Valleywag had a post today about the show 30 Rock and the insider jokes about NBC its parent company's obsession with Six Sigma. I've been around project management for a long time, but Six Sigma is the only philosophy I've seen that would make Tom Cruise jealous (see The Creepy Corporate Cult Behind Last Night's 30 Rock).
The idea behind Six Sigma is that every process of a business should be executed with as few errors as possible – the target Six Sigma aims for is 3.4 errors in every 1 million attempts. Now, lots of companies follow silly management philosophies. But Six Sigma takes on religious overtones at G.E. because of its followers fervent belief that it is a universal belief, enforced in every facet of the corporate empire. Even, at one point, according to a (maybe apocryphal) well-told anecdote to comedy writing. Former GE chief executive Jack Welch is said to have once ordered the counting of the number of laughs each episode of NBC's sitcoms.
Funny because it's true.
Popularity: 3% [?]
Unrest by Parkway Drive