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Sunday, October 14, 2007

Innovation

From Business Week on improving what already works vs. finding new things that work better...

As once-bloated U.S. manufacturers have shaped up and become profitable global competitors, the onus shifts to growth and innovation, especially in today's idea-based, design-obsessed economy. While process excellence demands precision, consistency, and repetition, innovation calls for variation, failure, and serendipity.

Indeed, the very factors that make Six Sigma effective in one context can make it ineffective in another. Traditionally, it uses rigorous statistical analysis to produce unambiguous data that help produce better quality, lower costs, and more efficiency. That all sounds great when you know what outcomes you'd like to control. But what about when there are few facts to go on—or you don't even know the nature of the problem you're trying to define?

"New things look very bad on this scale," says MIT Sloan School of Management professor Eric von Hippel, who has worked with 3M on innovation projects that he says "took a backseat" once Six Sigma settled in. "The more you hardwire a company on total quality management, [the more] it is going to hurt breakthrough innovation," adds Vijay Govindarajan, a management professor at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business. "The mindset that is needed, the capabilities that are needed, the metrics that are needed, the whole culture that is needed for discontinuous innovation, are fundamentally different."

3 comments:

Bob Haugen said...

Patrick, I don't think that statement is necessarily true. Toyota has been the global leader in automotive quality, and at the same time one of the most innovative (e.g. hybrids). If you adopt six sigma (or anything else) one-sidedly or dogmatically, you will fail when conditions change.

The SMARTSTART Coach said...

I'm with Bob on this one. Any framework is restrictive when you are using it with a closed mind; however, a company with a commitment to innovation can leverage a framework like six sigma and transcend its limitations.

Linda M. Lopeke
http://www.smartstartcoach.com

Jason Yip said...

I see the issue as not realising the difference between a repetitive production process and a creative development process. That's why Toyota production processes are not the same as Toyota product development processes.

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Portland, Oregon, United States
I'm usually writing from my favorite location on the planet, the pacific northwest of the u.s. I write for myself only and unless otherwise specified my posts here should not be taken as representing an official position of my employer. Contact me at my gee mail account, username patrickdlogan.