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More time, money, people and training are poor, unsustainable countermeasures. Improvements should save money, time and people. Good countermeasures require more creativity.
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma for Hospitals” and QI Macros [software].
“I recently mentioned a tool called TRIZ for doing analysis and coming up with countermeasures. One of the things I keep seeing is people think, “Well, if I only had more time or more money or more people or if we did a better job of training we’d fix all this stuff.” That’s dumb, okay? TRIZ suggests that you’re not being very creative.
Continue Reading "Time, Money, People and Training Are Bad Countermeasures"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Improvement Insights, Lean.
Do you ever order toast, but it comes burnt? Do you eat it or send it back? How often does this happen to you? Yesterday it happened to me three times in one day. What can we learn from these quality failures?
“We’re babysitting our daughter’s dog; she’s only 10 months old and she needs some exercise, so we took her to the Hobnob daycare center. When we got there, the woman up front, kind of with a gruff tone, said “Well, you need to make a reservation.” My wife Shirley said “Well, our daughter made a reservation.” “Well, I don’t see it here,” you know?
Continue Reading "Burnt Toast Society – Are You a Member?"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Lean, Six Sigma.
Getting quality improvement teams to come together and be productive is key to success. Here’s a story and insight into get results quickly.
“Hi I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].
“When I was a young’un, I was in programming and there was a guy named Tom DeMarco who’s very famous, actually, in… the whole software development environment. And so, one of the things that he told us was a story about how he was bringing a new software team [together] and getting them started.
“So what he did was he invited them all over to his house to make a spaghetti dinner but when they got there he admitted that he didn’t have anything to make a spaghetti dinner.
Continue Reading "Spaghetti Dinner Team Building"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Data Mining, Improvement Insights, Lean, Six Sigma.
Ever noticed how long it takes people to learn to speak the jargon of Lean Six Sigma and Quality Improvement? Maybe it’s time for a change.
“Hi I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].
“Over my 30+ years in Quality Improvement I’ve learned all kinds of Japanese words like “kaizen” and “gemba” and “Ishikawa.” Nothing’s worse than “statistical process control” because nobody likes statistics, everybody thinks processes are boring and control is something that nobody in the United States of America likes, right? They just don’t.
“So, I think we become jargon-rich and clarity-poor.
Continue Reading "Jargon vs Clarity"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Improvement Insights, Lean, Six Sigma.
Have you ever noticed that some leaders and managers aren’t that excited about quality improvement? Do they actively resist improvements? Here’s why:
“Well hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma for Hospitals” and QI Macros [software].
“You know, I like to read thriller novels. I just find them fascinating, and there’s always a good guy trying to defeat a bad guy. But the good guy isn’t just fighting the bad guy, the good guy invariably has to deal with the bureaucracy and somebody in their own organization who’s a problem, who’s trying to slow things down, stop things, or interrupt things, and they have their own personal agendas.
Continue Reading "Leaders and Managers May Not Be Your Friend"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Lean, Six Sigma.
Is Lean Six Sigma stuck in last century thinking? Maybe we just can’t see it. Here’s what I discovered recently.
“I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].
“Recently, I discovered something and it got me thinking. Now, if you know anything about calculating formulas for an XbarR chart, you know that what you do is if you have some numbers like a subgroup, maybe they got 3.3 and 3.4 or something like that, what you do is calculate for this subgroup what’s the average of the X’s. Well, in this case it’d be 3.3.
Continue Reading "Is Lean Six Sigma Mired in Old Think?"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Lean, Six Sigma, Statistics.
Does voicemail ever annoy you? It does me. If we used Lean on voicemail to achieve what the customer wants, it would be quite different. And this has lessons for every business.
“I don’t know about you, but I get a lot of calls from people who want to sell me something or want me to take a survey so that they can sell me something or want me to donate money to something. I screen all those calls but some of those calls go to voicemail.
“I don’t know about you but when I call my voicemail, what does it do?
Continue Reading "Lean Voice Mail"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Lean.
Thanks for attending the 2021 ASQ World Conference on Quality & Improvement. Click below to see a quick demo of how QI Macros can help you prevent waste, rework and lost profit.
Continue Reading "QI Macros Software Demo – 2021 ASQ World Conference on Quality & Improvement"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Lean, QI Macros, Six Sigma.
I’ve been in quality improvement for 30 years. Why aren’t things getting any better?
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma For Hospitals” and QI Macros [software].
“I started in quality back in 1989 or 90, so I’ve been at this for 30-odd years. The other morning I was sitting there and I was just kind of depressed. I thought, “Why aren’t things any better?” Right? It still seems like there’s things that are missing, things that don’t work. You can’t get the right order at your fast food restaurant, if you order something at a restaurant sometimes it isn’t what you ordered, it wasn’t cooked properly… oh my gosh.
Continue Reading "Why Aren’t Things Getting Any Better?"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Lean, Six Sigma.
COVID Vaccine Appointment websites are poorly designed. They force millions of people to hack their way through page after page only to discover there are no appointments. What could they do instead, and how can you adopt these Lean principles to your website?
“Well, hi, I’m Jay Arthur, the author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].
“Now, I’m an old IT guy, so I’ve been doing this for 60 odd years, ever since high school. But one of the things that irritates me is just poor design. And so, I recently was able to start getting involved with trying to find a COVID vaccine appointment, as I’m over 65 years old here in Colorado.
Continue Reading "Lean approach to COVID Vaccine appointment websites"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Healthcare, Improvement Insights, Lean.
