Process Behavior Charts, Variation, and Better Leadership Decisions
Process Behavior Charts help leaders distinguish real signals from routine noise in performance data. Instead of reacting to every up or down, these charts—rooted in the work of Shewhart and Deming—show when a system has truly changed and when variation is simply part of normal performance.
These posts explore Process Behavior Charts in practical, leadership-focused ways: avoiding overreaction to red metrics, improving decision-making, building trust in data, and shifting conversations from blame to system improvement. Examples span healthcare, manufacturing, sports, and executive dashboards—where misunderstanding variation often leads to wasted effort and worse outcomes.
Many of the ideas in this archive align with the themes of my book Measures of Success: reacting less to routine variation, leading better through better questions, and improving more by focusing on system change instead of noise.
