Do Rubrics Stifle Creativity?
Would it stifle creativity to combine a quality improvement process like 6-sigman with using developmental rubrics to measure human performance? This question is serious for every school, college or university being accredited under the new rules of performance-improvement accreditation. Under this approach institutions must evaluate programs regularly; use the evaluations to identify opportunities for educational improvement; design and implement improvements; and evaluate again to determine if the improvements work. This process sounds remarkably like the venerable 6-Sigma programs implemented so successfully by GE and other major manufacturers. Such programs were designed to improve production quality to the point of less than an average of 3.4 defects per mill products made. But 6-Sigma has been adapted to far more than production with disturbing results. Business Week (6-11-07) just devoted its cover article to the struggle at 3M between efficiency and creativity. According to the
