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Improvement Insights Blog
Latest "Improvement Insights" Posts
Agile Lean Six Sigma approach will rapidly answer this question. One-day Yellow Belt problem solving will get results where Green Belt and Black Belt training may not.
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma for Hospitals” and the QI Macros [software].
“I was out at the Lean Six Sigma World Conference in San Antonio there was a very interesting presentation about Yellow Belt trainings. What they found was that if they did it a certain way (which is the way I’ve been doing it for the last twenty years) that they got better results. Well, that’s kind of cool, right?
Continue Reading "Will It Work Here?"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Improvement Insights, Lean, Six Sigma.
If you have to throw a birthday party for your improvement project because it isn’t complete, you’re not alone, but you’ve lost sight of the outcome.
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and the QI Macros [software].
“At the Lean Six Sigma World Conference I heard another phrase that I had never heard before: “Project Birthdays.” What? A project that has lasted so long, a year later it’s having a birthday and it’s still not done yet. In one of the studies the Green Belt teams had as long as 16 months to complete a project.
“Now, I hate to tell you this but if you have something that looks like it might have a project birthday, somehow you didn’t laser focus your improvement and get it improved, because with the right kind of data, the right kind of focus, you can do that in a day or sometimes a week.
Continue Reading "Six Sigma Project Birthdays"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Improvement Insights, Lean, Six Sigma.
One session at the Lean Six Sigma World conference presented findings from of a study of successful Lean Six Sigma implementations. If you think your company can become a unicorn, watch now:
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma for Hospitals” and the QI Macros [software].
“I was in San Antonio at the Lean Six Sigma World Conference and there was a presentation by a couple of consultants about a study they’d done on successful Lean and Six Sigma deployments. Now, unfortunately it was a little skewed, because the minimum size of the company was 150 million dollars going up to about 750 million dollars, so you have Fortune 500 companies with deep pockets.
Continue Reading "Six Sigma Unicorns"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Improvement Insights, Lean, Six Sigma.
Everyone thinks I’m a statistician by trade, but nothing could be further from the truth. Here’s my journey.
“Hi, this is Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and the QI Macros [software]. I’m here in Maui Kaanapali Villas in Maui.
“One of the things that I want you to think about is because I wrote the QI Macros, everybody thinks I’m a statistician or something, but… the truth is a little bit further from that.
“Suzuki the Zen master had a story of four horses: One ran easily, one you had to flog it a little bit, one he had to flog a little more, and the fourth one you had to flog a lot to get it to move.
Continue Reading "Jay is the Fourth Horse of Statistics"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, QI Macros, Statistics.
Everyone has limiting beliefs and they could be stopping your improvement projects. Here’s why and what to do about it.
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma for Hospitals” and the QI Macros [software]. I want to talk to you about something that sounds a little bit out of the Six Sigma ballpark.
“One of the things I’ve noticed is people will develop limiting beliefs about what’s possible. They’ll say, “Well, I can’t fix that because…” or “I can’t do this because my boss won’t let me,” or “I can’t do this because management doesn’t understand control charts, performance charts,” …or whatever.
Continue Reading "Are Limiting Beliefs Stopping Your Improvement Projects?"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Improvement Insights, Lean, Six Sigma.
Lots of people hesitate to get started on improvements. Here’s why and what to do about it.
“Hi, this is Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma for Hospitals” and the QI Macros [software].
“I have noticed that a lot of people, when they get trained in Six Sigma or whatever, they hesitate to get started. You know it’s like, “I’m afraid of not doing it right,” or “I’m afraid of not tackling the right problem,” or “I’m afraid of somebody [making me feel] stupid or somebody criticizing what I’m doing,” or whatever it is…
“Well, I hate to tell you this, but you have to be bad to start, right?
Continue Reading "Are You Hesitating to Improve?"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Six Sigma.
How to create a Hassle-Free work experience for everyone without spending too much time or money.
“Hi, this is Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and the QI Macros [software].
“One of my favorite shows on television is Guy Fieri’s Triple D: “Diners Drive-ins and Dives”, and I just enjoy watching him eat other people’s cooking… I can’t explain it to you. My Triple D is “Delay, Defects and Deviation,” and if you do nothing but focus on eliminating delay, defects (mistakes and errors), and deviation (the variation of things), if you do nothing but do that for an hour per week for the rest of your life you will spontaneously figure out a way to make everything hassle-free for yourself, your customers, your suppliers, your boss, your subordinates… whoever it is.
Continue Reading "Triple D – Delays, Defects, Deviation"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Lean.
Shewhart didn’t make our lives any easier 100 years ago when he started using control charts. Here’s why and what to do about it.
“Hi, this is Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and the QI Macros [software].
“Now, a long time ago (I mean this was back in the 1920s and the 1930s), Shewhart did us a disservice. Now, he was most interested in economic control of quality of manufactured product, and he called the charts that he used for that “control charts.” I don’t know about you, but for most people when you hear the word control, they don’t like the idea of being controlled.
Continue Reading "Control Charts? Behavior Charts? Or Performance Charts?"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.
How can you help people learn Lean Six Sigma quickly and easily? It’s a simple three step process that will slash the learning curve for everyone.
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and the QI Macros [software].
“In a recent video I talked to you about the whole idea of “minimally invasive training.” How do we teach people in an hour everything they need to know to start solving problems? To do that you have to think about all the advances that we know about in speed learning.
“If I’m teaching Lean what do I do? First I tell them a story of how I’ve used post-it notes to reduce cycle time by 50%, 60%, 80%, 90% in something.
Continue Reading "Speed Learning for Minimally Invasive Training"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Lean, QI Macros, Six Sigma.
One big pharma company embraced a more Agile approach to implementing Lean Six Sigma and achieved quick results. How did they do it?
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and the QI Macros [software].
“I was at the Lean Six Sigma conference for ASQ in Phoenix and Novartis gave a whole presentation about implementing Lean and Six Sigma around their sales process. It turns out they didn’t actually apply Lean and Six Sigma to the sales process, they simply optimized everything around it that supported their reps going out into the field and how the reps got paid, but they didn’t really do anything about the sales process.
Continue Reading "Minimally Invasive Lean Six Sigma Training"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Lean, Six Sigma.
