Relative advantages and disadvantages Essay

1. What are the relative advantages and disadvantages of a company being committed to achieving efficiency through a program like Six Sigma versus encouraging and reinforcing creativity and innovation? (Page 10-11) Six Sigma has a customer driven approach, its emphasis on using quantitative data to make decisions, and priority on saving money. Has evolved into a high performance system for executing business strategies. Six sigma is set up so that it can be applied to a range of situations. I think six sigma might lower team moral where as they might not be as open to speak on individual ideas as such. 2. How would you describe 3M‟s efficiency and creativity conundrum in terms of programmed and nonprogrammed decisions? (Page 153-154) Programmed- a simple routine for which a manager has an established decision rule. Nonprogrammed- A new, complex decision that requires a creative solution. Their decision as a company to use methods such as six sigma versus encouraging/ reinforcing†¦ ( nonprogrammed) Not really sure about this question so much. 3. How would you describe 3M‟s efficiency and creativity conundrum in terms of the rational, bounded rationality, and Z model of decision making? (Page 154-155) rational- a logical, step by step approach to decision making, with a thorough analysis of alternatives and their consequences. The 4 stages of, six sigma. Bounded- a theory that suggests that there are limits to how rational a decision maker can actually be. Z model- capitalizes on strengths of the four separate preferences 4. What role(s) do intuition and creativity play in the decision making that is evident in 3M‟s efficiency and creativity conundrum?