Month: August 2008

An arbitrary and statistically flawed tie-breaking rule cost Nastia Liukin of the United States the gold medal in the women’s uneven bars competition at the Olympics earlier this month, according to Dr. Prasad Raje, CEO of Instantis. After looking at the tied scores of gymnasts Liukin and He Kexin of China, Raje figures that Liukin […]

Whichprioritized projects would Peter Piper pick? I’ve been asked to speak about project selection at an upcoming symposium. In doing research for this,I’ve reviewed articlesfrom iSixSigma and other sources, from both the Six Sigma “ranked project hopper” perspective and the Lean A3 – strategic deployment perspective. And I’ve done some project-picking in my time, too, […]

A year ago iSixSigma Magazine featured the U.S. Army’s business transformation program in a cover story, recognizing the change management efforts and project successes from one of the largest Lean Six Sigma deployments ever attempted. Since then, ties between the U.S. armed forces and Lean Six Sigma have only gotten stronger. In May 2008, Deputy […]

The good folks at Minitab just released a sweet little article about using M&M’s to teach statistics. It’s called Sweetening Statistics and is written by Michelle Paret and Eston Martz. If you’ve been through traditional classroom Black Belt training you’ve probably already done these exercises yourself as they have been a part of the traditional […]

Across the globe food prices are rising rapidly. The potential causes are many including big ticket issues like rising demand in emerging markets, oil prices, bio fuels, trade tariffs, global warming, population growth and tight supplies. With all that lot stacked-up its no wonder that prices are going up. Big problems call for big solutions […]

Customer complaints, appropriately captured and analyzed, can provide useful insight about process defects.

This morning as I read Sue Kozlowski’s blog about her husband and the “common sense” factor of lean six-sigma process analysis, I decided to apply this thinking to a recent experience at work. Are there work environments where process analysis should not be applied? Where common sense is the standard? Here is my thought process. […]

When I first went to Six Sigma training, I was very enthusiastic about it and shared everything I learned over the dinner table with my family. I talked about my projects and the tools, my successes and failures. I always thought they listened politely and then forgot about it. You know, Mom talking about work […]

There are countless business books out there that present good reasons why it is not necessary to be 100% right all the time. Beyond being unnecessary, I think being completely right is highly over-rated in the context of business. Being 80% right and good at executing is probably more than sufficient in most cases. Not […]