WEBVTT 00:00:00.200 --> 00:00:02.220 Hey, what's up, Toby? We've made another week. 00:00:02.520 --> 00:00:05.879 Nice. Hey, man. I know. It's processed out. We're 00:00:05.879 --> 00:00:08.800 going to jump right in. Let's do it. Today's 00:00:08.800 --> 00:00:13.220 topic comes from operations and manufacturing. 00:00:13.779 --> 00:00:20.399 And it's around the Six Sigma, or the Sigmas, 00:00:20.460 --> 00:00:25.460 or the number of failures within omnipotent records, 00:00:25.719 --> 00:00:29.280 which Six Sigma is what? Three parts per million? 00:00:30.109 --> 00:00:36.369 Is that a defect? Yeah. Well, it feels like all 00:00:36.369 --> 00:00:38.289 we ever talk about, if we talk about sigmas in 00:00:38.289 --> 00:00:40.950 the workplace, we tolerate nothing less than 00:00:40.950 --> 00:00:43.810 six. That's all we talk about. And I think part 00:00:43.810 --> 00:00:47.369 of it is we refer to that kind of work around 00:00:47.369 --> 00:00:52.130 air reduction as Six Sigma work or lean work. 00:00:54.070 --> 00:00:57.679 Yeah, so. It's three parts per million. I think 00:00:57.679 --> 00:01:00.479 about manufacturing. That makes sense, right? 00:01:01.039 --> 00:01:05.040 If we're rolling tires or ball bearings off the 00:01:05.040 --> 00:01:08.060 line, we don't want to be digging through those. 00:01:08.659 --> 00:01:14.920 I get that. Yep. But gosh, three errors per million 00:01:14.920 --> 00:01:20.099 transactions. So all right. So what one sigma. 00:01:20.379 --> 00:01:27.969 So one sigma is. 30 .9 % All right, so that's 00:01:27.969 --> 00:01:34.049 690 ,000 defects per million So that's terrible 00:01:34.049 --> 00:01:38.010 That is a 30 % success rate, which is on par 00:01:38.010 --> 00:01:40.909 with probably most of the PowerPoints we've seen 00:01:40.909 --> 00:01:47.329 Yeah, so 31 % defect rate which means only 61 00:01:47.329 --> 00:01:52.739 % of them are defect free Yeah Did I say that 00:01:52.739 --> 00:01:56.959 right? Yeah, I know it's backwards. So like among 00:01:56.959 --> 00:02:01.340 a million, there's only going to be 310 ,000 00:02:01.340 --> 00:02:05.719 that are defect, that are free of defect. That's 00:02:05.719 --> 00:02:11.099 one sigma. Right. Okay. So that's, you know, 00:02:11.240 --> 00:02:13.879 so the, your good output, another way to say 00:02:13.879 --> 00:02:18.860 that your good output on one sigma is 30 .9%. 00:02:18.860 --> 00:02:25.099 Okay. It's brutal. Yeah. But I mean, again, for 00:02:25.099 --> 00:02:28.500 knowledge work, PowerPoints that I have seen. 00:02:28.780 --> 00:02:31.479 It's a good example though, right? I mean, yeah, 00:02:31.479 --> 00:02:33.300 like how many defects does a PowerPoint have? 00:02:34.400 --> 00:02:36.039 And that's, and that's a really good rule. What 00:02:36.039 --> 00:02:38.419 are the consequences of a spelling error in a 00:02:38.419 --> 00:02:41.319 PowerPoint or what are the consequences? It could 00:02:41.319 --> 00:02:44.439 be an issue if it's an extra zero and you're 00:02:44.439 --> 00:02:47.520 talking about loss reduction or sales targets. 00:02:47.639 --> 00:02:52.319 Folks get antsy. If it's an indent, if it's a 00:02:52.319 --> 00:02:58.280 font error, things are the same, right? I would 00:02:58.280 --> 00:03:01.680 say that many defects are hidden by polished 00:03:01.680 --> 00:03:04.319 PowerPoints. Like what would McKinsey be without 00:03:04.319 --> 00:03:08.520 a polished PowerPoint? That's a frightening thought. 00:03:09.419 --> 00:03:14.599 Yeah. All right. Okay. So one of the things about 00:03:14.599 --> 00:03:19.020 manufacturing is that to move up a sigma takes 00:03:19.020 --> 00:03:23.819 about the same effort, right? So going from one 00:03:23.819 --> 00:03:27.520 sigma to two sigma is basically going from 30 00:03:27.520 --> 00:03:34.599 .9 % good to 69 .1 % good. So just moving it 00:03:34.599 --> 00:03:42.400 up, just one standard deviation basically. Which 00:03:42.400 --> 00:03:45.479 means that, you know, still 70%. This is probably 00:03:45.479 --> 00:03:48.550 most I would say that this is probably most knowledge 00:03:48.550 --> 00:03:53.189 work. Yeah. If we think about that in the broadest 00:03:53.189 --> 00:03:57.330 sense, everything from communication to assorted 00:03:57.330 --> 00:04:02.389 manual tasks. Yeah. Yeah. Anything where a system's 00:04:02.389 --> 00:04:06.389 not guiding our action. Yep. Yeah. That feels 00:04:06.389 --> 00:04:09.189 pretty reasonable. Yeah. So if you think about 00:04:09.189 --> 00:04:11.689 one sigma, it's basically the process fails most 00:04:11.689 --> 00:04:14.750 of the time or it's highly inconsistent. Yeah. 00:04:15.180 --> 00:04:20.459 Right your PowerPoint presentation Template changes 00:04:20.459 --> 00:04:24.459 multiple times a quarter, right? Like seconds, 00:04:24.459 --> 00:04:28.240 you know to two Sigma or you know, it's 69 % 00:04:28.240 --> 00:04:31.600 good output. Yeah still there or areas occur 00:04:31.600 --> 00:04:37.600 frequently Okay, now let's move that just up 00:04:37.600 --> 00:04:41.649 one level right and so the three Sigma It jumps 00:04:41.649 --> 00:04:49.449 from close to 70 % good to 93 .3 % good. Heart 00:04:49.449 --> 00:04:58.149 change. Yeah. It literally like, up to three 00:04:58.149 --> 00:05:00.910 sigma, it's kind of almost like a hockey stick. 00:05:02.769 --> 00:05:06.250 Right? So again, it's, you know, from one sigma 00:05:06.250 --> 00:05:11.259 to two sigma, it's 39 % better. From two sigma 00:05:11.259 --> 00:05:17.439 to three sigma, it is 23 % better. And then the 00:05:17.439 --> 00:05:20.839 next jump from four sigma to five sigma, it's 00:05:20.839 --> 00:05:27.300 93 % to 99 .38%. It's literally 7%. And then 00:05:27.300 --> 00:05:31.800 to five sigma, it jumps basically percentages 00:05:31.800 --> 00:05:37.980 like 0 .4%. And these are literally the same 00:05:37.980 --> 00:05:42.819 amount of effort. Right. And yet I don't think 00:05:42.819 --> 00:05:45.199 when we think of business processes and knowledge 00:05:45.199 --> 00:05:49.220 work, we don't actually think about it as changing 00:05:49.220 --> 00:05:54.519 the process to improve the output. But it's about 00:05:54.519 --> 00:05:59.959 the consistency too. Yes. Right. And so when 00:05:59.959 --> 00:06:03.519 we do highly variable tasks, it's hard to get 00:06:03.519 --> 00:06:08.930 a sense of our actual consistency. Correct. So 00:06:08.930 --> 00:06:12.910 the, did I deliver it on time is, is not really 00:06:12.910 --> 00:06:17.209 a Sigma ish kind of outcome because it depends 00:06:17.209 --> 00:06:21.269 on the task. So I think that's, you know, as 00:06:21.269 --> 00:06:23.410 we're talking about this, I'm thinking about 00:06:23.410 --> 00:06:27.889 having done, we've talked a lot about this, having 00:06:27.889 --> 00:06:31.370 done a lot of process improvement work years. 00:06:31.769 --> 00:06:33.529 You know, sometimes it's process improvement 00:06:33.529 --> 00:06:37.649 at one desk or sometimes it's an entire team. 00:06:39.670 --> 00:06:43.329 But it feels like so often everybody is the big, 00:06:43.389 --> 00:06:45.670 is the organization gets larger, the work niches 00:06:45.670 --> 00:06:49.269 down and people have increasingly specialized. 00:06:50.350 --> 00:06:53.269 And so to be able to have, you know, to your 00:06:53.269 --> 00:06:56.189 point, the difference of shifting from high level 00:06:56.189 --> 00:06:59.610 of defects at one Sigma to a marked reduction 00:06:59.610 --> 00:07:02.569 at two Sigma, you know, in a large organization, 00:07:02.589 --> 00:07:06.399 you have to touch a lot of people. Yeah. Even 00:07:06.399 --> 00:07:07.939 as we're talking about this, it makes me think, 00:07:07.939 --> 00:07:11.740 ah, this is why we start to see formal payroll 00:07:11.740 --> 00:07:14.860 systems being implemented or financial systems 00:07:14.860 --> 00:07:17.300 being upgraded and driving a lot of consistent 00:07:17.300 --> 00:07:22.920 behaviors just to reduce variability. Oh, no, 00:07:23.000 --> 00:07:25.759 totally true. And what's interesting is like, 00:07:25.800 --> 00:07:28.120 I think oftentimes in knowledge work, we don't 00:07:28.120 --> 00:07:32.860 think of it as a process of delivery. We think 00:07:32.860 --> 00:07:37.089 of it as a task that we need to go. more of like 00:07:37.089 --> 00:07:38.709 doing the dishes or something. I don't even know 00:07:38.709 --> 00:07:40.589 how, I don't know, that was a terrible example. 00:07:41.209 --> 00:07:43.790 But we think of it as like, oh, my boss wants 00:07:43.790 --> 00:07:46.870 me to do the thing. Right. And we don't think 00:07:46.870 --> 00:07:49.509 of it, you know, we've talked about this quite 00:07:49.509 --> 00:07:54.089 a bit where if the thing is repeatable, turn 00:07:54.089 --> 00:07:58.850 it into a process. Totally. Yeah. But it's funny. 00:08:00.110 --> 00:08:03.959 I've been watching the World Series. Yeah. I'm 00:08:03.959 --> 00:08:05.819 going to deviate here from our topic here for 00:08:05.819 --> 00:08:11.560 a little bit, but Google Cloud has this commercial 00:08:11.560 --> 00:08:16.779 on baseball players that hit the base with their 00:08:16.779 --> 00:08:20.639 bat and how that leads to hard hits or something 00:08:20.639 --> 00:08:24.720 like that. And in my mind, I'm like, that's novel. 00:08:24.980 --> 00:08:31.360 I appreciate that. And it is absolutely, there's 00:08:31.360 --> 00:08:35.669 no action that you can take. And I find it fascinating 00:08:35.669 --> 00:08:38.789 that like a lot of knowledge work comes down 00:08:38.789 --> 00:08:42.029 to novelty, which means that you can get, you 00:08:42.029 --> 00:08:44.990 can basically hide all your defects in the corner 00:08:44.990 --> 00:08:48.990 because as long as it's novel and it follows 00:08:48.990 --> 00:08:53.690 some sort of, you know, the cognitive bias of 00:08:53.690 --> 00:08:55.649 the person with the highest salary in the room, 00:08:55.710 --> 00:09:00.870 then it's okay. Yeah. Processes don't have personalities 00:09:00.870 --> 00:09:05.610 to soften. message or build relationships the 00:09:05.610 --> 00:09:11.090 same way that people do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But 00:09:11.090 --> 00:09:13.049 I just, I just think sometimes we don't, we just 00:09:13.049 --> 00:09:15.230 don't think about it as something that even can 00:09:15.230 --> 00:09:19.789 be fixed. Yeah. And so, you know, and sometimes 00:09:19.789 --> 00:09:22.509 it's the person that needs to fix it as the manager. 00:09:23.090 --> 00:09:25.889 And if you're an IC, then it's not yours to fix. 00:09:28.610 --> 00:09:32.399 Well, Chris, it kind of makes me. Ask the question 00:09:32.399 --> 00:09:38.220 like is it even reasonable to talk about professional 00:09:38.220 --> 00:09:43.940 Interactions in this same concept of like air 00:09:43.940 --> 00:09:49.860 free transactions You know manufacturing is a 00:09:49.860 --> 00:09:53.799 is a highly repeatable super linear process generally 00:09:53.799 --> 00:09:56.620 Yeah, not super linear. Then we invest a lot 00:09:56.620 --> 00:09:59.399 of time understanding all the permutations that 00:09:59.399 --> 00:10:02.049 it could go down Yeah, I think this is where 00:10:02.049 --> 00:10:04.610 it falls into like do your system support or 00:10:04.610 --> 00:10:08.610 do they complicate and Like it does your sis 00:10:08.610 --> 00:10:11.629 like Because I would say that there are some 00:10:11.629 --> 00:10:16.950 times in which a one sigma rate is okay Yeah, 00:10:17.929 --> 00:10:20.190 and I would say that there are other times where 00:10:20.190 --> 00:10:22.789 you know, it needs to be in the in the highly 00:10:22.789 --> 00:10:27.750 accurate Highly consistent outcome, right? And 00:10:27.750 --> 00:10:31.299 I think sometimes those two get flopped Right, 00:10:31.500 --> 00:10:33.820 and I think I think some of it is about the novelty 00:10:33.820 --> 00:10:37.759 like and I I Trash on data a lot not because 00:10:37.759 --> 00:10:40.139 I don't like data but because data seems to be 00:10:40.139 --> 00:10:45.059 whatever you want it to be Yeah, and so I do 00:10:45.059 --> 00:10:48.679 think that when it comes to Consistent things 00:10:48.679 --> 00:10:51.620 that we do we should aim to make them better 00:10:51.620 --> 00:10:54.759 You know and not aim to make them more novel 00:10:56.539 --> 00:11:00.019 It's interesting. So novelty is a is a source 00:11:00.019 --> 00:11:03.159 of defects and so that also makes me think of 00:11:03.159 --> 00:11:05.340 the failure rate that we have around innovation 00:11:05.340 --> 00:11:09.639 and that's Unfortunately come kind of this catch 00:11:09.639 --> 00:11:13.840 -all buzzword For I have a new approach that 00:11:13.840 --> 00:11:17.860 I'm testing to I'm just sloppy and I'm wildly 00:11:17.860 --> 00:11:21.139 inconsistent. So they're innovating, you know 00:11:21.139 --> 00:11:24.809 well it is interesting because like your upstream 00:11:24.809 --> 00:11:27.730 and your downstream has to all match in a manufacturing, 00:11:27.889 --> 00:11:30.129 because you've got work in progress, you've got 00:11:30.129 --> 00:11:33.429 stuff moving through the line. Totally. Knowledge 00:11:33.429 --> 00:11:35.950 work oftentimes ends up being one person doing 00:11:35.950 --> 00:11:45.769 one thing. And the transferability of that knowledge 00:11:45.769 --> 00:11:52.389 isn't necessarily taken into consideration. I 00:11:52.389 --> 00:11:56.110 saw a funny meme on someone doing math of 16 00:11:56.110 --> 00:11:58.490 minus 9 as a McKinsey consultant and they're 00:11:58.490 --> 00:12:00.629 like, oh, you can obviously see that this is 00:12:00.629 --> 00:12:03.990 a sum of squares. And so if you turn that into 00:12:03.990 --> 00:12:06.529 three squared and four squared and then you multiply 00:12:06.529 --> 00:12:09.429 it all out and they go, they do four or five 00:12:09.429 --> 00:12:12.549 steps and they get to 16 minus nine and you're 00:12:12.549 --> 00:12:19.289 like, still seven. And there we are. And we made 00:12:19.289 --> 00:12:23.899 it to seven. No, it's true. Well, the transfer 00:12:23.899 --> 00:12:28.399 of moving pieces and parts versus moving information, 00:12:29.539 --> 00:12:33.000 it's easier to know if all the pieces have been 00:12:33.000 --> 00:12:36.860 moved from point A to point B. Whereas it's hard 00:12:36.860 --> 00:12:39.000 to know if all the information has been translated 00:12:39.000 --> 00:12:43.919 from person A to person B. We are terrible at 00:12:43.919 --> 00:12:46.480 that as human beings. It's hard to know, isn't 00:12:46.480 --> 00:12:51.299 it? Because you don't check. Because we assume 00:12:51.299 --> 00:12:53.700 that everybody seems everybody thinks the exact 00:12:53.700 --> 00:12:56.360 same way that we do or doesn't action the same 00:12:56.360 --> 00:13:00.779 way like if you ever demo anything Like in a 00:13:00.779 --> 00:13:04.279 in a scrum you will be like what in the world 00:13:04.279 --> 00:13:07.379 is that person doing? Don't they see the button 00:13:07.379 --> 00:13:11.179 to the left and then you're like, oh That was 00:13:11.179 --> 00:13:13.899 a semi clever way of doing it that I would have 00:13:13.899 --> 00:13:17.860 never thought of or figured it out Chris, I think 00:13:17.860 --> 00:13:20.120 that's so true. Shadowing somebody to watch how 00:13:20.120 --> 00:13:24.919 they navigate a familiar application is fascinating 00:13:24.919 --> 00:13:28.240 and painful. Yeah. Because you're right, you 00:13:28.240 --> 00:13:31.620 get the same way. Yeah, I built a UI. I was really 00:13:31.620 --> 00:13:33.399 happy to build some stuff in there that stuff 00:13:33.399 --> 00:13:35.980 just never got used because it just was unusable. 00:13:36.059 --> 00:13:38.519 Yeah. Like for me, not doing the day -to -day 00:13:38.519 --> 00:13:43.759 work was what I thought would work. But that 00:13:43.759 --> 00:13:47.659 ended up being one of these knowledge deviations 00:13:47.659 --> 00:13:52.559 because I didn't know the work that was being 00:13:52.559 --> 00:13:56.559 done and so I didn't built it in the right way. 00:13:58.480 --> 00:14:01.059 The reality is it's like, what's funny, the other 00:14:01.059 --> 00:14:06.259 funny thing is oftentimes it's not in the outcome 00:14:06.259 --> 00:14:10.639 in which it's. Like we become fascinated with 00:14:10.639 --> 00:14:12.940 being distraction. I kind of stopped there a 00:14:12.940 --> 00:14:15.740 little bit, but we're fascinated with the distraction 00:14:15.740 --> 00:14:22.440 and not the actual process or outcome. And so 00:14:22.440 --> 00:14:24.500 it's like, hey, if we, you know, did we sell 00:14:24.500 --> 00:14:27.399 the deal? Yeah, we did. Let's go celebrate. Did 00:14:27.399 --> 00:14:29.799 we sell the right deal? Did we sell it to the 00:14:29.799 --> 00:14:32.679 right client? Does it align with what we're trying, 00:14:32.799 --> 00:14:35.899 where we're going? Like those are all really 00:14:35.899 --> 00:14:40.649 important. And I think... That's one of the deviation 00:14:40.649 --> 00:14:46.730 of saying yes to everything is a bad one. Well, 00:14:46.730 --> 00:14:48.730 Chris, I think as we're talking this through, 00:14:48.830 --> 00:14:53.110 the piece that I take away is that, A, being 00:14:53.110 --> 00:14:55.809 nervous when somebody comes to Six Sigma, your 00:14:55.809 --> 00:14:58.429 professional services approach, your college 00:14:58.429 --> 00:15:03.289 work, and the piece you just touched on really 00:15:03.289 --> 00:15:04.970 resonates with me and it's that we have to step 00:15:04.970 --> 00:15:08.279 back and ask the bigger picture question. Where? 00:15:08.639 --> 00:15:11.960 Because sometimes a highly defective exchange 00:15:11.960 --> 00:15:15.720 can still move the mission forward. That can 00:15:15.720 --> 00:15:18.519 still achieve our outcomes. Even if the PowerPoint 00:15:18.519 --> 00:15:21.460 is error ridden and has, you know, all kinds 00:15:21.460 --> 00:15:25.259 of font mismatches. Yeah. So the other is you 00:15:25.259 --> 00:15:26.940 probably hear snoring in the back. That's my 00:15:26.940 --> 00:15:30.480 bulldog. Just just crashed out. Not helpful for 00:15:30.480 --> 00:15:34.340 a podcast, but having a grand old time just snoring 00:15:34.340 --> 00:15:40.370 away. I thought that was your stomach. Better 00:15:40.370 --> 00:15:43.470 that it's a bulldog, sir. That's awesome. Well, 00:15:43.629 --> 00:15:46.269 we made it again, man. All right. Good stuff. 00:15:47.029 --> 00:15:50.029 All right. Catch you next time. All right. See 00:15:50.029 --> 00:15:50.649 you.