Innovation and Concept Selection

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About this lesson

Lean Six Sigma projects normally identify incremental improvements for products and processes. However, sometimes the improvement needed requires innovation beyond the current product and process. This lesson discusses several tools and introduces one of the most popular, the Pugh concept generation matrix, as methods to be used when an innovative solution is required.

Quick reference

Innovation and Concept Selection

Sometimes the improvement required needs to be more than an incremental change to the existing product or process. When that is the case, a lateral innovation technique such as Pugh concept generation is needed.

When to use

If the existing product or process is performing at its best potential, but still not meeting the needs of the organization, a new product or process concept is needed.  At that time, a lateral technique such as Pugh concept generation should be used to create an innovative concept that can address the root causes and constraints.

Instructions

Lean Six Sigma builds on an existing process or product. The defect or problem is waste or variation in an existing process or product. The Lean analysis starts with a SIPOC of an existing process. The Six Sigma analysis starts with the process capability of an existing product or process. This grounding in the as-is current state acts as an anchor or paradigm to solution generation. For that reason, the solutions are inevitably incremental in nature. 

Sometimes the solution needs to be innovative and go beyond incremental change. A transformative innovation is needed. When that is the case, the team will need to employ lateral thinking techniques to break away from the current paradigm. Several techniques that have proven effective are:

  • Mind-mapping – A visual brainstorming technique that takes each brainstormed idea and connects other ideas to it to create a map to a different innovative concept.
  • Six Hat thinking – This technique looks at a solution to a problem from six different perspectives. It provides a more balanced view of the problem which often leads to an innovative solution.
  • Provocation and Movement – This technique intentionally suspends one of the core constraints or assumptions relating to a problem (the provocation) and then seeks to find a solution in these new, changed circumstances (movement). This serves as an instigator of innovative ideas with respect to the problem.
  • Pugh concept generation – This idea generation and selection technique is a quick way to evaluate and synthesize competing ideas into a powerful innovation.

Pugh concept generation

Of the listed techniques, the one I have used most often is the Pugh analysis. This technique will quickly evaluate competing ideas to pick the “best” and lends itself to the creation of hybrid ideas that are often very innovative. To create a Pugh concept generation matrix:

  1. Identify the key criteria to be used for evaluation. These are normally the CTQs for the project. Specific numeric goals are not needed, just the category and direction of improvement – such as low cost or high accuracy.
  2. Describe the current process concept. This is the baseline concept for comparison purposes and is one of the clever aspects of the Pugh analysis. Rather than evaluating concepts against an arbitrary or ideal criteria, the evaluation will be a relative comparison to the baseline. This avoids the trap of no idea being acceptable because it misses one of the criteria goals. Now we just want a concept that is as good or better than the baseline.
  3. Brainstorm additional product or process concepts. It is OK to be wild and wacky on these. You can incorporate the Provocation and Movement approach to create concepts. Try to get at least half a dozen and more is better.
  4. Using the current process as a standard or baseline and the key criteria, evaluate each concept relative to the baseline with respect to each criteria. Again, a clever aspect of the Pugh analysis is that this evaluation does not require precise testing and analysis. Instead, it is a subjective analysis using pluses and minuses. Plus means the new concept is better than the baseline and minus means worse. Double plus is much better and double minus is much worse. If it is about the same, then mark it as a zero. For this reason, the baseline concept is all zeros – since the baseline compared to itself is no difference. The rest are subjective – quick guesses. You don’t need precision, so the evaluation can be done quickly.
  5. If there is one clear winner – the concept is all pluses and double plusses, then go with that one. Otherwise, synthesize one or more new concepts using the best features of the other concepts. Start with a concept that has mostly pluses and no double minuses. Then look to combine aspects from other concepts to get minus levels on the concept up to zero or plus. Eventually, you should be able to create a concept that is all plusses or zeros meaning it is as good or better than the current approach on every dimension that matters.
  6. Repeat the process of steps 3, 4, and 5 until the team reaches consensus.

Hints & tips

  • It is often hard for subject matter experts to consider novel ideas. The Six Hat thinking approach will force them to consider each idea from multiple perspectives.
  • Encourage “unworkable” ideas in the Pugh analysis for evaluation. Often, they will rate very high against some of the criteria and that will spur innovation in the hybrid concept to incorporate bits and pieces of those ideas that are workable.
  • Don’t try to get overly precise when doing Pugh – no fractional pluses and minuses. It doesn’t add to the solution and can create needless debate. 
  • If you don’t have any idea at all about how to rate a concept with respect to one of the criteria – then do a quick “Google analysis” to get enough background to make your rating.
  • Don’t add up pluses and minuses for a concept to pick a winner. You want a concept that has all plusses or zeros. If necessary, you can go with a single minus – but no double minus concepts. Even the single minus will need coordination with stakeholders since you are going backwards on a CTQ.
  • Your final solution may be a combination of multiple good solutions. As long as they are not mutually exclusive, implement as many as you can given your time and money constraints.
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  • 00:04 Hi, I am Ray Sheen, sometimes in the improve stage, you find that instead of
  • 00:09 an improvement, you need a radical innovation to resolve the issue.
  • 00:13 This lesson will discuss the dilemma and
  • 00:16 provide a technique to help you through that situation.
  • 00:20 Lean Six Sigma has a dilemma with respect to innovation.
  • 00:23 I know some will tell you that it sparks innovation and
  • 00:27 transforms business, no it doesn't.
  • 00:29 Lean Six Sigma incrementally improves the performance of the existing product or
  • 00:34 process.
  • 00:35 Now, if improvement is a radical concept in your organization you can say that
  • 00:39 Lean Six Sigma creates a business transformation.
  • 00:42 But for most organizations, improvement has become a way of life.
  • 00:46 Lean Six Sigma assists the initiative with a structured data-driven process.
  • 00:51 But face it, we start from the existing process and
  • 00:54 seek to improve that existing process.
  • 00:57 The starting point is always the as-is process and the current process or
  • 01:01 product performance data and defects associated with that current state.
  • 01:05 That leads to internal thinking and internal existing constraints,
  • 01:09 Lean is constrained by the process boundaries found in the SIPOC.
  • 01:13 And Six Sigma is constrained by the process capability or
  • 01:16 Sigma level of the existing metrics.
  • 01:18 Sometimes, we need to break out of those internal boundaries, and
  • 01:21 create a solution that is radically different from the current approach.
  • 01:25 This is hard for the subject matter experts who know the existing product or
  • 01:29 process well.
  • 01:30 They bring a current state paradigm with them.
  • 01:33 Here are several techniques to help break away from that current state.
  • 01:37 All of these are used in a brainstorming or facilitated discussion format.
  • 01:42 Mind-mapping is a graphical way to annotate your brainstorming.
  • 01:46 The lateral thinking comes in where you take a branch of the map and
  • 01:50 proceed down that branch on a journey.
  • 01:52 At each step, challenging or removing assumptions or
  • 01:56 constraints to create more branches.
  • 01:58 Six Hat Thinking forces the team to consider the problem and
  • 02:02 the solutions from multiple perspectives, each hat is a different perspective.
  • 02:06 This prevents the immediate discard of a flawed but
  • 02:10 interesting concept that could be expanded to meet the project goals.
  • 02:15 Provocation and movement
  • 02:16 is the intentional breaking of a constraint, a provocation, and
  • 02:21 investigating what is now possible since that constraint does no longer exist.
  • 02:26 Again, this will expose new possibilities that can be pursued,
  • 02:30 however my favorite is the Pugh Concept Generation technique.
  • 02:34 I've used it literally dozens and dozens of times, so
  • 02:37 let's take a look at that technique.
  • 02:39 The Pugh concept generation technique was named after Professor Stuart Pugh
  • 02:43 from Edinburgh University.
  • 02:45 This is a quick technique that combines brainstorming, concept ideation and
  • 02:50 concept selection into one tool.
  • 02:51 Like many concept generation techniques,
  • 02:54 it's used to pick the best idea from among a list of ideas or concepts.
  • 02:58 But it uses several tricks to make this both faster and easier while at the same
  • 03:03 time, more powerful than any of the others that I have worked with.
  • 03:07 The vectors for the concept selection are the most important criteria from
  • 03:11 the customer perspective, so it's not an internally focused analysis.
  • 03:15 In that way, it keeps the customer CTQs, not an internal measurement,
  • 03:20 like project cost, as the most important criteria.
  • 03:24 When we look internally for selection criteria the results will almost always
  • 03:28 be a concept that is a minor incremental change,
  • 03:31 that will be the lowest cost, fastest implementation, and least technical risk.
  • 03:36 But it also sometimes badly misses the customer's CTQs.
  • 03:40 One really great aspect of the Pugh approach is that you can have a really
  • 03:45 dumb, boneheaded idea that is quickly rejected.
  • 03:48 But if within that idea, there is a clever nugget, that nugget can be mined and
  • 03:52 added to another concept resulting in a really great and innovative approach.
  • 03:57 So how does Pugh Concept Generation work?
  • 04:00 Well, first step is to identify the criteria, now this is usually easy,
  • 04:04 these are the project CTQs.
  • 04:06 Keep these generic in nature, rather than specific thresholds,
  • 04:10 such as fast operation, but don't set a specific time.
  • 04:15 Step two is to describe the current state with respect to the CTQs,
  • 04:18 this is our baseline for comparison.
  • 04:21 This is one of the truly clever aspects of the Pugh analysis.
  • 04:25 With the current status of baseline for performance,
  • 04:28 we'll be focused on improvement.
  • 04:29 If we had used the CTQ goals for the baseline, we may find that nothing can
  • 04:34 meet all of the goals and then we only have failures to choose from.
  • 04:38 Next we brainstorm the concepts, and then we evaluate these concepts.
  • 04:43 This is another place where Pugh is very clever.
  • 04:45 Rather than requiring a prototype or detail analysis of each concept that can
  • 04:50 be tested to determine its exact performance level,
  • 04:53 Pugh's uses pluses and minuses for relative comparison.
  • 04:57 Plus for better, double plus for much better, minus for worse, double minus for
  • 05:02 much worse and a 0 if it's about the same.
  • 05:04 We do the comparison of the brainstormed ideas with respect to the current
  • 05:09 state baseline along each of the evaluation criteria vectors.
  • 05:13 So if a criteria was accuracy we would ask, is the brainstormed idea likely to be
  • 05:18 better or worse, much better or much worse or all about the same with respect to accuracy?
  • 05:24 Once we analyzed each of the concepts with respect to each criteria, we look for
  • 05:28 our concept that has all pluses or zeroes.
  • 05:32 That means that it is as good or better than what we do today.
  • 05:35 We can also look to incorporate some of the double plus ideas into the best
  • 05:39 idea or one that's close, so we create a hybrid that is even a better concept.
  • 05:44 And this way, we begin to break through constraints and become truly innovative.
  • 05:50 And then the last step is to repeat steps three, four and
  • 05:52 five of the process until the team is comfortable with the results.
  • 05:56 Let me use a simple illustration of the Pugh concept generation approach.
  • 06:00 First, we list all the criteria, your list of criteria may be more or
  • 06:03 less than what I'm showing.
  • 06:05 But again make sure you're listing the criteria category with a direction of
  • 06:09 goodness not a threshold number.
  • 06:11 Next, list the current product or process as your first concept,
  • 06:15 this is the baseline.
  • 06:16 And of course, when we compare the baseline to the baseline,
  • 06:20 we get all zeros.
  • 06:21 Now, start to brainstorm other ideas, and
  • 06:23 it's okay to get really wacky on the ideas.
  • 06:26 The scoring will sort out the wild ones, but
  • 06:28 you may get an idea nugget from one of those.
  • 06:31 Now, compare each brainstormed idea, to the baseline and
  • 06:35 each to the criteria vectors.
  • 06:37 So if the first column is accuracy,
  • 06:39 the diamond is more accurate than the baseline.
  • 06:42 The trapezoid and triangle are much more accurate,
  • 06:46 but the ellipse is much less accurate.
  • 06:48 Notice, since we are just using pluses and minuses, I don't need to quantify
  • 06:53 exactly how much better or worse, just a direction and a rough magnitude.
  • 06:58 Well, in this analysis, none of the ideas have all 0s and pluses, meaning as good or
  • 07:03 better than the base line.
  • 07:05 So we can stick with the base line or choose one of the approaches that is
  • 07:09 really good, meaning no double negatives like with the triangle, and
  • 07:13 then discuss this idea with the stakeholders.
  • 07:15 Or we can even try to synthesize a hybrid approach that builds on this idea by
  • 07:20 taking some good aspects from several other approaches,
  • 07:23 which is what I've done here.
  • 07:25 Turns out that in this super star hybrid concept, I was able to use
  • 07:30 the double plus aspect of the otherwise really stinky ellipse idea.
  • 07:35 Pugh concept generation is an excellent technique to use when the solution must go
  • 07:40 beyond an incremental improvement to the current product or process concept.

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