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We just finished exhibiting at the IHI conference at the Orlando Marriott World Center. The Marriott has expanded it’s exhibit hall, but, unfortunately it’s 150 yards from the nearest classroom. The exhibit hall management company, Corcoran, has shown a remarkable lack of interest in the voice of the exhibitors or voice of the attendees.
Voice of the customer is a simple concept: What do customers want?
The attendees want to learn new stuff. Classes and workshops aren’t the only place they can learn new stuff. The exhibit hall can keep them up to date on the latest methods and technology.
For example, it’s still amazing to me how many people stop by our booth who had no idea that Excel could do control charts, pareto charts, fishbones, histograms, value stream maps or other Lean Six Sigma charts and tools.
Continue Reading "Voice of the Customer"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Six Sigma.
This weekend I exhibited at the American Society for Healthcare Risk Management (ASHRM). The risk managers were interested in our Lean Six Sigma books, training and QI Macros software, but every so often I’d offer a demo CD to someone and they’d say: “Oh, we don’t need that. we’re an Insurance company.”
Insurance companies like to pretend that they don’t take forever to do anything and make tons of mistakes while they’re at it. This is nonsense. Insurance companies desperately need Lean Six Sigma.
My wife and I recently changed from COBRA to self-pay with United Healthcare. Everything seemed to go smoothly.
Continue Reading "Six Sigma for Insurance Companies"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Service, Six Sigma.
Last week we exhibited the QI Macros Quality Management Software for Excel at the the PMI Global Congress in Orlando, FL. I was surprised to discover how many PMs were worried that Lean Six Sigma would some how replace them. While quality management is an important part of the project management body of knowledge, it’s not the only thing PMs do.
So here’s my simple observation about the differences between project management and Lean Six Sigma:
| Project Management |
Lean Six Sigma |
| Getting Things Done |
Keeping Things Going
Making Things Better |
| Achieving Objectives |
Solving Problems |
Project Management and Lean Six Sigma are related, but don’t overlap that much.
Continue Reading "Project Management vs Lean Six Sigma"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Service, Six Sigma.
I just got an email from a guy trying to sell his IT department on Lean Six Sigma and SPC for software development and maintenance. Needless to say the main developers were not too pleased, but basically made the argument that SPC cannot be applied to software cycle development because there are no repetitive processes involved, but rather it is reactionary to external (or unassignable events). He wondered: How would I be able to apply control charts to this environment. Maybe such an environment cannot be ‘controlled’?
This is actually the lame argument that every so called “artist” uses to explain why they shouldn’t have to learn how to monitor and improve their processes.
Continue Reading "SPC for Software Development"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Six Sigma.
The Six Sigma community seems to be obsessed with whether their data is normal or non-normal. If you’re using the data for control charts, normality is overrated.
Donald J. Wheeler, author of Advanced Topics in Statistical Process Control, just published an insightful paper on what he calls, Leptokurtophobia–the abnormal need for normal distributions–at http://www.qualitydigest.com/inside/quality-insider-column/do-you-have-leptokurtophobia.html.
Wheeler says: “We do not need to check the data for normality, nor do we need to define a reference distribution prior to computing limits. Anyone who tells you anything to the contrary is simply trying to complicate your life unnecessarily. ”
“Transforming the data prior to using them on a process behavior chart is not only bad advice, it is also an outright mistake.”
Continue Reading "Normality is Overrated"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Six Sigma.
In The Element, Author Ken Robinson says that “One of the enemies of creativity and innovation is common sense. As soon as something seems the most obvious thing in the world, it means that we have abandoned all attempts at understanding it.”
What are the enemies of improvement?
- Common Sense
- Gut Feel
- Trial and Error
Most businesses grow from startups to profitability using these three “methods.” At some point, these methods start to fail, but most businesses just redouble their efforts to use them. Instead of looking for a better method of problem solving, the sucess of these methods blinds most people to possibility of a better way.
Continue Reading "The Enemies of Breakthrough Improvement"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Six Sigma.
The Denver Post reported that the Colorado Orthopaedic and Surgical Hospital was shut down this week after a patient’s death. What went wrong?
- Patient was given a a pain killer in too high a dose.
- Patient was left alone for 15 minutes after receiving the drug.
- Staff was unfamiliar with the crash cart.
- The rapid reponse team had trouble reaching the patient’s room.
The nurse involved resigned.
What did the hospital pledge to do? Increase training on emergency response.
All too often, managers think that better training will lead to better results. Unfortunately, employees come and go. Training degrades over time (you lose 90% of what you learn if you don’t use it in 72 hours after training.)
Continue Reading "Surgical Hospital Shut Down"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Service, Six Sigma.
Recently at a conference, I saw a noted Six Sigma practitioner use Minitab to generate data for analysis.
In that moment it struck me: colleges have been training students to manufacture “real-looking” data for class assignments. All you have to do is enter some parameters and out pops data that varies with whatever distribution you assign it.
Isn’t this what got us into trouble in this economy: creating data that justified our behavior and inflated results?
I’d like you to consider that seemingly innocuous behaviors like this can lead to catastrophic results: market crashes, inflated bonuses and general stupidity.
If teachers want to generate data for students, that’s probably a good idea.
Continue Reading "Making Up Data"
Posted by Jay Arthur in Six Sigma.
