Improvement Insights Blog

Arthur’s Law: The unexamined process becomes increasingly sluggish and error-prone.

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

“I want to introduce you to what I call ‘Arthur’s Law.’ That’s my law, which is ‘The unexamined process becomes increasingly sluggish and error-prone.’

“Things don’t just stay [static], they just get more sluggish and more error-prone. People add more workarounds, and the workarounds cause more defects and mistakes and errors and waste and rework and lost profit and patient harm and whatever it is.

“‘The unexamined process gets more and more sluggish and error-prone.’ So what process have you been ignoring for a while that could use some TLC – some tender loving care and the eyes of Quality Improvement.

“That’s my Improvement Insight for this week. Let’s go out and improve something this week.”