushman, M.L. (2003). Exploitation, exploration, and process management: the productivity dilemma revisited. Academy of Management Review, 28(2), 238-256.
