Six Sigma And Other Business Management Fads That Should Die

AngelHedgie

Well, considering the rather...vocal hatred that several people exhibited towards Six Sigma in the chat thread, I was wondering - what business management fads do you all hate, and why?

Vincent Grayson

I dunno, but the talk of Six Sigma made me think of Maxx Barry's "Company", a fucking excellent book that somewhat addresses the absurdity of such things.

Target Practice

The fad of laying off massive numbers of workers to increase profits.

Irond Will

Add CMMI to the list. Dear lord what a cumbersome system.

Corlis

I have to confess that my co-op job is in the quality department of my office, so I'm part of the source of your problems

That said, we produce medical software, so if it isn't made properly and there are problems with it, we could very well cause somebody to die.

Irond Will

There's a clear need for QA and process improvement. The problem seems to me that organizations try to disperse the responsibility for this across the entire organization rather than hiring a few new people to really centrally drive the system. It's asinine to force every worker to shoulder the administrative burden of this shit.

AngelHedgie

Corlis wrote: »

I have to confess that my co-op job is in the quality department of my office, so I'm part of the source of your problems

I don't have a problem with QA - in fact, I support it wholeheartedly. What I hate are silly fads that are buzzword-laden and really don't solve the problem, while introducing new ones.

Corlis wrote: »

That said, we produce medical software, so if it isn't made properly and there are problems with it, we could very well cause somebody to die.

Amen. I believe that every CS student should learn about the Therac-25, and take that lesson to heart.

AngelHedgie

Personally, I detest rank 'n yank. Fastest way to destroy the cohesiveness of your company.

nexuscrawler

The entertainment industry needs to die

all of it

preferably with fire

Gooey

Anything having to do with "Boxes".

moniker

Target Practice wrote: »

The fad of laying off massive numbers of workers to increase profits.

Only when it's coupled with huge raises for the CEO and higher ups.


Also, nock it the hell off with trying to motivate me through shitty speakers and slogans and posters. I'm a worker, not an associated team project group member, and you're my boss. Pay me money and I'll be motivated to show up. If I'm having an average or good day I'll be motivated to be pleasent and/or friendly. If I'm having a shit day I'm probably going to be a little short with people. Seeing some guy running down a wooded lane isn't going to change any of that.

AngelHedgie

moniker wrote: »

Target Practice wrote: »

The fad of laying off massive numbers of workers to increase profits.

Only when it's coupled with huge raises for the CEO and higher ups.


Also, nock it the hell off with trying to motivate me through shitty speakers and slogans and posters. I'm a worker, not an associated team project group member, and you're my boss. Pay me money and I'll be motivated to show up. If I'm having an average or good day I'll be motivated to be pleasent and/or friendly. If I'm having a shit day I'm probably going to be a little short with people. Seeing some guy running down a wooded lane isn't going to change any of that.

This is why I like Demotivators. They're honest.

Veegeezee

Huh. I've always thought of three sigma / six sigma as a baseline for manufacturing reliability. I didn't realize it had graduated to the status of doctrine.

AngelHedgie

Veegeezee wrote: »

Huh. I've always thought of three sigma / six sigma as a baseline for manufacturing reliability. I didn't realize it had graduated to the status of doctrine.

It's well past doctrine. Some places, it's a full-blown religion.

Irond Will

God its horrible

Gooey

As far as QA goes - QA is a necessary part of business. All business products (everything from internal process to manufacturing to point of sale) need an appropreate amount of QA - but running everything though the Six Sigma grinder just because it's the hip trend is ridiculous.

I'm riding the line of derailing this thread already - People gripe about C_O compensation a lot it seems but frankly, a lot of them deserve it. Except when you post huge losses or something. Not many people would actually be able to sit at the helm of a major corporation, and if they're directly responsible for leading the company into huge profits, why not give them huge benifits?

LaOs

What is rank 'n yank?

Gooey

LaOs wrote: »

What is rank 'n yank?

Usually something along the lines of

Top 20% of workforce gets promoted
Middle 70% stays the same
Bottom 10% gets fired

every year.

Companies like Enron were famous for thier brutal use of this system.

AngelHedgie

Gooey wrote: »

As far as QA goes - QA is a necessary part of business. All business products (everything from internal process to manufacturing to point of sale) need an appropreate amount of QA - but running everything though the Six Sigma grinder just because it's the hip trend is ridiculous.

I'm riding the line of derailing this thread already - People gripe about C_O compensation a lot it seems but frankly, a lot of them deserve it. Except when you post huge losses or something. Not many people would actually be able to sit at the helm of a major corporation, and if they're directly responsible for leading the company into huge profits, why not give them huge benifits?

Well, the thing is that they're really not, except in a few cases (His Steveness comes to mind, here.) The other thing is a point that you've probably seen in a few other threads - inequality breeds contempt. When the CEO is making 400x what Joe Grunt is, well...it tends to make Joe Grunt disenchanted with the company. Combine it with some other things, and you can have a workforce that pretty much hates their employer.

Not healthy.

moniker

Gooey wrote: »

As far as QA goes - QA is a necessary part of business. All business products (everything from internal process to manufacturing to point of sale) need an appropreate amount of QA - but running everything though the Six Sigma grinder just because it's the hip trend is ridiculous.

I'm riding the line of derailing this thread already - People gripe about C_O compensation a lot it seems but frankly, a lot of them deserve it. Except when you post huge losses or something. Not many people would actually be able to sit at the helm of a major corporation, and if they're directly responsible for leading the company into huge profits, why not give them huge benifits?

Then there isn't an issue since it's well deserved. When the company just barely skirts the red or had to do massive layoffs and yet the CEO gets a new private jet because yay we didn't post a loss though, then it's out of whack. Plus, members of the board are the ones who get to make the decisions not shareholders or other people so it's got a bit of the nepotism stink attached to it.

Gooey

AngelHedgie wrote: »

Well, the thing is that they're really not, except in a few cases.

I tend to disagree. While a CEO's (or the top dog, however your org chart is arranged) job may not be directly linked to work deliverables, thier business decisions/goals are what turns the boat in the right direction, so to speak. While there are many undeserving execs in corporate America, there are many deserving ones. The real problem is that your average Joe worker is so far disconnected from the top management in a company that he says to himself "I work 80 hours a week, and I've never seen President Joe Smith walk our floor. He must be taking off early and playing golf." Which simply isn't true. The fact of the matter is that most execs work more than anyone else on average, and are in a much higher stress position to boot. Let's face it. I'm in charge of a few people at work, but if I make a bad decision, it's really not a big deal. If I'm in charge of everyone at work, and I make a bad decision, it can put us out of business. Unfortunately, the only execs who get any press are the ones cheating thier companies out of money or laying off employees so they can get a raise and stay in the black or whatever else immoral.

Edit - In my opinion, transparency in management is a key to successfully running a company. For instance - if you're being forced to do lay offs, and you know in advance, letting your employees know what's coming a few months down the pipe might make them work harder and get to keep thier jobs or at least make preperations for unemployment.

AngelHedgie

LaOs wrote: »

What is rank 'n yank?

It's a system of weeding out the deadwood from an organization, and finding the top performers. Every employee is evaluated, and put into a group. (GE used three, Enron used five - Gooey described the GE variant.) The people in the top group receive a raise, while those in the lowest are canned. The evaluations are also done by a group of managers, and employees can put in anonymous input - so a weak employee can't be shielded by a single manager. The result is that weak employees are quickly identified by their coworkers.

Rank 'n yank is useful as a temporary measure to remove deadwood. The problem is when it's instituted as a permanent means of evaluation. When that happens, it tends to reward the most vicious and cutthroat employees, and it utterly destroys team cohesiveness, as people realize that if I help you, I might end up on the chopping block. Thankfully, since it's now associated heavily with Enron, it's been pretty thouroughly poisoned - postmortems pointed to rank 'n yank as a large contributor to the Enron corporate mentality.

RiemannLives

SCRUMM in software development. Like rank 'n yank it is a tool which is a good way to fix a very certain kind of (already highly disfuctional) office / corporate culture. When it is applied it is usually done quite wrong (causing more problems than it solves) and even when done right is only really useful to fix a certain kind of organizational problem. It offers little or no benefits for a healthy team and has some real drawbacks.

Agile development in general is a very popular buzzword at the moment. Agile practices are often adopted for their (often meagre) benefits with little or no thought to their disadvantages.

LaOs

AngelHedgie wrote: »

LaOs wrote: »

What is rank 'n yank?

It's a system of weeding out the deadwood from an organization, and finding the top performers. Every employee is evaluated, and put into a group. (GE used three, Enron used five - Gooey described the GE variant.) The people in the top group receive a raise, while those in the lowest are canned. The evaluations are also done by a group of managers, and employees can put in anonymous input - so a weak employee can't be shielded by a single manager. The result is that weak employees are quickly identified by their coworkers.

Rank 'n yank is useful as a temporary measure to remove deadwood. The problem is when it's instituted as a permanent means of evaluation. When that happens, it tends to reward the most vicious and cutthroat employees, and it utterly destroys team cohesiveness, as people realize that if I help you, I might end up on the chopping block. Thankfully, since it's now associated heavily with Enron, it's been pretty thouroughly poisoned - postmortems pointed to rank 'n yank as a large contributor to the Enron corporate mentality.

Thanks. (You too, Gooey.)

AngelHedgie

LaOs wrote: »

AngelHedgie wrote: »

LaOs wrote: »

What is rank 'n yank?

It's a system of weeding out the deadwood from an organization, and finding the top performers. Every employee is evaluated, and put into a group. (GE used three, Enron used five - Gooey described the GE variant.) The people in the top group receive a raise, while those in the lowest are canned. The evaluations are also done by a group of managers, and employees can put in anonymous input - so a weak employee can't be shielded by a single manager. The result is that weak employees are quickly identified by their coworkers.

Rank 'n yank is useful as a temporary measure to remove deadwood. The problem is when it's instituted as a permanent means of evaluation. When that happens, it tends to reward the most vicious and cutthroat employees, and it utterly destroys team cohesiveness, as people realize that if I help you, I might end up on the chopping block. Thankfully, since it's now associated heavily with Enron, it's been pretty thouroughly poisoned - postmortems pointed to rank 'n yank as a large contributor to the Enron corporate mentality.

Thanks. (You too, Gooey.)

Not a problem. Rank 'n yank came mainly from Jack Welsh - a man who defines "overhyped CEO".

wwtMask

God, I barely know anything about Six Sigma and I fucking loathe it. Our QA people have their little certificates framed about being a "green belt", and my company has such a hard on about it that it's shit people brag about to each other in between the cubicles. Also, PMP, just because people who get it are annoying and include that on their email sigs.

Feral

AngelHedgie wrote: »

Veegeezee wrote: »

Huh. I've always thought of three sigma / six sigma as a baseline for manufacturing reliability. I didn't realize it had graduated to the status of doctrine.

It's well past doctrine. Some places, it's a full-blown religion.

At my company somebody thought it would be a good idea to classify the rollout of any new server as a "project." Every "project" needs to have a project charter that outlines the Six Sigma approach and also needs to include a Gantz chart.

Al_wat

What, exactly, is wrong with Six Sigma? I'm not saying there isn't something wrong, I am just ignorant.

tuxkamen

There is nothing wrong with it when you use it for what it is good for--identifying outliers in your manufacturing/programming/maintenance/business processes that cause waste, problems, or overhead.

There is, however, no reason to apply it to everything. Applying it to a server, for example, is one of the DSM IV indicators of mental retardation.

Also, XP and Scrum are worthless. Unless you're interviewing me for a job and you use it. Then I'll say 'I can work with it'.

Malkor

Al_wat wrote: »

What, exactly, is wrong with Six Sigma? I'm not saying there isn't something wrong, I am just ignorant.

I actually think it can be helpful in certain situations. We don't have the all-encompassing mentality that apparently invades other companies, but we have a few dudes from Lockheed Martin and GE who've gained 'Master Black Belts' and 'Champion' status, and I think their methodologies have been helpful to us. Although if we stuck to it every single time, I'm sure I'd quit. It doesn't seem flexible though, not everything can be figured out or improved by applying a rigid, ordered process. Creativity lads!

poshniallo

I just had a look at Six Sigma and was unimpressed by two obvious things:

The marketing people for certifiers are targeting some kind of macho corporate tough-guy group.

It only seems to apply to manufacturing processes, rather than the example of a server as above, which isn't manufacturing.


I work in adult education - not the government kind but the consumer type, and I really hate faddish, ideology-led bullshit buzzword trainers.

Al_wat

Ah, see I remember companies I worked for using Six Sigma and talking about how they loved it. But they were manufacturers.

Ant000

Anyone care to break down what the heck Six Sigma is for an interested, unwashed layman?

Al_wat

Ant000 wrote: »

Anyone care to break down what the heck Six Sigma is for an interested, unwashed layman?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_sigma

Go nuts. Its not actually that long, give it a quick skim. Its basically used to maximize Quality Assurance in manufacturing processes.

Malkor

Let's say that I'm Motorola (the creators of Six Sigma). I make and sell 1,000,000 units of 'x' every quarter, and they cost me $1 each. I sell them for $2 and end up with a profit of $1. Of those one million units, around 10-15% are DOA, returned to the manufacturer (me), or don't work as well as advertised. So I'd either have to spend money to fix them, make a new one for the customer, or return their money. All this causes me to get less than the expected profit of $1. I'd use the six sigma process to find ways to make sure I get less and less defective units.

* Define the process improvement goals that are consistent with customer demands and enterprise strategy.
* Measure the current process and collect relevant data for future comparison.
* Analyze to verify relationship and causality of factors. Determine what the relationship is, and attempt to ensure that all factors have been considered.
* Improve or optimize the process based upon the analysis using techniques like Design of Experiments.
* Control to ensure that any variances are corrected before they result in defects. Set up pilot runs to establish process capability, transition to production and thereafter continuously measure the process and institute control mechanisms.

That's what's on Wikipedia. Id use this process over and over until I was manufacturing 'x' perfectly and then I'd try to wring more profits from 'x'. It works for some things, but can't be shoehorned into everything.

Mishra

Yeah the Air Force is trying to apply six sigma to help with the force reduction. God it's stupid, we don't manufacture anything, and the problem with leaning down a process is that you eventually get to the point where you have no overhead. In an organization where people constantly leave, i.e. deploy, we need some overhead to cover for this. When I lean down a shop so that it runs with 4 people, and one deploys guess what, the shop breaks. People need to realize when and where these things apply, and when they take it to far.

Malkor

I bet that to certain people in the government it looks great that they have a proven process to deal with their problem. That's the problem with management fads though, accepting the process as the cure for the problem doesn't necessarily mean you're on the right track, but it's probably better than doing nothing.

tuxkamen

Mishra wrote: »

Yeah the Air Force is trying to apply six sigma to help with the force reduction. God it's stupid, we don't manufacture anything, and the problem with leaning down a process is that you eventually get to the point where you have no overhead. In an organization where people constantly leave, i.e. deploy, we need some overhead to cover for this. When I lean down a shop so that it runs with 4 people, and one deploys guess what, the shop breaks. People need to realize when and where these things apply, and when they take it to far.

Oh, I could talk about this for quite a bit; I helped work on a concept project for NAVAIR/AIRSpeed for my Master's presentation.

It's not just the personnel that get streamlined from this. It's facilities, equipment, so on and so forth--there were some staggering examples of overhead labor/time (for just retrieving commonly used parts, for example) that Six Sigma activities are 100% tailored for.

Mishra

Malkor wrote: »

I bet that to certain people in the government it looks great that they have a proven process to deal with their problem. That's the problem with management fads though, accepting the process as the cure for the problem doesn't necessarily mean you're on the right track, but it's probably better than doing nothing.

Yes but the military is unique in that it can't hire middle management. If I fire half my engineers as Lt's (which they're doing) and it turns out to be a bad idea, well it's to late, five years from now your facing a critical shortage of Majors and Lt Col's with no way to replace them. I'm all for improving things, but the way they're going about it right now is silly.

cyphr

What fucking irks me about shit like Six Sigma is that, even from the exact description Malkor gave, all it's saying is "fix the problem."

Seriously, let's take this one step at a time:

* Define the process improvement goals that are consistent with customer demands and enterprise strategy.

What do we need to fix?

* Measure the current process and collect relevant data for future comparison.

Make sure you record what needs fixed.

* Analyze to verify relationship and causality of factors. Determine what the relationship is, and attempt to ensure that all factors have been considered.

Find out what's breaking it.

* Improve or optimize the process based upon the analysis using techniques like Design of Experiments.

Fix it.

* Control to ensure that any variances are corrected before they result in defects. Set up pilot runs to establish process capability, transition to production and thereafter continuously measure the process and institute control mechanisms.

Make sure you really fix it.

I want to vomit.

Al_wat

Seriously. Six Sigma doesnt seem that stupid when used in the context of manufacturing.