I’ve been pleased to see so many organizations embrace a robust approach to quality improvement through methods like Lean and Six Sigma. There are indeed some detractors out there, but for the most part these are people that have observed failed deployments of quality initiatives. It is not uncommon for people to blame the improvement method when in fact it was the execution of that method that was flawed. The corporate graveyard is littered with examples of companies that thought they could take a pill and learn everything there is to know about implementing Lean or Six Sigma. As veterans know, it’s not that simple.
I recently put to my colleagues a simple, one-question survey: “Is it the Method or Execution to blame when quality improvement methodologies like Lean and Six Sigma do not produce the desired result?” Ninety-two percent of responses blamed the execution. But 8% still blamed the method! Clearly, we have some work to do with those that continue to deny the potential of data-centric decision-making.