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My career was dipped in various management methods such as MBO and MBWA. Recently I read a new term: Management by Spreadsheet (MBS). Maybe there’s a better way.
“When I was working at the phone company we had a variety of management fads. I think first there was MBO, or “Management By Objectives.” Of course, that assumed that you know what your objectives were. We had MBWA, “Management By Wandering Around,” so the management team was wandering around all the time and just getting in our way. Recently I saw a different phraseology and I kind of liked it: MBS, which stands for “Management By Spreadsheet.”
Continue Reading "Management By Control Chart"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Improvement Insights, Lean, QI Macros, Six Sigma.
Many people take Six Sigma classes but only do one project. “One and Done” as it’s known in the trade. Make a resolution to start making improvements every month! Here are my suggestions.
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur. It’s 2020, and last week I suggested that you go out and learn one new tool in the QI Macros every month. Now I’m also going to suggest that you set a New Year’s Resolution to make one improvement a month as well.
“Set a goal to do one improvement every month and by the end of the year, you’ll have made 12 improvements and dramatically reduced the amount of waste and rework and lost time and overtime and everything else that is involved in your world, right?
Continue Reading "2020 New Year’s Resolution Part 2 – Improve"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Lean, QI Macros, Six Sigma.
Many people tell us that they have QI Macros, but they don’t know how to use it. Make a resolution to learn how! Here are my suggestions.
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur and… it’s 2020. How did that happen? A new year; a new decade. Seems like just yesterday everybody was worried about Y2K. Somebody out there is thinking, “What’s Y2K?” That was a thing that happened back in the year 2000… you probably forgot all about it, but I’ve been at this for over twenty years now in the software field around Quality Improvement, so I’ve seen a lot of things.
Continue Reading "2020 New Years Resolution Part 1 – Learn One Tool Per Month"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Lean, QI Macros, Six Sigma.
What do Christus Health, Novartis and Underwriters Laboratories have in common? In the last few years they’ve rediscovered the essence of Agile Lean Six Sigma. Here’s How:
“Every year we go out to these conferences and trade shows and exhibit the QI Macros, and I get a chance to go see some of the presentations that people are doing. About two years ago I started to notice an interesting trend, and so I got some observations out of this whole thing.
“So about two years ago, I was at the Lean Six Sigma conference in Phoenix and Christus Health was presenting about their quality journey.
Continue Reading "Agile Process Innovation Case Studies"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Improvement Insights, Lean, QI Macros, Six Sigma.
The September/October 2019 issue of Harvard Business Review asks this question. The answer is obvious, but some people will read this the wrong way. Here’s why:
“This is a September / October 2019 edition of the Harvard Business Review. You can see here it says, “Are Metrics Undermining Your Business?”
“Now the essence of the article is “Bad metrics drive bad behavior.” Well, I think we all know that, but I think too often people who hate metrics will just look at that and say, “There’s proof! See? Measurements are ruining our business. We’ve got to go back to gut feel, common sense and trial-and-error.”
Continue Reading "Are Metrics Harming Your Business?"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Lean, Six Sigma.
Some people think they have to climb Mount Everest or do a fire walk to overcome their fears. Maybe it’s just as easy to do the thing you are afraid to do in your normal life. Maybe it’s time to climb Mount Quality. Maybe it’s time to create a hassle-free experience for your company’s customers.
“My wife’s been watching these shows about people climbing Mount Everest. You see people, they’re waiting for the final the final [ascent] and there’s a huge queue of people waiting to go up to the top of Mount Everest… (It’s like [maybe] they should put in an express lane or something!)
Continue Reading "Climbing Mount Quality"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Healthcare, Improvement Insights, Lean, Six Sigma.
No matter how well you design something using DFSS, users will find ways to use it or break it in ways you can’t imagine!
“In Six Sigma we have all these tools for designing for Six Sigma, so we have Quality Function Deployment and Failure Modes and Effects Analysis and all this other stuff; PPAP forms in automotive to help you design an entire sub-assembly or whatever it is… but what are these things designed to do?
“Well, they’re designed to help you come up with something that’ll come out at least a four signal level, maybe a four and a half signal level, but one of the things I’ve learned from software is “No design survives contact with the end user.”
Continue Reading "No Design Survives Contact with the End User"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Lean, Six Sigma.
I love people who fight the good fight of quality improvement. Problem solving isn’t sexy, but it’s vital to corporate health. Hugs!
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur. If you’ve been watching my Improvement Insight videos, you’re probably going, “Gee, Jay, you’re sharing all this stuff… What’s that all about?”
“Well, it turns out if you don’t know it by now… I love people who do Quality Improvement. They’re out chasing the big ugly things that are causing too much hassle in America and trying to eliminate them and eliminate waste and eliminate all the stuff that goes into landfills and into sewers and all kinds of stuff like this.
Continue Reading "I Love Improvers"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Lean, Six Sigma.
There are a number of fears that make people hesitant to share data and or let you make improvements. Here’s why.
“Not everybody is in love with this whole idea of improvement. There are people who, when you come to them and say, “I need your data about such-and-such,” they don’t want you looking at their data because they don’t want to look stupid. If they’re the manager of that organization and they’ve had all this data and they can’t find what I call the “invisible low-hanging fruit,” they think that they’re stupid or something. No, they just don’t know how to analyze the data.
Continue Reading "Not Everyone Likes Quality Improvement"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Lean, Six Sigma.
While some European cities were devastated by fire, Holland has had to deal with flooding. What have they done to mistake-proof flooding since 1953?
“Hi, this is Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma for Hospitals” and the QI Macros [software]. “I recently had an Improvement Insight video about how they were burning down the capitals of Scandinavia repeatedly until the king said “Thou shalt build thy buildings out of stone” and so that stopped the fire problem. I discovered there was a 60 Minutes article on a recent Sunday, and they were talking about Holland.
“Back in the 50s there was a massive flood and it tore down a lot of barriers because a lot of Holland is below sea level.
Continue Reading "Flood-Proofing in Holland"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Lean, Six Sigma.
