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In his TEDx talk, Josh Kaufman, author of The First 20 Hours (Portfolio, 2013), outlines his theory of learning a new skill. One of his key points is the prevailing belief that you have to spend 10,000 hours practicing a skill to become good at it.
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This equates to more than five years of practice, eight hours a day, five days a week. Intuitively, we all know we have developed competency at tasks in far less time.
The 10,000 hours of practice is to become able to perform at an elite, world-class level against intense competition. This is what it takes to become a top grand master at chess, or a winning NFL quarterback, or to stand on the top podium at the Olympic Games.
Kaufman points out that the first part of the learning curve, up to basic competency or even above, is very steep. The 10,000 hours are for developing on a far shallower slope of improvement, onto the level of the elites.
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The basics
90% of problems in the workplace can be solved by the people doing the work, using Brainstorming and Cause and Effect. Unfortunately, power is usually stripped from the people at the workface and these basic tools are rarely used correctly.There is certainly no need for 10,000 hours learning, simply a change in management attitudes. It is utterly futile spending huge amounts of time, and money, learning complex tools, when the basics of variation are so poorly understood throughout industry. For example, it is staggering to think that most quality professions actually believe that all processes drift uncontrollably by +/-1.5 sigma. The basics of quality have been lost in the wilderness.
Deming understood this well but most have forgotten what he taught.
The Four-Hour Black Belt
Six Sigma courses are designed to prepare people for quality improvement on a manufacturing plant floor. 99 people out of 100 work in service industries, (e.g., healthcare) so they don't really need to know all of the tools. They only need to know seven tools that will solve most of the problems facing service businesses:
The first two will eliminate unnecessary delays and motion (and reduce defects by half). The last five will eliminate defects and deviation.
And you can learn them in 4-8 hours and start using them to boost productivity and profitability immediately. With 20-hours of practice on real problems, anyone can start simplifying, streamlining and optimizing their business.
You can add the long tail of Six Sigma tools as needed.
Joseph Juran always said: "Vital few, trival many." It applies to Six Sigma tools and training as well as performance.
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