Improvement Insights Blog

Companies often implement Lean Six Sigma metrics that have nothing to do with success. Here’s why:

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

I was mentioning Eric Ries’ book ‘The Lean Startup,’ and he talks about the problems with vanity metrics. Vanity metrics, as opposed to actionable metrics, right? You can measure things that make you feel good but don’t really do you any good.

“In Lean and Six Sigma that’s like ‘number of people trained,’ ‘number of teams started.’ Those are vanity metrics. That means you’re doing something, but the real thing that matters is ‘Are you getting results?’ ‘Are you saving money?’ ‘Are you passing it on to the bottom line?’ ‘Are you getting faster, better, cheaper all the time?’ ‘Are you saving patient lives, preventing patient harm?’ Right? That’s what matters.

“It doesn’t matter how many people you train, it doesn’t matter how many teams are started, it’s how many teams finish and produce a viable result. If you’re using vanity metrics about trainings and teams and nonsense like that and you have big spreadsheets tracking all of this stuff, you need to reconsider, right? Because if you’re not making bottom line, profit-enhancing, productivity-enhancing, patient-saving results… guess what? Your leadership team is going to shut you down because you’re not… you’re wasting time and money.

“That’s my Improvement Insight. Let’s go out and improve something this week that saves time, saves money, and saves lives.”