Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
Page 1 of 6
Published on Quality Digest (http://www.qualitydigest.com) Home > The Sobering Reality of Beginners Mind
Published: 06/28/2012 I am in the midst of teaching an online MBA course in statistical thinking. This is actually my second go-round, and I've heavily revised my inherited materials, which were well-meaning but had some obvious gaps.
ADVERTISEMENT
I insisted on using Brian Joiners Fourth Generation Management (McGraw-Hill) as the key text, and I still use Donald Wheelers excellent classic, Understanding Variation (SPC Press, 1993), and W. Edwards Demings own The New Economics (MIT Press, 2000 reprint), probably his most readable, which were the two main texts as originally taught. A key element of the course is weekly online dialogue amongst the students via two challenging discussion questions. The very first week, I base one dialogue question on Thomas Nolans and Lloyd Provosts seminal paper, Understanding Variation (Quality Progress, May 1990). If youve never read it, and education is part of your job, read it. It is an eye-openerfor students and myselfto realize that despite the fact that this paper was written more than 20 years ago, these basic concepts so crucial to 21st-century management arent even close to being mainstream.
http://www.qualitydigest.com/print/21090
9/25/2012
Page 2 of 6
Its been quite the challenge for me to remember beginners mind. Here's an example. One aspect of the course that needed major revision was how to teach the Individuals control chartaka an I-Chart, or Wheelers Process Behavior Chart. Its been four weeks now, and Ive explained the I-Chart in many, many different ways using many scenarios and contexts. Aside from the math anxiety, which is considerable, even my best, most intuitive students still struggle with basic interpretation issues. Try as I might, it is very difficult to get them beyond the one point beyond three standard deviations test and the tendency to treat each generated special cause test as, well, a special cause needing unique explanation. I want to make it clear that I am not blaming the students. It makes me think of the thousands of tools seminars being taught, which always seems to end with the dreaded half-day of control charts (usually all seven of them).
http://www.qualitydigest.com/print/21090
9/25/2012
Page 3 of 6
In fact, he had rewarded folks for the good work they attained in June 1998 by saying, Send out for pizza, and send me the bill! But, alas, you know what happens when you reward peopleas evidenced by the ensuing four months of an alleged disturbing trend. So, no more Mr. Nice Guy. He now presides over a monthly meeting to discuss, in detail, the reasons for downtime that month. Its obviously working because the month after the alleged trend, they got 100-percent uptime again. No pizza this time. And once again, it reinforces that getting tough with accountability is true leadership. So now you have yet another dreaded monthly account for results meeting on your schedule, to which you can almost write the script for the litany of excuses. Usually it starts off with a display similar to the top two graphs of the following figure:
Then there are the conversations like, Yes, we went from 99.7 percent to 98.6 percent, but theres a good reason. You have to understand, we didnt expect (fill in the blank) to happen. But heres my plan for making it better next month.
http://www.qualitydigest.com/print/21090
9/25/2012
Page 4 of 6
So, I present the class with a run chart of the data (bottom graph, above) and ask: 1. Is that period of June 1998October 1998 a statistical trend? No. It is only four successive decreases, and five are needed (with < 20 data points) to be called a trend. 2. Do you see a cluster of eight consecutive points either all above the median or all below the median? One would hope that improvement was occurring during this time. If so, one might see eight recent points above the median, or eight points early in the data below the median. In this case, no. 3. Based on 1 and 2, so far, is the process behavior common or special cause? What strategy have they been using during the last 19 months? So far, the behavior is common cause, and the monthly meeting to discuss, specifically, that months downtime is a special cause strategy. As Dr. Phil would say, Hows that workin for ya? There is no evidence of improvementbut do you think some complexity might have been added? 4. Obtain the I-Chart for these data. Based on the information so far, how should they proceed? Thats a whole other article.
http://www.qualitydigest.com/print/21090
9/25/2012
Page 5 of 6
Its obvious that theyre capable of getting zero events, so why cant they just try a little harder and do it all the time? Still not hitting home with some of you? All right: Can you think back to the No Child Left Behind Act? What could be simpler? Are you as outraged as the breast-beating politicans who say, This shouldnt happen in America! So, let me ask the government and education bureaucrats about their tough emphasis on accountability for this: Hows it workin for ya? (Readers: Have you heard just about all the excuses?) Ever heard the expression, Your current processes are perfectly designed to get the results theyre already getting... even if they shouldnt? Let me leave you with a very amusing true story. I had a friend whose manager insisted on 100-percent performancenot in a spirit of improvement. When my friend gave a reasonable explanation for why that wasnt realistically possible, the manager said, No, no, no, thats OK. It only has to average 100 percent. We still let people get six-figure salaries by being tough in reacting to the fact that one number is larger (or smaller) than another. And that outrages me. As I try to make clear to my students, they are swimming in everyday opportunity.
Davis Balestracci
Davis Balestracci is a member of the American Society for Quality and past chair of its statistics division. These thoughts are taken from chapter nine of his book, Data Sanity (Medical Group Management Association, 2009), with a foreword by Dr. Donald Berwick. It offers a new way of thinking via a common organizational language based in process and understanding variation. Balestracci would love to wake up your conferences with his dynamic style and entertaining insights into the places where process, statistics, organizational culture, and quality meet. Visit his website for more information.
http://www.qualitydigest.com/print/21090
9/25/2012
Page 6 of 6
2012 Quality Digest Magazine. All Rights Reserved. Source URL (retrieved on 09/24/2012): http://www.qualitydigest.com/inside/quality-insidercolumn/sobering-reality-beginner-s-mind.html Links: [1] /ad/redirect/21114 [2] http://www.amazon.com/Fourth-Generation-Management-Business-Consciousness/dp/0070327157 [3] http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Variation-The-Managing-Chaos/dp/0945320353 [4] http://www.amazon.com/New-Economics-Industry-Government-Education/dp/0262541165 [5] http://apiweb.org/UnderstandingVariation.pdf
http://www.qualitydigest.com/print/21090
9/25/2012