Freedom from Command & Control: Rethinking Management for Lean Service Here is a fascinating post from John Seddon at his website www.lean-service.com (link is dead) about ambulances “making their numbers”: The stupidity of measuring the eight-minute response time has been…
Manufacturing Engineering December 2006 I was sent the link to this article by Professor Thomas Johnson, noted author of books including Profit Beyond Measure. After reading the article, I’m a bit confused (although he makes some excellent points). Dr. Johnson…
A somewhat recent experience prompted me to re-read portions of Donald Wheeler’s outstanding book, Understanding Variation: The Key to Managing Chaos, with its section on the three ways people can improve a metric or a target (he gives credit to…
tl;dr: The “two consecutive reds” rule persists because reacting feels like leadership — but it generates wasted investigations, false success stories, and eroded trust. Process Behavior Charts tell you when variation actually means something changed. I’m writing about something that…
Headlines say Bourbon is in crisis: Yeah, this looks bad. Look at that decline! This chart supports headlines like: And it’s not just Bourbon, it’s wine and alcohol in general. There were plenty more like this. These headlines are written…
The Christmas Tale / Le Conte de Noël Two years ago, I received an unexpected and incredibly specific Christmas gift from Charles Desneuf on LinkedIn. He wrote a PDF eBook about Process Behavior Charts… and Christmas! This led to Charles…
tl;dr summary: Early adoption of Process Behavior Charts would have changed how organizations approached Lean–reducing noise-driven reactions, improving root cause analysis, and helping leaders focus on true signals. Lean would have had a clearer path, and many transformations might have…
tl;dr: If leaders have to “do the math in their heads” to see trends, the chart isn’t doing its job. Bowling charts hide signals and exaggerate noise. Process Behavior Charts reveal what’s really happening so leaders can react less, learn…
Thanks, as always, to Ryan McCormack for this. He always shares so much good reading, listening, and viewing here! Subscribe to get these directly from Ryan via email. News, articles, books, podcasts, and videos about how to make the workplace…
Two data points aren’t a trend–but headlines, executives, and analysts keep treating them like one, whether the topic is Olympic TV viewership or business performance. Two data points are not a trend. Let’s start with an example from a recent…
TODAY marks the centennial of one of the most significant innovations in quality management: the control chart. “A ‘special cause’ for celebration.” Brian Buck, on LinkedIn LOL. Shewhart’s Breakthrough: Understanding Variation In the early 1920s, Walter A. Shewhart, working at…
Scroll down for how to subscribe, transcript, and more My guest for Episode #501 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Marcia Daszko, a speaker, workshop facilitator, and consultant. For more than 25 years, she has passionately been speaking, consulting,…