Improvement Insights Blog

I’m lazy and that’s a good thing. It might be good for you too. Here’s why:

“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma For Hospitals” and QI Macros [software].

“I want to tell you: I’m lazy. I don’t want to spend any more time doing anything that I have to, right? When we started up, [the standard was] week-long trainings for teams. I eventually boiled that big binder down into about a 16-page handout (which I now use) and train people in in a day or less and get results. I wanted to collapse the curve between learning and implementation of results so that people got that hit of “This is what we can do quickly.”

“Same thing with QI Macros. It was a little bit harder when I first started. I was trying to think about how to choose things and decision trees to pick charts and stuff… Then I had an epiphany in 2006. Because QI Macros was the only [software} that asks you to select your data first, I can look at your data and help you pick the right chart, and I can do that quickly. We have Control Chart Wizards, Stat Wizards, Improvement Project Wizards, the Process Change Wizard… we have all kinds of Programmatic A.I. Wizards that automate all that stuff. I used to spend a lot of time trying to teach people how to choose the right chart; now I just say, “Click this button and it’ll choose the most likely chart for you.”

“People think, “Well, Jay, you’re trying to dumb it down.” No, I’m trying to simple it up. Making things complex and complicated is easy… easy! Look at Six Sigma: we made it complicated. No! To simple it up so that everybody can embrace it – that’s a huge intellectual feat.

“That’s what I’m trying to do: simple it up so we can all be more productive, more successful, have greater ability to make improvements in the world. To get out of all the turbulence of all these mistakes and errors and whatever… patient harm, you name it.

“So anyway, that’s my Improvement Insight for this week. It’s okay to be lazy if it helps you get to the outcome you’re looking for in a more timely fashion. Let’s go out and improve something this week, and let’s not work too hard to do it.”