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Latest "Improvement Insights" Posts
Leaders, managers and programmers sometimes get frustrated with software systems and try to rewrite them. This usually fails. It is possible to use Six Sigma and the 4-50 rule to find and fix the few code modules that have the most bugs and require the most enhancements. This delivers software quality without the high cost and risk. Here’s how:
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and the QI Macros [software].
“Today I want to talk to you about software. Now, some of you may work in software, some of you may use software… (If you have a phone, you’re using software) There’s lots of software around, and sometimes there’s bugs and stuff like that, and sometimes we’re enhancing things.
Continue Reading "Accelerating Software Quality Using the 4-50 Rule"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Lean, QI Macros, Six Sigma.
Six Sigma isn’t just for business. You can use it to make your life more hassle-free. Here’s how: Become the CIO of Your Life.
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and the QI Macros [software].
“I used to walk my dog Coco on the High Line Canal that runs for about 73 miles throughout Denver. I’d take her for a walk and she’d go running around, but she’d pick up these cockleburs. A cocklebur plant stands about waist-high, has big broad leaves and it produces these little spiny things about the size of the top of my thumb that has little hooky things all around it.
Continue Reading "Cut The Cockleburs for Hassle-Free Living"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Lean.
Quality improvement isn’t very infectious, is it? What can we do to make it more contagious? As you can imagine, it can’t take weeks to catch the bug. Here’s a way to spread to idea faster.
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].
“I got to thinking about the pandemic: in COVID-19, for every one person that gets in infected, they infect like three other people. That’s why it’s such a problem, right? It’s much more infectious than even the flu is. I thought about that in terms of Quality Improvement. Whether you call it: Lean Six Sigma, Operational Excellence, Process Improvement… I don’t care what you call it, it’s Quality Improvement to me.
Continue Reading "Making Quality Improvement More Contagious"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Improvement Insights.
SPC software companies keep trying to gain some edge by tweaking the formulas for various statistics, but is the quest for the next decimal place of precision useful? If you’re trying to send a rocket to Mars? Absolutely. If you’re trying to tune up a business process, not really. Here’s why.
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software]. I’m going to talk to you about what I call The Next Decimal Place.
“Because I’ve been in the software business, [I’ve seen] people and try and change formulas. Let’s say it’s Cp and Cpk.
Continue Reading "The Next Decimal Place"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Statistics.
One of the challenges of the pandemic is the ongoing uncertainty. We know to wash our hands, mask our face and stay out of crowds. What can we do to take back some sense of control? Here’s what I’ve been doing.
For some of you, this may seem too “woo-woo” to digest. That’s okay. It’s just an insight from my other studies.
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma for Hospitals” and QI Macros [software].
“I don’t know about you, but this whole pandemic thing’s getting a little old, but we know two things for certain: 1 – More people will get sick, and 2 – More people will die.
Continue Reading "Using Your Intuition to Stay Safe During the Pandemic"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.
Recessions are a great time to improve quality. Here’s why:
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].
“Now [at first in] the pandemic, everybody projected that this was going to be one of the sharpest recessions in history, and then bounce right back. I think the ongoing concern about Coronavirus and everything else is actually going to slow that down a little bit.
“Well, one of the things I know from going through lots of recessions so far is that is the perfect time to take a step back from your business. When you take a step back from your business you can start to look at it and [think], “How can we make it faster, better, cheaper?
Continue Reading "Recessions Are Good For Quality"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.
Measure failures not success. Here’s why:
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].
“Recently one of our users called up and asked me about showing percent compliance. You know, present success (in this case it was neonatal intubations – this is for healthcare). But the goal obviously is to get to 100% first-time success at intubating a preemie, right? So that would be a good thing.
“Now what most people do is they try and focus on the success side of this, so if you’re down here, you want to get up that-a-way, right?
Continue Reading "Measure Success or Failures"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Six Sigma.
You don’t need to know Six Sigma Formulas or decision trees to make improvement. Here’s why:
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Agile Process Innovation; Hacking Lean and Six Sigma for Results.”
“Back when I got started in Quality (and maybe many of you), we had to learn formulas to calculate things for control charts and whatever. I spent five days in a control chart class learning how to calculate the formulas for every control chart manually. Now, that did not really teach me anything about the distributions underlying them, it taught me how to calculate them manually. What they didn’t tell us in that class is software can do that for you.
Continue Reading "You Don’t Need Formulas or Decision Trees"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.
Yankee Spirit (50% reduction in delay, defects and deviation) is easy to achieve. It’s imperative. Here’s why:
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma for Hospitals” and QI Macros [software].
“When I first got started in Quality Improvement, our training folks talked about Yankee Spirit as a method of setting a goal. What’s Yankee Spirit? Well, Yankee Spirit is simply a 50% reduction in delay, defects and deviation.
“Well, that just sounds like we’re just taking a dartboard throwing a thing at it, but it was years later that I realized that this is actually scientifically doable. As I started to look at it, Pareto’s rule says 20% of what you do produces 80% of the waste, rework, lost profit, patient harm… whatever you want to call it.
Continue Reading "Yankee Spirit Goal Setting"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Six Sigma.
Line charts with trend lines can be misleading. They can provide a kind of “false positive” that implies improvement where there is none. Here’s why:
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Agile Process Innovation.”
“I go to all these trade shows and I see a lot of poster presentations but they’re using line charts and then they draw a trend line through them and then they say, “Oh, we made an improvement.” No you didn’t. If it doesn’t really fit the line very well, if your goodness-of-fit metric is less than 80%, I’m not buying it. But nobody gives me a goodness-of-fit metric called r-squared, they just show me a line graph or a bar chart and then they show a little line through it.
Continue Reading "Trends Are Not Always Improvements"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.
