Why Six Sigma? Why PMP?

I've worked in and around various IT and technology related and technology using industries for many years. I've seen them all slowly go more and more formal in how they want to handle product creation, operations, HR,  . . . pretty much everything.  Since in many cases, the formal method works much less well than a less informal method, especially for small companies and places that want to encourage creativity, I often wonder WHY they've all decided to go this route.

I've finally come to the conclusion that for most people, they don't know why. They're just following the flow.  But the flow; where has that come from?

I suspect it has two sources: NASA's 1960s Apollo program, and the United States military. Many organizations are subconsciously attempting to recreate what NASA managed to do from 1959 to around 1972. Think about the terminology of innovation in industry these days, especially for ambitious people and companies. Everyone talks about 'a moon shot' product or announcement. We 'shoot for the moon'.  We chide people that things 'aren't rocket science', secretly thinking that rocket science would probably be easier than this shit they have us working on. We have a nostalgic view and yearning for the time when anything seemed possible and when large organizations could be called upon to actually accomplish great things, and not do what we are used to these days . . . fucking them up after spending too much money. The epitome of what many business people and other professionals aspire to is the Apollo program.

All of this crap:
 • Six Sigma
 • ITIL
 • PMP certifications
 • ISO 9001
 • and about 400 others

They're trying to get organizations and people to do things "the right way."  And what they all seem to forget, or not comprehend, is that the success of the Apollo program was not due to hardass certifications and complex processes. It was due to having the cream of the crop of people from the entire country all working toward a single goal with a burning passion that filled the souls of everyone working within it, at every level, from the janitors to the Director of the Agency. Mostly, today, they forget the vision and passion things. So they forget the very things that made those great achievements possible, and have adopted all of the post-mortem overthink that the 70s and 80s took away from the Moon landings.