Why there is no such thing as
'the silver bullet'!

Fiona Czerniawska is a consultancy industry
watcher. She is an expert on the consulting industry, and in great demand for her knowledge. At her talk to the Richmond Group last year, she shared research which indicated that the only people who get real value from famous management ideas (often known as fads), are the ones that make them famous in the first place.
The reasons for this hold a salutary lesson for all who hope to simply pick an idea off the shelf (whether it be TQ, BPR, Six-sigma, or QFD) and transform their business fortunes over night.
The reason that they are the only ones to get real value, is because they are the ones who have put in the work and innovation to find a good solution to their particular problem. They are the ones who have wrestled with the issues, seen that the solution first and foremost lies with them, and made it happen despite the problems and the pitfalls. They were successful not so much because their work changed their organisation, but because it changed them, their understanding and their attitudes.
If you have ever wondered why the sub-title of Managing by Design is Using QFD to transform management performance, rather than to transform organisational performance, the answer can be found in the preceding paragraph. QFD only transforms organisational performance to the extent that it transforms management performance.
There is no 'silver bullet', no easy way out. Your organisation performance is as it is, because your management is as it is! And so it will remain.
Organisations that seek to shortcut the need to change the way that they manage and the professionalism of their managers tend to leap on management ideas as a ready remedy. But once the idea has reached this stage it ceases to add value - because people seek to standardise and shortcut its implementation without really understanding its fundamental lessons - and they hand over the valuable formative aspects to outsiders who do their 'thinking' for them. As a result, there is a real danger that consultancies grow wiser, get bigger, and become richer, while their clients become more dependent.
The only real and sustainable way to transform your business is to transform your management of it. Nothing else comes close!