Improvement Insights Blog
Stop Learning Everything
If you try to learn everything about any topic, including Lean Six Sigma, you are more likely to become confused than productive. Here’s why:
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].
“You know, when I went to college I got 148 credits in systems engineering, but actually I’ve only ever used four of those credits: FORTRAN and CDC Assembler Level Programming. You know, that’s all I’ve done in my life is write code, right? So, differential equations, Laplace transforms, all that stuff. I learned all kinds of things… hey, never used that.
“I found the same thing is true in Six Sigma, I’ve learned a lot of stuff but I still use control charts, Pareto charts, histograms, fishbones and some Matrix diagrams 99.9% of the time. So maybe you don’t need to know everything to do anything.
“Figure out what works and start using that. You can add other things in later, but don’t try and learn everything because it’ll be exhausting.
“That’s my Improvement Insight for this week: Let’s stop learning everything. Let’s start using key tools, solving problems, making the world a better place; hassle-free healthcare, hassle-free America.
“Let’s go out and improve something this week.”
