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Improvement Insights Blog

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Tuna, Minnow and Whalebone Diagramming

There’s one sure sign that you haven’t narrowed your focus using data analysis. You’ll find it in your fishbone diagram.



Download my free ebook Agile Process Innovation.

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

“You know, it was kind of interesting to me… we have a Fishbone Diagram in the QI Macros: we have a small, medium and a large. Somebody called in and said, “In this large [diagram] it doesn’t have this the fifth bone for the environment thing…” Nick on my staff went ahead and put one in there for him, but one of the things I know is if you do a good job with data analysis and narrow your focus, you’re going to end up with a minnowbone diagram, not a whalebone diagram.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.

1/16/24 Healthcare Data Analytics Webinar

Over 150 people signed up for this webinar, with Jay Arthur demonstrating how to implement Healthcare Data Analytics to save time, save money, and (most importantly) save lives.



You can view a short two-page illustrated guide to the Zero Harm – Trillion Dollar Prescription by clicking HERE.

If you’d like to see a short demo video to see how our software is used in healthcare organizations like yours, click this DEMO link.

If you’ve never used QI Macros and would like to try it out for free, you can sign up for a free 30 day trial at THIS link.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Data Mining, Healthcare, Lean, QI Macros, Six Sigma, Webinar.

Smart Laziness

Are you smart lazy? It might give you better results faster. Here’s how:



Download my free ebook Agile Process Innovation.

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

“I will tell you that I’m basically lazy. Just like all humans, I don’t want to work any harder than I have to. The other day I ran across a phrase called ‘smart laziness’… smart laziness. Now guess what? That means that you use your smarts to figure out ways that you can do things more easily.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.

1/9/24 QI Macros webinar

Over 120 people signed up for this webinar, with Jay Arthur demonstrating some of the software’s most frequently used tools and answering questions asked by attendees.  If you saw a feature demonstrated in the webinar that might have been added to QI Macros after the version you’re using (for instance, the Improvement Project Wizard or the automated Process Change Wizard), you may need to purchase an upgrade to bring your QI Macros to the current version. Send an email to support@qimacros.com and we can help, for instance in generating a quote to upgrade all the users at your organization or just guiding you through the purchasing process.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Jay Arthur Blog.

Line Charts with Trend Lines are Fake News

Line charts with trend lines are fake news. Here’s why:



Download my free ebook Agile Process Innovation.

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

“I was at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement conference, and I go through and I look at all the post-improvement posters that are out there. I saw “Nurse Betty” (that’s what I’m going to call her) and she was standing in front of a poster and she was studying it. She was wearing a nice blue pantsuit [and] comfortable shoes because it’s a lot of walking in these conferences, but she was staring at it like crazy.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.

Stop Admiring the Problem

Are you admiring the problems in your company’s performance? Stop Admiring the Problem. Here’s how:



Download my free ebook Agile Process Innovation.

“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma For Hospitals” and “Agile Process Innovation.”

“I worked with a beverage company, and one of their teams had a room and they were all set up and they were all excited about what they were doing. When I got down to it, all they were doing each week was special cause intervention / correction. Right? It was just firefighting, right? Firefighting is not quality improvement, right?

Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.

Become a Quality Evangelist

Deming and Juran spent decades evangelizing quality improvement. Isn’t it time we all did? Here’s how:



Download my free ebook Agile Process Innovation.

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

“You know, Deming and Juran spent decades trying to spread the word of Quality, right? It’s here and there and it’s in certain manufacturing industries and so on, but in general it’s not a common phrase, right? Shewhart charts were invented almost a hundred years ago. Why aren’t they in use everywhere?

Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.

Statisticians Using Bar Charts

A statistician using a bar chart is like a surgeon using a butter knife. Here’s why:



Download my free ebook Agile Process Innovation.

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

“I was recently perusing the American Statistical Association’s magazine, and they had some posters that were done by kids in K through 12. This one was an analysis of what kind of charts and graphs are used in poster presentations at statistical conferences. They found that more often than not, the winners had bar charts, and that bar charts were very popular because of their simplicity.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.

People Have to Know the WHY

People have to know the WHY in order to learn something more effectively.



Download my free ebook Agile Process Innovation.

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

“I was working on [building] a tool called Multinomial Logistic Regression (if that doesn’t choke you up I don’t know what would), but it’s a way of starting to forecast things; people asked for it so I built it. I was telling my wife about this and she said, “Oh, and you tell me you’re not a statistician!”

Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.

Embrace Simplexity

Yogi Berra is often quoted. When asked how he came up with these nuggets of wisdom, he replied: “I use simplexity.” What’s simplexity and how can we use it in quality improvement?



“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Agile Process Innovation” as well as QI Macros [software].

“A friend of mine and I went to see the Yogi Berra movie and it was all about Yogi. He won like [10] World Series rings and… what a guy, right? But he was always known for ‘Yogi-isms,’ right? One of his Yogi-isms was: “If they don’t want to come out to the park, how are you going to stop them?”

Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights.