Is Andre Drummond Really a Better Free Throw Shooter This Season? A Process Behavior Chart View
Today's blog post -- it's not just about sports, it's about managing and measuring improvement...
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Why Leaders Lose Sleep Over Metrics–and How Process Behavior Charts Fix That
TL;DR: Leaders lose sleep because they react to every up and down in their metrics. Most fluctuations are just noise. Process Behavior Charts help filter noise, identify real signals, and focus leadership attention on meaningful improvement instead of constant firefighting.…
Can Data Really Prove a “Sick Out”? What Process Behavior Charts Can–and Can’t–Tell Us
TL;DR: Headlines and two-point comparisons can’t prove a “sick out.” This post shows how Process Behavior Charts (PBCs) help distinguish real signals from normal variation–and why data alone can’t confirm intent or blame. As a frequent flyer on American Airlines…
Workplace Deaths by Age: Why Counts and Rates Tell Different Stories
A pitch from a personal injury law firm showed up in my inbox. The subject line was about older workers dying on the job. The numbers were real. I checked them against the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Census of Fatal…
We Thought We Solved That: The Art and Judgment Calls in the PDSA Cycle
An executive says, after hearing about a major quality defect: “You said we solved that. Why’d the problem come back???” That might sound like an attempt at accountability. But it’s not necessarily Lean thinking. The “Study” step of the Plan-Do-Study-Adjust…
Do Not Remove: What a Kaizen Binder Taught Me in Japan
On a factory table in Japan, in December 2019, there was a binder. White cover, the word KAIZEN in big orange letters, a photo of cherry blossoms underneath. Inside the front cover, someone had printed a word cloud — IMPROVEMENT,…
Is Lean Just About Speed and Six Sigma About Quality? No — and Here’s Why
No. The claim that “Lean is for speed and Six Sigma is for quality” misrepresents both methodologies. Lean — based on the Toyota Production System — improves safety, quality, delivery, cost, and morale (SQDCM) together, with built-in quality (jidoka) as…
Even in Japan: A Target of Zero and a Process That Lives Near Seven Percent
The target printed on the chart was zero percent. The red line had never been near zero. Not in the nine months posted on the wall, and probably not in any month before them. It sat between 6.43% and 6.98%.…
A Prize for Variation? What the NHS Backlog Leaderboard Actually Rewards
TL;DR: The NHS backlog gets narrated one month at a time, and millions in bonus money ride on the moves. A Process Behavior Chart shows most movement is noise — and the trusts that stay on top are running structurally…
Deming’s Long Shadow: Twenty Years of Conversations
Mike Stoecklein recalls a story secondhand. It was, he thinks, at one of the last four-day seminars W. Edwards Deming ever gave. Deming was frail by then. Someone later told Mike that when the seminar got to the Red Bead…
The Magic of Small, Odd Experiments: What Rory Sutherland Can Teach Lean Practitioners
TL;DR: Rory Sutherland’s Alchemy is a useful provocation for Lean practitioners. Lean already knows how to test small, low-cost ideas without demanding an airtight ROI in advance. We sometimes forget. A Small Idea, Quietly Killed A few years ago, I…
MLB Walks Are Up With Robot Umpires. The Skill Is Knowing What to Ignore.
MLB’s first month with robot umpires gave us a 7.3% jump in walks, a five-minute increase in average game time, and a series of headlines asking you to have an opinion. Most of the leaders I respect would shrug. That…