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Ever had the urge to develop your own Excel templates for quality? It’s a waste of time. Here’s why:
“I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma for Hospitals” and QI Macros [software].
“You may not know this, but I played rock guitar and lead guitar in bands back in high school and college. That kind of went away, but I still play a little bit.
“Way back when, I was a kid. I was on a newspaper route. I didn’t have a lot of money and I needed an amplifier. Well, amplifiers were expensive, and back then there was a company called Heathkit that made kits where you could actually buy the kit and put the amplifier together yourself.
Continue Reading "Don’t Do It Yourself"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.
You don’t really Learn Quality Improvement or Lean Six Sigma in a classroom. Here’s why:
“I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma for Hospitals” and QI Macros [software].
“You know, I’ve discovered that you don’t really learn Quality Improvement in a classroom, you learn it afterwards. It’s more like an apprenticeship where you go out and start to try stuff and figure things out. If there’s somebody around, you get a little help with that. When I started, there was nobody around to help me with that, so I kind of stumbled for a while but then I figured it out.
Continue Reading "You Don’t Really Learn QI/LSS in a Classroom"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.
Are you afraid to tackle the biggest problem facing your company? Don’t be. Here’s why:
“I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].
“I have to admit I’ve never read Moby Dick. I’ve never gotten beyond ‘My name is Ishmael,’ but I think each one of us in our organization has a white whale. There’s some big hairy pressing problem that is so scary that we’re afraid to tackle it… afraid.
“Now, I’ll never forget when the head of Finance called me in and said “Postage costs have gone up $20 million this year.” I worked at US West, the phone company.
Continue Reading "What’s Your White Whale?"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.
Ever noticed that some people would rather bend the data than fix the process? That’s a bad idea. Here’s why:
“I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma for Hospitals” and QI Macros [software].
“I was out at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement conference and I was talking to somebody, and they mentioned that over in Britain they had certain requirements for how you perform in hospitals. One of the hospitals decided to bend the data to match what the NIH wanted. Those managers ended up going to jail.
“Have you ever noticed that some people want to bend the data to look good, not use the data to improve so that everybody looks good?
Continue Reading "Don’t Bend the Data"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.
Ever noticed that some people struggle to learn Quality Improvement and Lean Six Sigma Here’s why:
“I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].
“I talked about Tim Ferriss’ approach to simplifying things. He also points out that in many situations when people are coming on board there are certain failure points: where do they fail? His cooking book is about having too complicated a recipe, or too many things that had to get done at the same time. So how do we make it up so that they don’t have that problem? How do we eliminate the failure points?
Continue Reading "Eliminate the Failure Points of Quality Improvement"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.
Too many teams try to use every tool in the Six Sigma toolkit. It’s counterproductive. Here’s why:
“I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma for Hospitals” and QI Macros [software].
“For a number of years, I’ve been a fan of Tim Ferriss, the author of “The Four Hour Workweek.” In “The 4-Hour Chef,” he spends a whole chapter talking about how he takes a process, breaks it all down and makes it simple and easy to learn. One of the things that I found in there (and I’ll just read this, because it makes it a little easier for me), he says, “Do as little as needed, not as much as possible.”
Continue Reading "Do as Little as Needed, Not as Much as Possible"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.
The Myths of Quality are holding you back. Here’s why:
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma For Hospitals,” and QI Macros [software].
“I want to talk to you about what I think are the myths of quality. These are from last century, but they’re very pervasive.
“Number one: That you have to have leadership driving the thing so that it does what it does. I think this is false. This was created by consultants because they needed the leadership team to get involved to open up the pocketbooks to pay for everything. No, I believe that each one of us can be an informal leader and we can start making improvements right now.
Continue Reading "The Myths of Quality"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.
Companies have mountains of data. Are you using yours?
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].
“I want to ask you: Are you using the data that you have available, or is it dying in some database hidden in some corner of the information systems? There’s a lot of great information in there that could drive tremendous improvements, but nobody’s paying attention or they don’t have enough time to go look at it. Companies collect tsunamis of data, I mean mountains of data, truckloads of data… and then it just sits somewhere and does nothing.
Continue Reading "Are You Using Your Data?"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.
Healthcare has begun to focus on evidence-based practice (EBP) using the tools of quality. Here’s where we are and what can be done to accelerate healthcare quality.
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma For Hospitals,” and QI Macros [software].
“I was out at the Magnet conference, it’s a big conference for nurses in healthcare. This is the Johns Hopkins Guide for Evidence Based Practice or EBP. Now if you get into this book a little bit, the first part is doing a literature search to find out what everybody else has done; I think we call that benchmarking.
Continue Reading "Evidence-Based Practice"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.
Where will quality be in five years given the growth of AI and other technologies? Here’s what I think:
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].
“You know, with AI and everything else, you kind of have to ask yourself, “Where will Quality be in 5 years?” There was an article in the Harvard Business Review that said AI is going to be able to do what a Master Black Belt can do, only do it faster, better and cheaper… and that was in Harvard Business Review! You might have to ask yourself “Where are we going to be?”
Continue Reading "Where Will Quality Be In Five Years?"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.
