When I worked for Bank Of America, I became Six Sigma “Green Belt” certified. I remember when we started learning about the Six Sigma principles and concepts, it seem pretty easy. They presented it to us using very basic math. Mathematically, sigma refers to the number of defects per million. Apply that to company “A” who produces widgets and it simply means you can have something like 3 faulty widgets for every 6 million you produce. Easy peasy. My mind can grasp that.
What my mind couldn’t process was how you could apply the principles of that math to an entity that doesn’t produce anything. “Oh, but you CAN”, they say with confidence and assurance. So the group of us worked for weeks to apply these stupid six sigma principles to something that can’t even BE quantified let alone corrected to a point of six sigma. I clearly recall sitting there as everyone else was working like little lemmings on our “project” thinking, am I the only one who can see that the Emperor isn’t wearing any clothes?
Fast forward to today. The powers that be have decided that they want a quarterly report of all contracts that cost us money in the form of a powerpoint. Got it. They want it in a very specific form with very specific information. Project centric. What is the total cost of the project the contract was purchased to complete, when did it start, what is its estimated completion date, risks, issues, etc. They even give us a nice example of a powerpoint and what it needs to contain. However, my contract isn’t a project centric contract. Can’t look anything like what they want. At all. There’s no “project” cost, estimated completion dates, etc. It’s more of a service contract. But they want it how they want it. Using the example that doesn’t apply to us. But apparently I’m the only idiot. Square peg, round hole. Emperor is naked again. Its days like today when 6.5 years until retirement feels like a prison sentence rather than a goal.
