Saturday, November 17, 2007

Another Lean Six Sigma Failure

I've written in the past about our organization's idiotic embrace of Lean Six Sigma (LSS). My proposed slogan for LSS came home to roost this week as a near-riot broke out during an all-day LSS training class for senior employees.

My proposed slogan was, "It's better to have your employees wonder if you're a complete idiot than it is to send them to Lean Six Sigma training and remove all doubt."

Our organization has decreed that all employees must go to LSS introductory training and all those above a certain pay level must attend an all-day LSS training session as well. The attendees for these all-day sessions are assembled randomly. The session in question managed to get a perfect combination of attendees who had been with the orgaization for a long time, were very business-savvy and were not afraid to speak up.

They tore the trainer apart.


LSS trainers attempt to put down an insurrection in the classroom.

Most of us have done our own calculations on the costs and benefits of LSS. It's a very ugly calculation. We start with a huge loss and go downhill rapidly. Employees are angry about the training and the costs which are hitting at a time of declining discretionary funds and increased mandated demands on our time. The rioters in this session went after the trainer, demanding that he make the business case for LSS. There is none to be made and every one of his flimsy answers resulted in further attacks.

I didn't go to this one, but I'll attend one in the near future. A friend of mine, on break from his session, came down to my office and asked me to shoot him so he didn't have to go back. Between contemplated murder-suicide pacts and rioting in the training sessions, I'd say this is another LSS success story.

Well, at least that's the way it will appear in our bi-weekly edition of Pravda corporate newspaper.

4 comments:

Apian Apostle said...

Don't forget to breath as you post.

B-Daddy said...

K T Cat,
To be fair, the leaders of the particular local organization were told to send these individuals to LSS training by the leaders of the very large national organization. For some odd reason, that makes me feel better. When I think through my feelings about something like this, I realize that my deepest loyalty lies to the local not the national organizational unit.

By the way, I also attended a previous LSS training session, more or less, and found ways to be somewhat productive. Trying to think win-win, I also wonder what we could do to make the best of our situation. We need to have a common vocabulary for process improvement, because there will always be a need to improve processes. So perhaps taking a more light handed approach to achieving that end might have served us better.

Sabina said...

Thanks for your post, very useful information.

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