One of the fundamental flaws with process improvement programs is the assumption that all aspects of a business environment are determinant and predictable to a high degree of precision. Certainly some business systems and functions fall into this highly predictable category and fit well into the various quality programs we have seen.
What happens, though, when you try to apply Six Sigma tools to a process or function that is indeterminate? The answer is that incorrect conclusions can be drawn. To be clear, predictions that have a higher precision than the evaluated process or function is capable of, need to be viewed with suspicion. Examples of indeterminate systems are the weather and search engine impressions that a keyword receives on a periodic basis.
The internet, like the weather is an indeterminate system. With indeterminate systems, macro (low precision) predictions can be made reliability (hot in summer, cold in winter) because at the macro level indeterminate systems demonstrate repeatable cyclic behavior. At the micro level, though, this repeatable cyclic behavior becomes less consistent and less reliable. For more on this read the work of Edward Lorenz regarding chaos and weather prediction.
Getting back to the internet, economic systems are indeterminate. This does not mean that Six Sigma tools cannot be applied to indeterminate systems like internet search engine key word impressions. It is instead a matter of using the right tool for the job. In indeterminate systems, since you cannot control or adequately predict all of the variables in the system being worked on, a Six Sigma project team will focus on less precise factors (macro). This means statistical inferences that have much higher standard deviation parameters and may even defy statistical evaluation altogether.
With indeterminate systems, the Six Sigma team will be trying to reduce uncertainties surrounding the system and determine the boundaries associated with these uncertainties. We have to realize that we cannot increase the precision of an indeterminate system beyond the system’s natural state. We can, though, control the precision of how we react to the system’s behavior.
With internet impressions, you may not be able to predict search engine behavior very far into the future, but you can calibrate how you will act to take advantage of what you see. For example, you can build a website that is robust enough to deal with the uncertainty of web searches on the internet. You can also take more frequent measurements of key word impressions and use pay per click tools to react to the impression “terrain”.
Basically, what I am saying is that with determinate systems, Six Sigma teams can work directly on the process to reduce variation and improve performance. With indeterminate systems, the team must work with the uncertainty that exists outside the process to improve performance.