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Posts tagged "Six Sigma"
More time, money, people and training are poor, unsustainable countermeasures. Improvements should save money, time and people. Good countermeasures require more creativity.
“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma for Hospitals” and QI Macros [software].
“I recently mentioned a tool called TRIZ for doing analysis and coming up with countermeasures. One of the things I keep seeing is people think, “Well, if I only had more time or more money or more people or if we did a better job of training we’d fix all this stuff.” That’s dumb, okay? TRIZ suggests that you’re not being very creative.
Continue Reading "Time, Money, People and Training Are Bad Countermeasures"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Improvement Insights, Lean.
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.
Continue Reading "TRIZ for Innovative Countermeasures"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Jay Arthur Blog.
Do you ever order toast, but it comes burnt? Do you eat it or send it back? How often does this happen to you? Yesterday it happened to me three times in one day. What can we learn from these quality failures?
“We’re babysitting our daughter’s dog; she’s only 10 months old and she needs some exercise, so we took her to the Hobnob daycare center. When we got there, the woman up front, kind of with a gruff tone, said “Well, you need to make a reservation.” My wife Shirley said “Well, our daughter made a reservation.” “Well, I don’t see it here,” you know?
Continue Reading "Burnt Toast Society – Are You a Member?"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Lean, Six Sigma.
Getting quality improvement teams to come together and be productive is key to success. Here’s a story and insight into get results quickly.
“Hi I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].
“When I was a young’un, I was in programming and there was a guy named Tom DeMarco who’s very famous, actually, in… the whole software development environment. And so, one of the things that he told us was a story about how he was bringing a new software team [together] and getting them started.
“So what he did was he invited them all over to his house to make a spaghetti dinner but when they got there he admitted that he didn’t have anything to make a spaghetti dinner.
Continue Reading "Spaghetti Dinner Team Building"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Data Mining, Improvement Insights, Lean, Six Sigma.
Over 75 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.
Some attendees were familiar with the software and already use it, some had only begun to use it; all were interested in learning new ways that QI Macros can help them with their Agile Lean Six Sigma and Quality Improvement efforts. (You can hear him answering questions and comments typed in by webinar 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, the Fixed Limit indicator or the automated Process Change Wizard), you may need to purchase an upgrade to bring your QI Macros to the current version.
Continue Reading "8/10/21 QI Macros webinar"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Data Mining, Excel, QI Macros, Webinar.
Did your quality instructors teach you to gather a team and brainstorm a problem to solve? That’s terribly bad advice. Use data to pinpoint the problem. Then, and only then do you know who should be on the root cause analysis.
I don’t know about you, but when I first got my quality training they said, “Get a team together and brainstorm a problem to solve and then go start trying to find the data, define the data, measure the data,” or something else. Now that’s the dumbest damn advice I ever got in quality training. I’ve looked at a lot of different training packages over the years and they still have all that same stupid stuff in there.
Continue Reading "Brainstorming is a Terrible Way to Start a Team"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Data Mining, Improvement Insights, QI Macros.
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.
Continue Reading "How Do You Make Countermeasures Stick?"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Improvement Insights, Six Sigma.
Over 80 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. Some attendees were familiar with the software and already use it, some had only begun to use it; all were interested in learning new ways that QI Macros can help them with their Agile Lean Six Sigma and Quality Improvement efforts. (You can hear him answering questions and comments typed in by webinar 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, the Fixed Limit indicator or the automated Process Change Wizard), you may need to purchase an upgrade to bring your QI Macros to the current version.
Continue Reading "7/13/21 QI Macros webinar"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Data Mining, Excel, QI Macros, Webinar.
Ever noticed how long it takes for people to analyze a spreadsheet? Too long. How can a smart chart eliminate the delay and accelerate understanding?
“One of the things I’ve learned is spreadsheets… People do a lot of spreadsheets. 54% of the Excel spreadsheets out there have no formulas in them, or anything else for that matter; they’re just little reporty things.
“Now, one of the things for you to think about with a spreadsheet is, it’s an auditory process. You’re reading it cell by cell, by heading by heading, by whatever by whatever, and reading (an auditory thing) is a very slow process.
Continue Reading "Spreadsheets are Slow – Smart Charts Are Fast"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Agile Lean Six Sigma, Excel, Improvement Insights, Six Sigma.
Have you ever noticed that some leaders and managers aren’t that excited about quality improvement? Do they actively resist improvements? Here’s why:
“Well hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma for Hospitals” and QI Macros [software].
“You know, I like to read thriller novels. I just find them fascinating, and there’s always a good guy trying to defeat a bad guy. But the good guy isn’t just fighting the bad guy, the good guy invariably has to deal with the bureaucracy and somebody in their own organization who’s a problem, who’s trying to slow things down, stop things, or interrupt things, and they have their own personal agendas.
Continue Reading "Leaders and Managers May Not Be Your Friend"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Improvement Insights, Lean, Six Sigma.
