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Effectiveness relates to how good the outcome of the process is. Efficiency relates to how much resources the process consumes. An example from the software industry is the Review process. Effective review means one which finds most defects and leaks very few. The work product which is the outcome of the review will be of high quality i.e. it will have very few defects. Efficient review means using minimum review time to find maximum defects. It doesn't deal with how many defects will be left in the work product. Thus effective review needn't be efficient and vice versa.

Effectiveness is an indicator as to how the process is successful in delivering the output as per requirements. Efficiency is an indicator as to the extent of output delivered with least resource consumption. i.e. higher input to output ratio. Ideally it is not relevant to consider the efficiency of a process that is not effective. If a process is very efficient for what ever output it delivers, but not effective, it simply means that the process is ' efficiently' delivering a wrong output. However, we may conditionally apply this thought process; for e.g. a process could have a very high process capability, with very low variation, but due to a mean shift it is not delivering the required output, and hence not effective. For eg. in my recent experience in a fuel station, they had an equipment that is capable of checking and correcting the air pressure of all my four wheels, as against walking around and checking each wheel one by one. I felt that this is an efficient process, and saves time and effort. However, after the process I did not have comfortable drive. Upon checking the individual pressure of each wheel, I found the variation is high. Thus, though the process was attempted to be made more efficient, the effectiveness has been compromised. It is quite possible to have a process that is effective, but need not be efficient. Imagine a continuously running escalator, as against an elevator that can carry only 4 persons. The escalator represents a more effective process since it is always available to go up. However, since it is continuously running irrespective of any passenger, it may not be an efficient process.

A Six Sigma trainer can be efficient; in terms of his punctuality, preparedness & organizing skills. An effective Six Sigma trainer can be the one who helps participants learn the application of tools and techniques by providing them with real-life and practical examples. The trainer can be efficient but; not effective and vice versa A bus or cab driver can be an efficient or high-speed driver but; an effective driver is the one who ensures that the car itself and passenger too reaches the destination safely. The cab or bus driver can be effective but; not efficient and vice versa

Efficiency is defined as how efficiently the inputs are converted to the output, whereas Effectiveness is defined as the usefulness of the output. Efficient means doing things right and Effective means doing the right thing. Nokia an efficient company, couldn’t succeed as they were not able to shift to smart phone technology fast enough, they were efficient but not effective. Achieving the target of “X” nos. of calls/ day by the reps from +91-140…. is not going to attain the results unless I happen to reach on a deal with them. For a successful organisation, the process needs to be Efficient and Effective.

Efficient(doing things right) and Effective(doing right things) are two interchangeably used words in general parlance yet different in 'work' approach. Both are essential as explained through examples: Blackberry inspite of being most efficient in their approach failed because they could not encompass strategies according to changing market ...lack of vision rendered them ineffective. Scheme of JanDhan accounts was to provide easy access of financial services to all and was effective in opening 1.5 crore accounts. But for inefficient implementation, it took very long for accounts to become operational and some lost interest.

Efficient : It means doing something of quality with minimum wasted effort or expense, and in the process achieving the best possible outcome. Effective: Having the intended or needed result successfully. Example for case 1: Efficient process but not an effective one: In an IT support project, whenever a bug/defect needs to be tested, the ideal way is to provide the fix(Code) , test it in local environment and then deploy to production environment (Efficient way). For lower severity defects, this may work. But because the downtime for severity 1 defects would be very less, developers/support analysts would not have time luxury to do this and hence this efficient process may not be of help to them, as the critical feature/functionality needs to be restored quickly. Hence even if this is an efficient process, for Severity 1 & 2, this process may not be effective as doing this way may take some time which may be cross the SLA for severity 1 & 2 to be missed. Therefore this may not become an effective process. Though as a workaround , the organisation can make use of Experienced or SMEs (of the applications) to address these Severity 1 and Severity 2 bugs/defects who would bring their expertise to offset this problem by providing the fix and then deploy it directly in the production environment. Example for case 2: Effective process but not an efficient one: Consider an IT support (maintenance) project. Two constant values need to be included in the software code for doing a processing (Calculation), by the support analyst. Now the analyst 'hard' codes these values into certain set of files (where this is needed). Hard coding (can be called as Magic Number in this context) means that numeric values are inserted into the code instead of using through a variable which can be declared as a CONSTANT, which is the efficient way. In case, due to business logic, the constant values get changed , then all the hard coded values need to get changed in each file and manual updates need to happen. So there is a chance that manual error or missing of the hard coded value in a particular file might happen. Declaring the constant value through a CONSTANT variable might avoid these errors, which is the most efficient way. Therefore while we can achieve what we want with the hard coded values (to satisfy the business needs) which can fetch the right results(effectiveness), it is not the efficient way of doing that processing as aforementioned.

Effectiveness means the ability to produce a desired result that is; getting things done right regardless of time and cost; whereas efficiency means doing the things right in a best possible or optimised way. Example 1: If illumination intensity 600 lux is the requirements in a study room , you have several option to get the desired results, one may use CFL or LED light. In this case CFL is effective but not efficient as it consumes more energy for same light intensity compared to energy efficient LEAD lights. Example 2: In a beverage manufacturing unit ,day production target is to produce 10000 cases and if you use process A ,it produces 13000 with 5% deviations where as Process B produces 9000 with zero deviations. In this case Process B is efficient as it is cost effective due to zero waste but not effective as it is not meeting the required results.

Effective means doing the right thing and efficient means doing the things right. Example : Average of field visit count of two agents of an insurance company are coming 6 visit per day. Target is also 5 to 6 visit per day. Then both the agents will be considered as effective. But the average of conversion of each visit to sales of the 1st agent is 3 clients per day and for the 2nd agent is 1 client per day. Then 1st agent will be considered as efficient

Alex A process, product, or service should be both, efficient as well as effective. Aiming only for effectiveness may mean doing the right thing but doesn't consider cost. E.g, a shoe manufacturer gold plating his product in order to please customer but this comes at exorbitant cost that the customer may not be willing to pay for. Whereas, aiming only for efficiency may have too much if emphasis on controlling cost resulting in impact on quality of product or service. E.g., shoe manufacturer cutting cost by using low grade raw materials. So, it is important to strike a balance between Effectiveness and Efficiency for meaningful product / service.

"Efficiency" measures the use of inputs for realizing maximum output, a waste process can also be performed efficiently. But nothing is more inefficient than doing efficiently, that which should not be done at all. Effectiveness also brings into focus, the purpose or objective of the process, ensuring that it should be fruitful in the larger scheme of things. The best example of a process that could be efficient without being effective is the “Corrections” or “Repair” processes. The process may be efficiently using resources, but will be effective only if the intelligence it generates leads to its own redundancy.

Effective is doing the correct thing to produce the desired result whereas Efficient is doing the thing in a most productive manner. Effectiveness is a measure of getting the result correctly in a certain number of events whereas Efficiency is a percentage figure which is measured as the ratio of work/power/time utilized in producing an output to that of the total work/power/time taken Example of Highly Effective but not efficient process A sales person distributing a sample of any product (say chocolates) to the customers with a stall in any super/hyper market is a very effective but highly inefficient way as the customer comes to know about the product by consuming/using it but very less customers would be actually buying it. Similar example would be transmission of electricity in high voltage lines where the effectiveness is very high as fewer lines are used but the efficiency of power transmitted to the end transformer would be much lower than that produced at the power station. Example of Highly Efficient but not Effective process Online teaching or teaching to masses is a highly efficient process where several 100’s or even 1000’s of students can be trained at the same time but the effectiveness is very less as the instructor/professor cannot put in adequate time to each trainee to make sure that the trainee has absorbed the concept well.

Effectiveness(goal oriented): it's about doing the right tasks, completing activities and achieving goals. Efficiency(effort, process, goal, time oriented): it's about doing in an optimal way (like doing it in a faster way or with least expenses)

The Delhi Govt's Odd-Even motor vehicle usage scheme was considered efficient but not fully effective in terms of compliance. China's policy of number plates ending with specific digits on roads on specific days is effective but not efficient considering China's transportation needs.

Lets say A & B are two representative who are selling credit cards. Their manager asked them to call minimum 100 people to promote & sell their companies card. A/sell B/Sell Day 1 100/5 100/50 Day 2 80/40 100/5 So, in day 1, both A & B are effective[because both reached daily target of 100 calls] but B was more efficient. on the other hand, on day 2, B was effective but not efficient, and A was not effective[as failed to reach target of 100 calls] but efficient than A. In case of a product manager, P1 & P2 both completed their project within given timeline so both are effective but P2 used extra cost to achieve it, so P1 is much more efficient than P2. Hope it clears the idea So, effectiveness depends upon reaching the target but efficient depends upon effectiveness & output.

If we meet our objective without really bothering about the amount of resources that we have put in then we can say that we have been effective. If we meet our objective while optimally utilising our resources then we will be said to be Efficient and Effective. For example, I am cutting an apple into six pieces of equal size. I can use a knife and cut into six pieces approximately of equal size. I have been effective but not efficient. If I take an apple cutter and cut the apple in one shot, then I am efficient and effective

One person rights 1000 lines of code in 4 hours. He is very efficient. But his code has many defects and it takes another 4 hours to correct it. Person B writes 1000 lines in 4 hours and that is defect free. Person B is effective.