Wonderful to last last see more people waking up to the Six Sigma scam.  It amazes me why so few, if anyone except me, has checked it's origins.  The floating, drifting, shifting, wandering +/- 1.5 sigma is utter nonsense.   Searcg for the papers upon which it is based.  You will see that Six Sigma is built on rubbish.  With a false foundation, it has no chance.  All the other stuff that makes up Six Sigma makes it even worse.

Six Sigma is all about consultants ripping off dumb clients.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!  I've been working in Manufacturing for 30 years.  Began my career with GE. So I know all about Six Sigma, Black Belts and Green Belts.  It's a waste of time and money.  It's nothing more than a opportunity for Engineers to show off their degrees.  I've worked for several companies over my career as a Lean Manufacturing Engineer ... I always urge employers to stay away from Six Sigma and Belts.  From my experience these programs stifle creativity and employee "full" participation.  I think it makes much more sense to focus on ideas, improving the process, eliminating waste and profitability.  Six Sigma is theoretical, who cares about theory when you can count dollars!  The Black and Green belt programs segregate employees by rank instead of promoting a team environment were everyone feels vested in ideas and improvements!  No one needs a belt for making their job better!  Continuous Improvement is a culture and should never be reduced to a Belt achievement.  Continuous Improvement must be a way of life, as natural as drinking water ... complicating it with theory / statistics and belt certifications is not natural.

I don't think the issue is whether or not leadership support is in place. It's really whether the right leaders are supporting it by doing the right things. As Jim Collins points out in Good to Great, the right CEO can turn a lukewarm program into a bonanza. Unfortunately, getting the right person into that job seems to be a monster challenge.

I would agree that a "stalinist" CEO can do as much damage to LSS as an uncommitted one. In fact, once could dispute whether GE should be the poster child for Six Sigma success, considering they still practice "rank and yank," which is diametrically opposed to virtually all quality teachings. Read Chapter 14 of Fourth Generation Management.

I agree that the culture of "Belts" has fostered inappropriate elitisim, which wastes the talents and brainpower of the people actually doing the work. Training up a slew of "belts" is easier than doing real leadership work. No wonder most projects get through D, M, and A before sputtering - no organizational infrastructure or support to encourage people to allow the changes needed to deliver the "I" or enforce the "C."

I'm pretty sure that GE was shipping manufacturing jobs to China even on Jack Welch's watch, which does not say much for Six Sigma. Same for Motorola and Maytag.

This is not to say that Six Sigma techniques (mostly traditional TQM) are not valid or that they don't work when people use them, but only that the Six Sigma package is clearly not up to the job of keeping jobs in the U.S. Lean manufacturing as developed by Henry Ford and his contemporaries was designed to keep high wage jobs in the U.S. and was successful.

I fully agree with the first half of the article about all the 6sigma folklore myths: top leadership commitment, bigger is better, training and certification. And the no. 2 and 3 myths I think are the concequences of No.1 in many cases. I also agree being project-oriented instead of belts-focused is the right direction to go. But I don't agree that involve informal leaders in successful projects will be cure the fairy tale.

I was a person with informal infuence in my function when I was chosen to be trained as a black belt in the first wave of 6sigma BB training in my company 7 years ago. My first and second projects were very successful( judged by dollars not the 6sigma tools utilized )which gained me lots of trust and respect from peers and my managers as well as my black belt certificate. I stayed as a full time black belt for years and carried out projects. I'm an informal leader in my organization now but that alone can't guarantee project success nor 6sigma longevity in my organization.

I think keeping informal leaders involved is very effective influencial strategy but is not sufficient. The key is nothing different from any 6sigma control phase elements--- the policies, procedures, infrastructure and people in place.