About a week ago, I received an email from a person in India. He is a Six Sigma Black belt, and works for a financial services firm. While I was intrigued with the application of Six Sigma methods to the delivery of financial services, this person wanted to ask me about the quality-complexity connection.
In part, this person's email read
that this subject has greater promise in enhancing the quality management in the coming future as more and more companies are now looking out at developing Innovation Capability.... 1. Quality talks about reduced variability & greater discipline whereas complexity talks about managing in uncertain and variable times through variations or so called fluctuations at the border of chaos and order (Managing Order and Chaos at the same time to give rise to newer forms of Creativity / Innovation) which is very challenging. If there is a fusion possible with respect to Six Sigma (or) Lean and Complexity theory, we would have put forth the right rules for the Future Corporations. Maybe integration of DMAIC six sigma / Lean with the Complexity Principles could make it more robust and could provide the right approach to managing quality in future corporations.
What interests me in this corespondence is the recognition that variation - differences in our perception of a process's outputs - is at the heart of both the TQM/Quality Improvement mindset, and the insights into complexity. In the complicated but fundamentally linear world of manufacturing or service delivery, we seek to define spcial causes of variation that make outputs deviate from our specification. In the non-linear complex world, we understand that we can not "bring a process into control." Neither can we predict the future response to our inputs or changes with any high degree of certainty. But we can and we shuold look for those individual agents in the system who have found some unique way to do things, and who are getting superior results. Instead of seeking process control, and eliminating causes of variation, we need to define the "positive deviants" who have successfully innovated. Then we can work on replicating their superior results.
One key challenge for us, is to develop what Dee Hock, the founder of VISA cards, calls a "chaordic" mindset. We need to see that living systems simultaneously act in processes that are both linear and predictable, and non-linear and complex. Keeping that "both. . .and. . ." concept in our minds is not easy for many people.
Cheers,
cmplxty
In part, this person's email read
that this subject has greater promise in enhancing the quality management in the coming future as more and more companies are now looking out at developing Innovation Capability.... 1. Quality talks about reduced variability & greater discipline whereas complexity talks about managing in uncertain and variable times through variations or so called fluctuations at the border of chaos and order (Managing Order and Chaos at the same time to give rise to newer forms of Creativity / Innovation) which is very challenging. If there is a fusion possible with respect to Six Sigma (or) Lean and Complexity theory, we would have put forth the right rules for the Future Corporations. Maybe integration of DMAIC six sigma / Lean with the Complexity Principles could make it more robust and could provide the right approach to managing quality in future corporations.
What interests me in this corespondence is the recognition that variation - differences in our perception of a process's outputs - is at the heart of both the TQM/Quality Improvement mindset, and the insights into complexity. In the complicated but fundamentally linear world of manufacturing or service delivery, we seek to define spcial causes of variation that make outputs deviate from our specification. In the non-linear complex world, we understand that we can not "bring a process into control." Neither can we predict the future response to our inputs or changes with any high degree of certainty. But we can and we shuold look for those individual agents in the system who have found some unique way to do things, and who are getting superior results. Instead of seeking process control, and eliminating causes of variation, we need to define the "positive deviants" who have successfully innovated. Then we can work on replicating their superior results.
One key challenge for us, is to develop what Dee Hock, the founder of VISA cards, calls a "chaordic" mindset. We need to see that living systems simultaneously act in processes that are both linear and predictable, and non-linear and complex. Keeping that "both. . .and. . ." concept in our minds is not easy for many people.
Cheers,
cmplxty
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