I agree with you, Rol, about narrowing the focus and achieving as a result
quicker, efficacious solutions. It's the old story of "solving world
hunger" which others have mentioned on the list.
Pareto identified it best: 20% of the sources cause 80% of any problem.
Over and over again in my own company where team work with problem-solving
tools is used, I see examples of overshooting the narrow goal and causing
problems (excessive time, unnecessary people involvement, loss of morale,
etc.), AND iterative (step-by-step) improvements which achieve and often
exceed goals.
By turning the PDCA wheel over and over, iterative improvement
demonstrably propels organizations forward.
Best,
-- Barry Mallis bmallis@markem.com MARKEM Corporation Keene, NHLearning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>