Too often, practitioners of Six Sigma rely on statistical tools and analyses as the foundation of their toolkit. While I am a big believer in data-based decision making, I often find myself facing internal customers – folks who run the day to day business – presenting slide after slide on heavy duty statistical analyses ranging from the simple Chi Square test for statistical significance to full fledged DOEs and ANOVAs. In this context, the writeup by Downard provides a much-needed, albeit unpopular, perspective…

Once again, Seth Godin provides an important perspective; this time, on Quality: Traveling yesterday, I realized that there are two popular strategies for service delivery. One is a coping strategy and one is a marketing strategy. You can deliver the lowest permitted amount, or you can work to create the most remarkable experience you can imagine…

McNerney was the first outsider to lead the insular St. Paul company in its 100-year history. He had barely stepped off the plane before he announced he would change the DNA of the place. His playbook was vintage GE. McNerney axed 8,000 workers (about 11% of the workforce), intensified the performance-review process, and tightened the purse strings at a company that had become a profligate spender. He also imported GE’s vaunted Six Sigma program — series of management techniques designed to decrease production defects and increase efficiency… Could Six Sigma and Innovation go hand in hand? Would it ever work?!

Many moons ago, I blogged about the Quest for Quality, and how I was most excited about the prospect of working on a Six Sigma project as a Green Belt! The following year, my work also offered me the opportunity to champion another Six Sigma project – this time as a Black Belt! That meant more than 20 days of training, spread over 4-5 months, and mentoring a project with a colleague of mine. I learn a lot along the way… honed my skills in Six Sigma, built up a whole new vocabulary, sharpened my problem-solving skills. Now, it’s that time of the year – all over again! I have moved to a new role… That means I will now work on Six Sigma projects all day, every day!!!

A friend of mine – Satish – forwarded me an email on “How the Indian Industry is managing quality?” : Exactness is the starting block of quality. It requires that each company pursuing quality practises daily work management. Exactness of operations comes through exactness in man, method, material, machine and environment. These conditions must be exact enough to achieve daily targets consistently…

In an effort to better understand the nuances of SixSigma, I’m going through a book called “The Six Sigma Way” by Pande, Neuman and Cavanagh. It’s a well-written book and offers a good insight into the methodologies of Six Sigma and their application in industry. Here’s an interesting extract on the difference between “99% success” and “SixSigma success”…

At work, so much of my time is spent in meetings with others that involve group discussions on subjects where each of us is a stakeholder but not necessarily affected in the same way (or amount) by the outcome. As I go through these meetings, I can’t help but wonder what are the skills, if any, that may be regarded as “critical” to smart working…

Eight years ago, while I was still in business school, I read a book that changed my perspective forever. It was called : The Machine That Changed The World. The line of work I chose on graduation, did not offer the opportunity to put the principles of Lean Thinking to operational use, in the workshop/production sense of the term. But since that day, I have always cherished the pursuit of ‘Quality’, and strived for minimal wastage, in whatever task I undertook. The pursuit of Excellence has been a continuous journey…