Lean Six Sigma - can it be applied to music?

[feloniuspunk]

I recently took a week long class (at NASA, your tax dollars at work) on the Lean Six Sigma concept of how to make processes more efficient. I'm in training now to become a certified green belt. Those who have already been exposed to it will understand my question. Those who are hearing about it for the first time here and now may have some further investigating to do.It's an interesting concept. It essentially takes a process, any process, and examines every step in that process to see if it's one of three things: 1) a value added step 2) a non value added step but necessary 3) a non value added step and unnecessary. You map out all the steps, and the motion between them, and eliminate all of the unnecessary steps (and motion), stripping the process down to its bare bones, thus maximizing efficiency.The Six Sigma part refers to a statistical average of placing everything under the bell curve. If you manufacture widgets, you want there to be no errors, no rejected widgets, so every widget you produce would fall under the bell curve of success. It's a little more complicated than this oversimplification but in statistics, Sigma is the symbol used to represent one standard deviation.The Boeing aircraft company has an aircraft plant where they build airplanes that is set up as a Lean Six Sigma operation. It's an amazing place. You ask questions like: What is your customer willing to pay for? If your customer is willing to pay for a step in your process that adds value to the end product then you keep the step. If your customer isn't willing to pay for a step in your process that doesn't really add value to the end product then you should examine very closely your logic at wanting keep that step in your process.Music is after all a very subjective thing so that's why I was wondering if any of you high powered business gurus who visit this site have ever thought about applying the six sigma process to the art of writing music, or producing, or whatever?Benchmarks of Lean Six Sigma Leaders:Customer service levels: 95-99% Customer retention: 90% or more Lead times: 1/4 to 1/2 your industry average Productivity/throughput improvement: 15+% per year Inventory turns: More than 24 per year Sales growth: 3-5 times your industry average Earnings growth: 2-4 times your industry averagelink: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean_Six_Sigma"Six Sigma is a proven disciplined approach for improving measurable results for any organization. Six Sigma project success stories exist from organizations including manufacturing, service, nonprofit, government, research and healthcare. The key to Six Sigma is the completion of leadership sponsored projects. Six Sigma Certification requires completing an actual Six Sigma project."If you've never heard of it don't fret. You probably already have an intuitve feel for what it's all about. I wonder if Mike Laskow has ever heard of it and applies it at Taxi?Another part of the Six Sigma doctrine is a Japanese concept called Kaizen: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KaizenKaizen (6:06 minutes long)http://youtube.com/watch?v=2_U-IwrCph4It also involves coaching:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vB59PkB0eQBy the way, you should be pleased that NASA is interested in stuff like this. We pretty much only get one chance to do things right the first time. It pays for us to be motivated to do our absolute best each and every time, leaving nothing to chance, minimizing the risk. If I'm playing guitar and blow a chord change, no big deal. If we're launching the shuttle and something goes wrong, it can become a very bad day real quick for many people. A whole lot more consequence than blowing a chord fingering on the guitar. But, nonetheless, you should approach your art, music, with that same fervor and intensity each and every time, even though the consequences of making a mistake may be somewhat less, the results of achieving success can often be just as spetacular!

[rlcmusic]

Well, this is obviously a massive topic so to cut a thought process very very short - No!! I have NEVER thought about applying Six Sigma to writing songs!! I cannot think of anything worse to put me off writing music! Yes....songwriting is a business and the business side of songwriting 'could' benefit if conducted properly but the actual creative process of writing a song?....personally....no. "Define/Measure/Analyze/Improve/Control" - ummm..... I go with the flow when writing a song...there is a thought process behind it and you need to recognize what you can improve in your whole work flow......... but for me - it would never involve Six Sigma! Taking a simplistic view - the process of achieving the desired result (which is purely emotional for some people, not based on financial factors - how is that measured?) is a natural process - something sounds good - leave it in / sounds rubbish take it out - be flexible to change too. Putting aside influences/feedback - I am the only "input" in the process so it's quite clear where the problem would be if there is one! If you can somehow "identify" exactly where things are going wrong....will all the statistical analysis, FMEAs, graphs/charts etc... really enable you to become a better songwriter from a creative perspective? - I think not. Many would argue that there's actually a struggle going on between creativity and efficiency in companies because creativity/invention/innovation are very disorderly processes by their very nature. I am sure there are 1000s of arguments against what I've said above but it's a personal view.

[Casey H]

Wow... I never thought I'd see this subject here.I have been through Six Sigma Green Belt training and currently work in a 'Lean' environment. Very likely many people here are not familiar with this stuff.My take, after all that training, is the basic concept of "Define/Measure/Analyze/Improve/Control" is an excellent one, but taking it to extremes is a big problem. The way I see it, it all comes down to you can't fix what you can't measure.... Seems like common sense when you put it that way... So, if you don't have a clue what we are talking about here, think about that one thing. How do you know if you are getting better?BTW, during Six Sigma training, they teach that you can apply it to ANYTHING... I'm not sure I agree. I mean, you can boil water for a cup of tea with a nuclear reactor, but... Casey

[guscave]

Quote:BTW, during Six Sigma training, they teach that you can apply it to ANYTHING... I'm not sure I agree. I mean, you can boil water for a cup of tea with a nuclear reactor, but... CaseyLOL.. Personally I try not to get too Scientific, Philosophical, or even Theoretical when it comes to songwriting. I'm sure the craft and process of songwriting can be explained with many theories, but I'd rather consult my muse when I sit down to write.

[gatorjj]

I think it's a great concept but like most gets quickly eaten by corporate realities and politics, so overall I'm not a big fan. However...It suddenly hit me reading this thread, LSS is exactly what I am trying to do with Taxi! Thinking about it, all the tools are there for measuring and analyzing with critiques, forwards, feedback etc. I'm trying to take that and improve my quality.I'm not sure I want to do endless powerpoints on my songwriting though!

[Casey H]

Quote:I think it's a great concept but like most gets quickly eaten by corporate realities and politics, so overall I'm not a big fan… I'm not sure I want to do endless powerpoints on my songwriting though! So true… I’ve lived and breathed this. The company I used to work for forced us all to go through SS training. We were all given team projects whereby we had to demonstrate a process improvement that would yield a target savings, such as 50K-100K per year. Now when you create dozens of projects with theoretical cost saving (on paper), it’s unlikely that most of them really can save money. But, teams were forced to do it and to document the supposed savings. Well, if you force people to come up with something to get management off their back, they will make up anything to get the damn thing done. So most projects produced great savings on paper but were completely useless. Even worse was no one seemed to factor in the cost of the training itself-- travel, missed work days, hours in team meetings, etc. And the company hired a Six Sigma Black Belt to run the program, my guess is a position like that pays well over 100K, maybe even 150K. Most likely, only a select few projects really saved the company money.You don’t thing Pareto charts, fishbone diagrams, histograms, and scatter plots will make your songwriting better? hee hee… However, as I said in my earlier post, I do believe that measuring and improving any process is a good thing. What's important is to not apply more of this than makes sense for the application. Casey

[mazz]

I think this could be applied to any business infrastructure and things such as sequencing templates, invoicing, databases for tracking song submissions, etc. Anything that needs to be done but that potentially takes the creative energy away from actually writing is a good candidate for this type of thing.I don't know if one could apply it directly to the act of writing but as a way to free up time and space for writing, I think it's a valuable practice to engage in.They've been trying to implement this and other things where I work to varying degrees of success. One of the things that has been hardest has been managements addiction to top down American style management. They mouth the words like they want to get everyone involved but most of the decisions are made in a vacuum sealed conference room and then "rolled out" to us minions. Usually it's poorly thought out because there's no feedback from the people that actually have to execute the plan and it just bogs everything down. Until they come out of their offices and conference rooms and get their hands dirty, management will never truly achieve the full benefits of this type of process.Done,Mazz

[gatorjj]

I'm starting to wonder if we all work for the same company

[Casey H]

Quote:I'm starting to wonder if we all work for the same company That is why most people find the Dilbert cartoon strip so funny. Everyone reads it and says, "That's my company!!"...

[rayzer]

Quote:I don't know if one could apply it directly to the act of writing but as a way to free up time and space for writing, I think it's a valuable practice to engage in.That's exactly what I thought when I read this description:Quote:It essentially takes a process, any process, and examines every step in that process to see if it's one of three things: 1) a value added step 2) a non value added step but necessary 3) a non value added step and unnecessary. You map out all the steps, and the motion between them, and eliminate all of the unnecessary steps (and motion), stripping the process down to its bare bones, thus maximizing efficiency.That's another way to describe what we're doing through the 'Being Deliberate' thread. The 'process' is living as a songwriter. Value-added steps are things you do to advance songwriting in your life. Non value-added but necessary steps are the other priorities in your life that are prioities to you, but don't advance your songwriting directly. Things like family time and taking care of your responsibilities.Non value-added, unnecessary steps are the things to minimize and are different for everyone.A gray area is that you bring your experiences with you when you write. What you do during non value-added expierences can enrich your songwriting, but (and this is a big but), will do so much more effectively and consistently when you experience them through the eyes and ears of a 24/7 songwriter. Being deliberate creates more time and more material. Cool.Thanks for the new way of looking at it, FP.