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Understanding Six Sigma Deployment Failures There is no specific definition of “failure” of the Six Sigma deployment. However, there arises a need to get the assistance of the Black Belts and Green Belts to support the business when the consultants have moved on.

Understanding Six Sigma Deployment Failures Posted by Categories: Project Management Successful deployment is when acceptable ROI is realized. When a Six Sigma deployment fails, it may mean the failure to attain the return on investment necessary by the company to make any other investment.

1. Dan Dennett: Ants, terrorism, and the awesome power of memes: If you work with people on ideas, you’ve probably seen it happen many times before: a bad idea is introduced, the team goes with it, and somewhere along the line, we realize it’s all about to go very badly.

Strategy execution is where value is created. The best plans are worthless unless they are backed by a group of people that understand their roles and accountabilities and that have the information they need when they need for rapid decision-making. Execution never takes place in a straight line and without setbacks.

This is the text of an actual memo — carefully redacted — written up after the review of a major IT project that had become a software runaway and which would eventually be abandoned. Count up just how many things the corporation (”BigFirm”) did wrong!

[Welcome to reddit, FARK, Slashdot, AllThingsD and del.icio.us visitors, plus everyone else who has linked in here! Thanks for your patience through Tuesday (6/17) with the slow response time. Even with a dedicated server, this site was overloaded on Tuesday -- and the server appears to have crashed

Update 6/2/08 7:00PM EDT: Twitter is working well at the moment. Will it last? Twitter’s problems continue and are not likely to be fixed for months. The system’s fundamental architecture is flawed, management is grasping at straws to figure out what’s wrong, and hiring qualified folks takes time.

Twitter, the well-known social messaging service, has finally acknowledged the depth and severity of technical problems causing downtime and disruption to users. While such candor is refreshing, it also offers a glimpse into the kinds of management issues that underlie virtually all IT failures.

[Copyright 2008 by Bruce F. Webster. All rights reserved. Adapted from Surviving Complexity (forthcoming).] Humanity has been developing information technology for half a century. That experience has taught us this unpleasant truth: virtually every information technology project above a certain size

Every Project Manager with a few years of experience under his or her belt can likely recall at least one example of a major project that lived on long after the plug should have been pulled and the project canceled. The best (or worst) examples are the ego-driven initiatives of top executives that can't let go for fear of losing face by admitting defeat.