In 2002, Quality Progress published How To Compare Six Sigma, Lean and the Theory of Constraints: A framework for choosing what’s best for your organization’ by this author. The Lean Enterprise Institute said of the article: “Here is a good overview ... on the principles, effects, similarities, and differences among Lean, Six Sigma, and the Theory of Constraints.”

It is time for a refresher about how things are today. The original article described Lean, Six Sigma, and Theory of Constraints. This article adds four more approaches to improve your organization. Dr. Deming with his focus on managing processes and systems, Value Methodology with its focus on designing the product/service, and ISO 9000 and Baldridge Performance Excellence Program focusing on assessing elements of the entire organization.

Business is a complicated endeavor, write contributors Dave Nave and Steve Dightman. Analytical tools (from Six Sigma, Lean, etc.) provide a perspective, highly dependent on selected parameters. But no single tool provides a complete picture of the reality. Here's what you need to know.

Performance excellence occupies the attention of many organizations. Discussions in those organizations focus on how to accomplish the change from the current performance condition to the desired performance condition. Inevitable discussions fixate on tool selection, frequently degenerating into arguments about which tool to use.

Though tool selection is important, the trap is believing that all an organization has to do is select the right tool and all will be well. Unfortunately, tools are often applied to situations for which they were never intended. At other times, the proper use of the tool is not well-understood, and at still other times, the tool users do not have what Dr. Deming called ’intimate knowledge’ of the data being examined.

Improving business performance occupies the attention of many executives. On their own, three common areas of focus for improvement—improving processes, product design, and management practices—provides for a good return on the investment. However, the solution is not one program or another. Each focus has a different scope of influence and a different time horizon for returns. When exploring these three areas for improvement together, what emerges is a better understanding of how they interact and work collectively for the betterment of the organization. Collaboration and communication between groups with special skills and interests is the start of a whole new level of improving business performance.

Within the American business community a proliferation of process improvement champions are vying for leadership attention. Each champion advocating the adoption of their improvement methodology in your organization.

Where do these champions come from and how did they become advocates of a specific improvement methodology? In many cases, a champion is created as the result of achieving great performance improvement in a number of situations, using a specific set of process improvement tools and techniques.

After listening to multiple champions advocate their special methodology, how do you choose what will fit into your situation? What methodology fits the culture of your organization? Many process improvement methodologies appear to conflict with each other, or at least down play the contribution of other methodologies. This confusing montage of tools and philosophies creates the illusion of conflicting strategies. You have an instinctive feeling that no improvement program is complete, or will exploit the full potential of your concern.