Improvement Insights Blog

Stop Using Excel Spaghetti Charts. Start using Smart Performance Charts (SPC). Here’s how:

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“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma For Hospitals” and QI Macros [software].

“I was recently in a presentation, and a person was putting up line charts and there were multiple lines on each chart. I know charts and I was still having trouble following the presentation. This person acted like everybody in the room was getting everything that he said. Nonsense.

“Nobody wants to read your ‘spaghetti chart.’ That’s what I call them: spaghetti charts. Too many pieces of noodles running across the page. How do you separate them? If you can’t learn how to tell a story with one line, then it’s not a very good chart. All right, straight up. I just don’t think it is. And if you use control charts, Pareto charts and histograms, it’s going to get clear really fast.

“So, that’s my Improvement Insight for this week: Stop using spaghetti charts. Start using Smart Performance Charts, control charts, Pareto charts, histograms to tell a clear story. Stop confusing your audience. Not good.

“Let’s go out and improve something this week.”