Countermeasures

Improvement Insights Blog

Posts tagged "Countermeasures"

Form Storm Norm Perform Takes Too Long!

Traditional Form-Storm-Norm-Perform models of team development take too long. Here’s how to collapse the time and skip right to perform.



“I was looking at myASQ, and somebody was asking about the four steps of Team development: Form, Storm, Norm, Perform. You know, if you do it traditional (how it usually was taught), it takes a long time for a team to form (come together), storm (fight each other a little bit), normalize their behavior (so they get productive).

“Well, I found that that takes too long. I can’t get to results that way. What I discovered was if I could do the analysis and figure out how to pinpoint where the problem would be, then I can figure out who ought to be on that team to solve that problem.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Data Mining, Improvement Insights, Jay Arthur Blog.

How to Ensure the Adoption of Countermeasures

Ever wondered why it’s so hard to propagate improvements from one group to the next? Here’s why and what to do about it:



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

“I was recently at one of the IHI presentations at their conference and they mentioned… “How long does it take for medicine to adopt a new practice?” On average it’s 17 years… 17 years. Doesn’t that sound ridiculous? I think penicillin was 25 years, and some of the other things… but 17 years?

“They say, “Well, you know, we haven’t peer reviewed that, so we have to peer review it so we can confirm that your hypothesis is correct and that we can actually…” Right?

Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Improvement Insights, Lean, Six Sigma.

TRIZ for Innovative Countermeasures

Do you and your team ever get stuck trying to figure out how to fix the root cause of problems? There’s a methodology for that. It’s called TRIZ – the Theory of Innovative Problem Solving. Here’s how it works.



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

You know, when I worked with teams I found sometimes they were very good at figuring out [and] getting to the root cause, but then they struggled with How can we fix that? It’s like they get stuck in their old ways of thinking about how things work.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Jay Arthur Blog.

How Do You Make Countermeasures Stick?

How do you make improvement countermeasures stick? The answer might surprise you.



 

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

“You know, one of the things about countermeasures is when somebody else invents the countermeasure and makes you do it, guess what? You don’t like it very much. So when we were all told to wear masks, wash our hands, stay out of crowds… guess what? Some people really hated that. Now me as a Quality guy, I said “Oh, they know what the countermeasures are. I should wear my mask, wash my hands, stay out of crowds,” but not everyone does that.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Improvement Insights, Six Sigma.

Countermeasures Mean the Absence of Pain

How do you know when your countermeasures are working? Nothing bad happens. But it’s often difficult to notice unless you look back into past. We all have absence blindness – we can’t see what isn’t there.



 

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

“Now, I don’t know about you, but I spent the last year and a half wearing a mask, washing my hands and staying out of crowds. Surprisingly enough, I didn’t get COVID and my wife and I went to the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone and went to Hawaii on vacation, but we didn’t catch COVID.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Improvement Insights.

95 Percent Effective Against Catastrophic Failure

If you had a countermeasure that was 95 percent effective at preventing catastrophic failure of your company or business, how long would you wait to implement it?



(The best resource I’ve found for locating vaccine appointments is https://www.vaccinespotter.org/).

 

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

“Let me ask you: if you had a countermeasure that was 95% effective at preventing the catastrophic failure of your business and your company, how long would you wait to implement that?

“Back in 2014 right before Thanksgiving (the day before Thanksgiving) I came down with the flu and I was sick as a dog for 10 days.

Posted by Jay Arthur in Healthcare, Improvement Insights, Jay Arthur Blog.