In most companies Gary would be asked why he couldn't get his department to perform like Herman's. The politically savvy types, like Herman, migrate to the simple processes. This is the nature of opportunity counting and related metrics like DPMO and sigma levels . They are tools for management, not tools for the change agents and change teams. Change agents and teams only need to know current performance in the absolute simplest of terms and if the performance is improving.
Management needs to know where the best processes are and where the worst processes are.
We flag the worst so that management will take a hard look at the issues and improve them. Whatever method is chosen, it must not conflict with other company initiatives. Whatever method is chosen, it must be simple and uniform throughout the organization. It's doubtful that we will ever be able to quantify complexity in an exacting manner. Remember, we only need to count opportunities if we want to estimate a sigma level for comparisons of goods and services that are not necessarily the same.