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Latest "Improvement Insights" Posts
Use real data, not fake!
“I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].
“I was at a Quality conference and I attended a presentation by a well-known statistician. He was going to demonstrate some things, but he didn’t have any data. He used Minitab to develop some nice normally distributed random data and then to draw charts with that data. I thought, “Oh my God, what did you just do? You just told everybody in this room they can create fake data! They can create fake data that looks real.” Fake data that looks real.
Continue Reading "Don’t Create Fake Data"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.
The quality gurus of the last century are gone. Who will take their place?
“I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].
“One of our longtime sponsors and supporters Jim Harrington passed away recently at the age of 95. I saw him every year at the American Society for Quality conference. He will be missed, but all of our gurus are gone: Deming, Juran, Ishikawa, Crosby… everybody is gone. We’re going to need some new gurus, including you. We’re going to need new people to champion Quality in this century.
Continue Reading "Our Quality Gurus Are Gone"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.
When processes aren’t working, people try adding to the process rather than subtracting. Doesn’t work. Here’s why:
“I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].
“I saw a phrase the other day that I liked, and I think you might get it. They called it “Addition Sickness”; Addition Sickness. What does that mean? Well, you end up adding more policies, procedures, rules, whatevers, workarounds, inspections… whatever it is. You know, Deming hated adding inspection; [he thought] that was stupid, right?
“But we tend to add things to a process to try and counteract whatever is going wrong.
Continue Reading "Have You Got Addition Sickness?"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.
I’ve been working in quality improvement for 35 years. Why isn’t anything any better?
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma For Hospitals” and QI Macros [software].
“I’ve been at this for over 30 years (Quality Improvement), and I have to ask myself why isn’t anything any better? Why isn’t Quality pervasive? I think it’s because we made it too complex and time-consuming and too hard to do… that’s just me.
“But I have this Groundhog Day experience, right? I feel like Bill Murray. I wake up every morning and it says “same old same old.”
Continue Reading "Quality Groundhog Day"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.
One of our users said she had some “troublesome data.” Do you have troublesome data? Here’s what to do about it.
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma For Hospitals” and QI Macros [software].
“I was at the American Society for Quality Lean Six Sigma Conference and one of our users came up and we were talking. I said “I’d be happy to do a webinar for your people.” She said, “Well, we have some troublesome data. We could really use some help with our troublesome data.”
“One of the things I know is that very often, doing improvement isn’t hard, but getting the data that’s out there into some sort of useful format is often crazy and takes a little effort.
Continue Reading "Troublesome Data"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.
Ever wonder why quality doesn’t get any better? Might the law of least effort.
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma For Hospitals” and QI Macros [software].
“You know, as I look around, there’s this thing called “The Law of Least Effort,” which means humans (animals… whatever) will do the easiest thing possible. That’s why in Boston, the cows all walked certain paths and when it came time to… put in [roads for] cars and stuff, they paved the cow path because the cows knew where the [most level] ground was. Of course, that makes Boston almost impassible if you’ve ever been there.
Continue Reading "The Law of Least Effort"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.
Detective shows usually have two detectives: one who leaps to arrest an obvious suspect and one who continues investigate the evidence. Which one are you?
“If you’ve ever watched detective shows, there’s always one detective that wants to leap to a solution and arrest the wrong person and just get him off the off the books, right? Then the other detective [says], “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa… wait… wait a minute. We haven’t looked at all the evidence.”
“I see the same thing in Quality Improvement. Every time a team comes together, they all think they know what the right answer is.
Continue Reading "Detective Number Two"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.
Trendlines are often fake news. How can you separate fact from fiction? It’s easy.
“I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].
“One of the things that really irritates me about Excel is it’ll add a trend line to any data, but it does not add a “goodness-of-fit” metric automatically. It’s called “R squared,” and R squared should be like .8 or 80% fit in general.
“I’ve seen lots of charts and lots of posters at lots of improvement conferences where the goodness of fit metric is less than 50%. What?! So it’s not really an improvement.
Continue Reading "If It Don’t Fit You Must Forget"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.
There’s often more than one way to get an answer with statistics.
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma For Hospitals” and QI Macros [software].
“The other week we had somebody call in and say, “Can you do XYZ stat?” Well, by that name I didn’t understand what they were talking about, but then I looked up XYZ stat and it was our ABC stat in the QI Macros. Right?
“There’s more than one way to do things in statistics. There’s all kinds of things, all right? I just found out about something called Dixon’s Q and Grubbs’ Outlier Test for small samples… okay.
Continue Reading "More than One Way to Ken a Stat"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.
In Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain describes the essence of a chef’s station, which could apply to any lean cell design.
“I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].
“I was reading Anthony Bourdain’s book Kitchen Confidential, which is about the high-end cooking business out there, but I found a passage that I think applies to Lean Cell Design. I’ll read that to you:
‘As a cook, your station, and its condition, its state of readiness, is an extension of your nervous system – it is profoundly upsetting if some other cook or, God forbid, a waiter – disturbs your precisely and carefully laid-out system.
Continue Reading "Lean Kitchen Confidential"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.
