6-Sigma vs. Innovation

I have two daughters. The youngest is 6-Sigma. The oldest is Innovation. I’m caught in the middle as mediator between the two as they whine and complain to have their own way. 6-Sigma wants everything in order, on time, and the same, day-in and day-out. Any change to the household drains her energy and makes her cranky. Innovation, on the other hand, lives for spontaneity, change, risk, and chasing birds. The routine of daily life saps her energy and leaves her feeling trapped. Both girls are necessary and desired parts of our families. Both girls provide something unique and cherished to our family. But how can I, as their father, enable them to coexist and thrive under the same roof?

When I arrive at work in the morning the same problem confronts me. 6-Sigma methodologies were adopted long before innovation was added to our corporate strategy (statement) and things were feeling pretty comfy, until “innovation” was added to the list of directives. The problem is that we try to manage “innovative” projects within the same old 6-Sigma methodologies. Why? Because the same 6-Sigma gurus within our company were charged with establishing an innovation methodology!

I recently participated as a technical consultant on an NPD team in which several technical hurdles remained to be overcome. Three months had elapsed since the technical problems were identified, but no progress had been made. All experiments had led to failure.

The team leader, a process engineer, decided we would continue to develop both the process and the manufacturing equipment at the same time (you know – concurrent engineering). We were well into Phases 1, 2, 3 and 4 of our phase gate process simultaneously. The official spin was that we were “going to continue making progress and allow the technical development to catch up”.

Let’s stand back and look at this pig for a minute. We were exposing ourselves to maximum risk and allocating maximum resources to a project which was ultimately doomed to fail because of technical infeasibility. How could we have done things differently?

• Establish a separate phase gate process for “fuzzy front end” projects. The existing NPD process likely doesn’t take into consideration the probability of failure.
• Put our technical resources on the highest risk issues first. Chip away at it until the technical risk is reduced to an acceptable level.
• Establish a point at which the FFE phase gate will lead into the NPD phase gate.
• Establish a better way for the conductor to hear the train passengers yelling for him to stop the train.

For some real help you should get the PDMA Toolbook 2 for New Product Development, published by John Wiley & Sons.

There are two times in a man's life when he should not speculate: when he can't
afford it, and when he can.

- Mark Twain: Following the Equator, Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar