I'm honored to share that my workshop, “The Deming Red Bead Game & Process Behavior Charts: Practical Applications for Lean Management,” has been accepted for the 41st Annual International AME Conference, taking place this October in St. Louis.
The conference theme–Gateway to the Future: AI and Beyond–is both timely and forward-looking, and I'm grateful to contribute a workshop that brings us back to foundational thinking: systems, variation, and learning.
While AI is the shiny new thing, timeless management principles still matter–perhaps now more than ever.
Why the Red Beads Still Matter
The late Dr. W. Edwards Deming had a way of making people laugh, think, and most importantly, reflect. His “Red Bead Experiment” remains one of the best hands-on ways to experience the traps of tampering, blame, and misunderstanding variation. It's a session I love facilitating–not just because it's engaging (as past participants at the Health Systems Process Improvement conference 2025 told me), but because it creates lasting “aha!” moments.
Here's what a few participants said after the last time I ran this session at HSPI:
“Loved the demonstration of the game and using it to learn lessons… Mark did a great job presenting.”
“Highly recommend this session… Great hands-on demonstration and approach about process improvement and statistical analysis.”
“Fun and engaging… Mark is always thoughtful and relatable.”
That kind of feedback tells me we're achieving the right balance: laughter, learning, and practical insights that people can apply right away.
What You'll Experience
In this half-day workshop, participants will:
- Participate in the Red Bead Game to reveal how well-intentioned leaders can inadvertently damage morale and outcomes when they don't understand variation.
- Learn to create and interpret Process Behavior Charts (PBCs)–a simple, yet underused tool for separating signal from noise in your performance metrics.
- Reflect on the ways we react (and overreact) to normal variation–and how to shift toward more thoughtful, systemic leadership.
This isn't about complex statistics. It's about better leadership.
Practical Tools for Betteer Leadership
Whether you work in healthcare, manufacturing, tech, or services, the questions are the same: How do we know if a change is really an improvement? Are we reacting or responding? Are we respecting the system–or just blaming individuals?
These are the challenges Deming addressed decades ago. And they remain at the heart of Lean today.
In a world increasingly dominated by AI dashboards and algorithm-driven alerts, Process Behavior Charts remind us to slow down and lead with understanding. They give us a better way to ask, “What's really happening here?” before jumping to conclusions–or countermeasures.
Join Me in St. Louis
If you'll be at AME this October, I hope you'll consider joining my session. I promise it'll be engaging, a little goofy, and a lot insightful. And if you're not attending the workshop, I'd still love to connect while I'm there–whether it's to talk about mistakes, metrics, or making things better.
I'll bring the beads. You bring your curiosity.
Let's learn–and laugh–together.
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