Improvement Insights Blog

Are You Using Stone Age or Space Age Charts for Quality Improvement?

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

“I go to all these conferences and I see all these poster presentations and what do I see: Line and bar charts. Those are from the Stone Age. That’s from the birth of Microsoft Excel back in the 80s. Those are Stone Age charts.

“Control charts have been around for almost 100 years, but they are Space Age charts. So are you going to stick with Stone Age charts or you going to move up into Space Age charts?

“That’s my Improvement Insight for this week. Let’s go out and improve our use of charts: Space Age charts, not Stone Age charts.”