6 Sigma & Innovation

There was an interesting 6 Sigma article in Business Week last month that looked at 6 Sigma and innovation. The article questioned whether 6 Sigma kills innovation with a primary reference to the demise of 3M's innovation hold.

The DMAIC model (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control) seems to make a lot of sense when driving efficiencies in existing processes. It provides focus on rigorous statistical analysis. The phrase "you can't improve what you can't measure" is often used, as is the term, "the voice of the customer" which implies focus on what the customer sees as success. Both of these concepts if applied to innovation can result in missed opportunities or even worse.

According to Eric von Hippel, MITSloan School of Management professor, "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."

If we consider some of the leaders of 6 Sigma, how many would we consider as current leaders in innovation? I'm not sure. The companies often discussed are Motorola (the father of 6 Sigma), Dell Computers, GE. Each of these 3 companies have arguably lost their innovative edge. Could this be because of 6 sigma philosophy that has permeated into innovation?

According to Christensen's work from The Innovators Dilemma, truly disruptive innovation, is NOT what the customers want or what the shareholders want (until it's too late). Radical innovative concepts are simply too radical without proven ROI. In fact, too many companies have failed to jump the curve because they were "held hostage by their customers" and/or shareholders. Christensen uses the examples of diskdrives to explain his point.

" Why were the leading drive makers unable to launch 8-inch drives until it was too late?...Mainframe computer manufacturers (customers)... wanted drives with increased capacity at a lower cost per megabyte. The 14-inch drive manufacturers were listening and responding to their established customers... that would ultimately prove fatal."

In my opinion, 6 Sigma is a proven toolset on driving efficiencies, process management and quality control. Does it mean, I would apply it to everything? No! Just because I have a hammer doesn't mean everything is a nail. Knowing when to apply it, and when not to apply it is critical. When dealing with innovation, be cautious on the limitations you force upon your people through your processes.

What are your thoughts? I know there are some blackbelts in 6 Sigma reading this and would love to hear your thoughts.

Mashups still not ready for the Enterprise

I have yet to write a post specifically on mashups even though they are a popular topic in web 2.0 discussions. Conceptually, mashups simplify the ability for masses to enter the application development realm. Take a look at the QEDWiki video below to get a sense of what this could look like (Caution: Try to ignore the annoying hand gestures from the guy in the bottom right).



Imagine, you and I can string together a custom application based on components that have been pre-built elsewhere through a drag & drop interface. It is the democratization of application development! At least in theory anyways. How real is this?

Well, Dion Hinchcliffe recently wrote an excellent blog on the state-of-the-nation with mashups called, "A bumper crop of new Mashups". In it he reviews all of the leading mashup platforms and discusses what the hold-backs are of using mashup technology in the corporation. Specifically he identifies 5 barriers.

1. Deep access to existing enterprise services and data/content repositories

2. SaaS-style Web-based mashup assembly and use

3. Assembly models that are truly end-user friendly with very little training required

4. A credible management and maintenance story for IT departments that must support a flood of public end-user built and integrated apps, and last but certainly not least

5. Mashup products that address important questions about mashups and enterprise security

I tend to agree with Dion on his summary and see striking similarities as to why the geekier cousin of mashups (aka SOA) has also not been standardized. Although this list is a nice and tidy 5 point list, each of these points could require an arsenal of architects to address in a company.

Will we get there? I think so. As companies start building out the platforms addressing the 5 areas of concern we will start to see the value proposition increase.

One question I get is what's the difference between using a wiki, versus sharing a document on Microsoft Sharepoint? You could answer with some of the "technical" differences such as wiki's are web based and Sharepoint allows you to collaborate on common documents. Certainly in the web this has value since Sharepoint for the world just doesn't exist so wiki's are popular. But what about inside a company that has Sharepoint (or similar). Why a wiki? Simplicity?

Another possibility is that since wiki's are web pages, they can easily integrate gadgets and web services. Perhaps we'll see wiki's evolve to be the mashup platform of the future.

For now, these are interesting concepts whose time will come.... In my opinion, it's just not there yet.

Swarm Theory & Social Computing

As a father, I've watched the movie "A Bug's Life" several times. In the movie, there is a scene where the locust (the bad guys) are laughing about how they can boss around the wee little ants (the good guys), until the head locust illustrates to the other locust that as individual ants, they are puny, but if they were to organize themselves they would be over-powering mass force. Yes, I realize I am referring to a kids cartoon, however, the power of self-organization by insects and animals to overcome huge challenges is the topic of this months National Geographic. The article is called Swarm Theory and it has interesting applications to social computing and mass collaboration concepts.

The article has several very interesting examples of how ants, bees, fish and other animals can do seemingly complex tasks even though individually these creatures really aren't all that intelligent. For example an experiment on bees shows how scout bees select the best new home through a democratic process based on individual assessments. Read the article, it's fascinating. The ability to do this isn't dictated through some genius bee nor is it a simple group think. Instead it is individual analysis where some bees select one home and others select another home. "Voting" by the bees is used to make the final decision for the colony on the "best" location.

"One key to an ant colony, for example, is that no one's in charge. No generals command ant warriors. No managers boss ant workers. The queen plays no role except to lay eggs. Even with half a million ants, a colony functions just fine with no management at all—at least none that we would recognize. It relies instead upon countless interactions between individual ants, each of which is following simple rules of thumb. Scientists describe such a system as self-organizing."

For a company looking to enter in the social computing domain, there are lessons we can learn from nature. The ability to harness social computing and mass collaboration requires opportunity but also individual assessment. If we let people loose to "self-organize" but they don't have enough expertise to make a "valid" decision or they get lazy and go with the most popular we lose the benefit from mass collaboration. When rules and laws are well understood mass collaboration is powerful. Simple rules lend itself to large groups but complex rules, if understood well, can also be addressed through collaboration.

"an important truth about collective intelligence: Crowds tend to be wise only if individual members act responsibly and make their own decisions. A group won't be smart if its members imitate one another, slavishly follow fads, or wait for someone to tell them what to do. "

Before you expect great things from social computing in your organization, consider whether or not your employees are equipped to act responsible and empowered to make their own decisions. Thank-You Vanessa for pointing out this article.

Coming soon....

Well, it's been a long time (about a month) since I last posted an update to the blog. I've been on vacation for a big part of that time with limited access to my PC. Amazingly, the world kept going and my social networks remained intact.

I do however have lots of things I'd love to talk about from the role of leadership in the 2.0 world and what if anything is different... to the world of mashups and their role in the enterprise... to the questioning of the long-term social impact of events like Live Earth.

So much to discuss in the next little while...

If there is a topic you would like me to comment on... Please feel free to send me a note.

Looking forward to picking up our discussion soon.

Jumping the Innovation Curve

Denise recently sent me a video of Guy Kawasaki's Top Ten on Innovation. One of the items he discusses is the concept of "Jumping the Curve". Basically, according to Guy, innovation is really about "disruptive" innovation versus "incremental" innovation (i.e. 10X Better not 10% Better). Guy also explains that "real" innovation is emotive and will divide people. If you attempt to be all things to all people with your innovation, you will result is mediocrity and fail.



If his arguments are correct, what does this mean to those attempting to harness the power of the masses for innovation? Wouldn't Guy basically be saying, don't listen to the masses move to the radical and evangelize even if nobody else understands it (yet). Doesn't that sound a little counter to mass collaboration?

Not necessarily. Mass collaboration isn't for everything. The optimal decision making capability is based on a symbiotic relationship between the visionaries and the masses. Providing opportunity for millions in a way that channels their creative force is good. It helps identify the visionaries. Assuming that those same millions of people will push the "best" concepts forward will not always yield the optimal answer. Perhaps over time, the crowd would be able to select the best innovative concepts but by then it may be too late.

In any regards, if your serious about innovation, I suggest you watch Guy's video.