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My guest for Episode #522 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Jacquie Maupin.
She joins the podcast to discuss her upcoming workshop at the Healthcare Systems Process Improvement Conference (HSPI) hosted by the Society for Health Systems. She and her co-presenter, Lauren Todd from HCA Healthcare, will lead a session titled “From Analysis to Action: Bridging the Gap with Effective Presentations” on February 19.
This interactive workshop is designed to help attendees sharpen their communication skills, structure data-driven narratives, and effectively engage executives and stakeholders. Whether you're attending this year or considering next year's event, this conversation offers valuable insights into the intersection of Lean, process improvement, and communication.
In this episode, we discuss how journalism and communication skills can enhance Lean and process improvement efforts. Jacquie shares how her background in journalism and military leadership shaped her approach to problem-solving, stakeholder engagement, and storytelling in the world of healthcare improvement. We explore the parallels between investigative reporting and Lean methodology–how asking the right questions, structuring information effectively, and communicating insights clearly can drive meaningful change.
We also dive into Jacquie's upcoming workshop, where she and her co-presenter, Lauren Todd, will guide attendees through strategies for tailoring presentations to different audiences, crafting compelling data-driven narratives, and influencing decision-making. Whether you're attending this year or looking for ways to elevate your communication skills in process improvement, this episode is packed with valuable lessons.
Questions, Notes, and Highlights:
- Can you share your Lean origin story and career path?
- How did your background in journalism and the military shape your approach to process improvement?
- What sparked your interest in healthcare and led you to Georgetown University Hospital?
- What were some of the most impactful projects you worked on at Georgetown?
- How does process mapping help break down silos and improve collaboration?
- What journalism skills translate well to process improvement and Lean work?
- How do you approach communicating with executives to ensure your message is understood?
- What challenges have you faced in presenting Lean concepts to different audiences?
- How can process improvement teams better tell their success stories and demonstrate value?
- What insights will attendees gain from your upcoming workshop at the Healthcare Systems Process Improvement Conference?
This podcast is part of the #LeanCommunicators network.
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Actionable Takeaways from the Episode
Jacquie talks about using logical structures, such as the inverted pyramid in journalism, to effectively present data. She says, “In journalism, they teach the input in the inverted pyramid structure,” which implies the benefit of presenting the main conclusion first and supporting it with detailed evidence subsequently.
Understand and Meet Your Audience Where They Are
Jacquie Maupin stresses the importance of adjusting your communication strategy based on the audience's familiarity with the terminology and concepts. For instance, she mentions, “I've got to communicate this in a way that resonates with them,” highlighting the need for adaptability in presentations.
Effective Process Mapping and Cross-Functional Collaboration
She emphasizes the power of process maps and getting different departments to communicate. As Jacquie notes, “So many light bulbs go off because they can ask each other in a kind of a safe, safe space.” This showcases the importance of visual tools and dialogue in improving comprehension and collaboration across departments.
Structured and Logical Presentation of Data
Jacquie talks about using logical structures, such as the inverted pyramid in journalism, to effectively present data. She says, “In journalism, they teach the input in the inverted pyramid structure,” which implies the benefit of presenting the main conclusion first and supporting it with detailed evidence subsequently.
Automated Transcript (Not Guaranteed to be Defect Free)
Mark Graban:
Hi, welcome to Lean Blog Interviews. I'm your host, Mark Graban. Our guest today is Jacquie Maupin. Jacquie is going to be a co-presenter of a workshop that she's doing at the Healthcare Systems Process Improvement Conference. That's an event produced by the Society for Health Systems, which is part of the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers. So that workshop, a four-hour workshop, is titled From Analysis to Bridging the Gap with Effective Presentations. So before I tell you a little bit more about the conference, Jacquie, welcome to the podcast. How are you?
Jacquie Maupin:
Thanks, Mark. I'm glad to be here.
Mark Graban:
Looking forward to seeing you again at the HSPI conference. That's something I've attended. I've missed a few, but most every year for like 15 years plus. It's an important conference for me as an industrial engineer. That's my home base. And to be with people who are doing healthcare improvement work–industrial engineers or not–is always a highlight of my year. But, you know, the conference is coming up real soon, February 19th to 21st. So if you're listening to this and you're already planning on coming to Atlanta, maybe you want to add on the Wednesday morning workshop if you can change your travel plans, or if you're already going to be there because it's the morning of Wednesday the 19th, right, Jacquie?
Jacquie Maupin:
Yep, that's right. Just starting out the conference. So a couple workshops that morning, and then I think the afternoon is where the big, you know, official kickoff is.
Mark Graban:
Yeah. So there'll be a link to that in the show notes, or people can go to iise.org or search online for “Society for Health Systems Conference.” It's pretty easy to find. You're helping kick things off. I'm in the unenviable Friday afternoon time slot doing what they… I have been in that position before. It's okay. Doing what they call an intensive, a 90-minute kind of a mini workshop. It's an intensive session, so I invite people–if you're coming, come join me for that workshop based around Deming's red bead game and lessons about process behavior charts and management. So I want to make that pitch as well. Maybe you can come take part in that, Jacquie.
Jacquie Maupin:
Yeah, I hope so. I was looking at the schedule today, so it looks like they've got some really good sessions right up to the very end Friday afternoon.
Mark Graban:
Yeah. So early afternoon. So for those of us, including myself, that need to get back down to the Atlanta airport, I hope that works out for people. So again, that's the Healthcare Systems Process Improvement Conference. Jacquie, before we hear more about your workshop and how it came to be, I should also mention you're co-presenting it with Lauren Todd from HCA Healthcare. I know Lauren from the conferences over the years, but you and others–I want to make you feel welcome not being an industrial engineer, that you share that work and passion for healthcare improvement. You've got a really interesting career path that brought you here. So, you know, if you could tell us your Lean origin story or kind of even just tell us about your career pathway of how you got to be doing this kind of work.
Jacquie Maupin:
Sure. Yeah. Well, thank you, Mark. And as you said, I'm not an industrial engineer, so I'm going to be one of the rare birds at the conference. But I didn't start out in process improvement. My undergrad degree is actually in journalism. And so I didn't get into process improvement until about 10 years into my career when I joined General Electric. And I was part of their Six Sigma process improvement team. And so that's where I got introduced to, you know, heavy-duty DMAIC and all the stats. And so that was, you know, a big learning curve for me, but I also found the work really interesting.
So I was with GE for a couple of years, and then the business I was with–they IPO'd it, they spun it off. Part of my team was going with the IPO, but it was unclear if with the new business they were going to have a process improvement function. And so that gave me the opportunity to look around. And then I ended up with Deloitte Consulting here in DC. They were starting out their federal practice, and so I was able to join them and worked on strategy and operations consulting with federal agencies and did that for about eight years. And during that time I got my Master's in Public Administration. Halfway through, I was like, “I probably should have done healthcare administration, but too late now.” So I just focused all my second year on health policy research, that type of thing, and then went back to Deloitte and was raring to go to work on healthcare and was really getting more interested in kind of the frontline delivery and the process improvement. But there weren't a lot of opportunities to do that kind of work with federal agencies. So then I had the opportunity to join Georgetown University Hospital. And so most recently, I was the Director of Operations Excellence there for about 10 years and got to start up the program there of process improvement. And I had the good fortune to kind of work, you know, all over the hospital. So I joke that I was pretty much everywhere in the hospital and got to visit every nook and cranny except for the morgue, which I think I'm happy about. So that's kind of my origin story.
Mark Graban:
Yeah. With the journalism degree, were you working in the media or in kind of a traditional journalism job at the beginning of your career?
Jacquie Maupin:
Well, you know, actually at the beginning of my career, right after college, I went into the Army and I was an Army officer for several years. I finished college with an ROTC scholarship and then also my journalism degree. So I had some time owed for my scholarship. And so, you know, spent several years as an Army officer and basically got to learn about people management and life–going from a kind of cloistered university experience. So that was great; would not trade that for anything. And then after my service was complete, that's when I was like, “Oh, I'm going to use my journalism degree.” So I did work at a newspaper and then I did work at a book publisher as a travel guidebook editor. But I, you know, writing every day, I answered that question because I decided this is not what I want to do every day. I missed the project-based work, the team-based work that I had in the Army and kind of solving different problems every month or every quarter. And so that's what was very appealing for me to join GE and their process improvement team.
Mark Graban:
Okay, well, it's good that you had that opportunity and that connection. It helps to hear that part of the story. I didn't know about your Army service, and companies–so many different types of companies–love hiring people out of the military for the leadership experience and the discipline and all the positive traits that they bring into the private sector.
Jacquie Maupin:
Yeah, I was very fortunate because GE had a junior military officer (JMO) recruiting program, and so that's how I ended up entering the company. So I was very fortunate about that kind of military-industry connection.
Mark Graban:
Yeah. And then, you know, where did–so you and I, there's a parallel that we both ended up working in healthcare maybe in an unexpected way. What was that spark for you where you–I know you said you were doing the Master's of Public Administration program–what made you think, oh, healthcare is where I want to be, where you want to make a difference?
Jacquie Maupin:
You know, I think it was a bunch of little puzzle pieces that fit together, and one of them was really going back to when I was in the Army and I, you know, got some of my care through the Army healthcare system. I went from college right into that healthcare system, but then when I left that and I was a civilian and, you know, for a short time I had to pay for my own healthcare insurance–it was very eye-opening. I was part of an HMO, and that was a unique, unique experience. So I just, you know, kind of as a consumer had several different experiences in the military and after and just kind of kept coming back to, you know, there's got to be a better way.
And then, you know, Mark, I keep seeing kind of a trend in the work that I do, that there's kind of a higher purpose because, you know, with the Army–duty, honor, country–and then government consulting, that was, you know, shortly after 9/11: let's start up TSA, let's have DHS started up, and a lot of those efficiencies to make government better. And so that's how I joined the consulting firm: like, “Hey, we're gonna improve all these different agencies and efficiencies.” And then healthcare kind of has that higher purpose. And I just got more and more interested in, you know, I'd rather be at the front line improving healthcare there as opposed to putting together this federal health agency's mobile health strategy. For me it just resonates more to be at the point of care, you know, where the process and the workflow and the frontline staff are.
Mark Graban:
Yeah. Well, so then you got that opportunity at Georgetown. What were some of the highlights of–I think you said 10 years–things that were most exciting to work on, things that had the most meaningful impact to you and to others?
Jacquie Maupin:
Well, thanks for asking, because I don't think anybody's asked that. You know, as I kind of look back on my 10 years, a couple of them were just some really, really great projects. I learned, of course, a lot there about healthcare administration and clinical–just gained so much respect for the clinicians, the doctors, and nurses. But, you know, there were a couple big projects that I worked on. One was a length-of-stay project with our med-surg units. And, you know, that was our first big project, and the hospital president was like, “Hey, Jacquie, go fix length of stay.” And, you know, this is a 450-bed hospital with 5,000 employees, and we were a pretty small department. So just, you know, kind of going through the cycles of how to scope down the project, how to put together teams, and work with those different stakeholders.
We ended up doing a fantastic project–kind of a full classic DMAIC project with all the data and 103 root causes and regression analysis. But it was really fantastic because I really liked that it was so cross-functional. And I really know the admission and discharge process now because we had case management and pharmacy and security and the nurses, PT/OT, you know, all involved–a very cross-functional team and a cross-functional solution that we came up with. And, you know, it had an impact and was able to improve our discharges by noon by 20%. And there's also a potential revenue boost with that. So, you know, that was a fantastic project. And then, you know, that was kind of like our groundbreaking project to prove, “Hey, does this Lean Six Sigma thing work?” Yeah. So I think, you know, that really stuck out in my mind. And we had a lot of fun too because it was a long project and we met weekly, but, you know, when it was day to day, I bought everybody nerd glasses and I was like, “Okay, we're gonna be data nerds today. Put on your Clark Kent glasses.” We had birthday cake celebrations and things like that. So that was one of the big memories that I have. It was a really, really good project, and I found out that I like throughput. You know, it's not that sexy or exciting, but I really like patient throughput and I like the complexity of it. Toward the end of my time there, I got to work on an emergency department throughput project, and I was like, “All right, throughput again.” So, yeah, I ended up liking throughput a lot, and I think it's just all the different moving pieces.
Mark Graban:
Yeah, and a lot of these different goals in healthcare are so interrelated. Improving patient flow improves the quality of care; it improves the patient experience. I mean, in any setting, even going back to Toyota, you learn quality and flow go hand in hand. It's two sides of the same coin. And being able to make that kind of impact in healthcare is meaningful, even if it's as simple as helping reduce everyone's frustration levels.
Jacquie Maupin:
Oh yeah.
Mark Graban:
Helping things run more smoothly, right?
Jacquie Maupin:
And even, you know, getting departments to talk to each other, because what I found repeatedly is that the departments that work together on a kind of a co-managed process didn't always know why the other team was doing something. And I saw that with our emergency department throughput. There was a little bit of butting of heads because the ED was like, “Hey, we gotta clear out our waiting room, we need to send these admitted patients upstairs.” And the nurses upstairs are like, “Hey, I just discharged the patient, I've gotta finish closing out this patient record and all the documentation, and, you know, shift change is coming up.” And so, you know, the nurses self-admittedly, after we worked on this project for a while, were like, after our first pilot, “Yeah, things are more–I guess more friendly, more amiable–in our communications,” because they gained understanding of how the emergency department is working, why they're doing what they're doing, and why the nurses on the inpatient units receiving these patients–why they're doing what they're doing. And that, without fail, always helps.
And I've seen repeatedly the power of the process maps. It's old school, it's low tech, but you put those sticky notes on the wall and have the right players in the room, and so many light bulbs go off because they can ask each other in a kind of a safe space, “Why do you do what you do?” So many light bulbs go off. And teams, typically I saw, worked better together once they understood, what is that guy doing?
Mark Graban:
Well, and the tone of voice matters so much when bringing up the question, “Why do you do it that way?” Like, where's the emphasis in that sentence, or what's the tone of voice? I mean, does journalism training help in terms of interviewing somebody, putting them at ease, drawing information out of them, asking questions in a way that is engaging instead of triggering defensiveness? Or are those just good human skills to develop?
Jacquie Maupin:
Well, I think it's both. But, you know, we learned that in journalism–interviewing people and talking about the softball questions first. You don't want to go charging in and ask the hard, a little bit controversial question first. I think you need to build rapport with people because, you know, I worked with a lot of new hires and people early in their career and new data analysts, whether in consulting or at the hospital, and just having to talk through, “Okay, how are we going to do this interview with this nurse manager who's really busy, is a little bit frustrated, isn't quite sure about us? What kind of questions are we going to ask, what are we going to lead off with, but then how do we follow up and get the information that we need?”
So I think, for me, there is a little bit of parallel with journalism and process improvement because, of course, there's the storytelling aspect. But whenever I was putting together a story and writing a story on deadline, it was like putting together a puzzle piece–what order does this go in, are there any gaps, does this flow? And you're basically uncovering a puzzle or a mystery in process improvement.
Mark Graban:
Yeah.
Jacquie Maupin:
And I like it because every time I start a new project, I get to learn something new. And that's the same thing when I was a reporter. I'd go, “Okay, Jacquie, go cover health insurance for the military.” Okay, I don't know anything about that, but I'm going to get a crash course. So there's a lot of crash-course work that I had to do in journalism to get smart on my subjects, and now, you know, with healthcare, I'll have conversations with people and they'll use terms, and I'll go back to my desk and I'll Google, “Okay, what does neutropenic mean?” I had my little running glossary. It's easier now with the internet–you can look up everything. But I think there's that background research that you have to do in process improvement and journalism, putting people at ease, and then just–it's investigating a story and uncovering all the pieces. And both in journalism and on a project, you're going to have multiple sources, and you've got to earn their trust, you've got to keep their trust. You can't reveal your sources to the other folks, but you also have to check what people are telling you. So in journalism, I would ask several sources the same question to see if I got the same answer, and I do the same thing when I'm talking about, “Okay, why does it take so long for the lab results to get back to the cancer clinic?”
Mark Graban:
Yeah. And as you're answering those questions–and, you know, the silos are strong in healthcare–there's a lot of opportunity to break down those silos. People are experts in their department's work or sometimes just their individual work. You know, sometimes there are functional professional silos within a department, and we can better understand the role others are playing. And that's so helpful. But, you know, I think it's both–you're making me reflect–it's the understanding of an end-to-end process or the handoffs, giving visibility to what's actually happening. Because when people don't know, they make a lot of assumptions. And those could be bad assumptions. And then there's the relationship of just getting to know each other. And I think without knowing the people across that departmental boundary, again, people fill in the gaps with all kinds of assumptions, or they make up a story in their mind about the motivations of the people in that other department, or they point fingers, like, “Well, they don't want to take those new patients,” when the reality is, I think, as you were describing, they're very busy. Just because the patient has been discharged doesn't mean they are instantly available. And those are things we can work on, right? What's the timing of these different tasks, who should be doing what, to maybe question and challenge some of that in the name of improving patient flow. And I found that collaboration, when it shifts from–and I don't mean this in a mean way–ignorance (meaning they literally don't know the people or the process), once they start discovering that, people can start working together and saying, “Okay, well, I realize now if I–making up numbers–put an extra two minutes of effort into doing something this way and it saves you 20, okay, I'll do that.” You're not being fussy or finicky or demanding. “Okay, that makes sense.” I found that just helps people be part of the team. They're patient-oriented, and yeah, they're breaking down the silos and working as more of a cross-departmental team. I've seen a lot of that.
Jacquie Maupin:
Yeah, agreed.
Mark Graban:
I want to ask also–we talk about the different stages of, if you will, gathering the story and telling the story. You've talked about that–rapport building, the questions, the investigation, the research, and then the improvement work happens. I think sometimes process improvement teams struggle with telling the story of what they've accomplished in financial terms, in human terms, all of the above. I'm curious what lessons learned you have about that reality of being able to tell the story to executives or to people at other sites. What did you learn along the way, or what could we learn from a journalist about telling the story effectively?
Jacquie Maupin:
Well, I think it's a combination of journalism and then somewhat what I learned in consulting, because they were very great about telling a story in a logical structure. And so I see parallels. That's one of the things we're going to cover in our workshop, is logical structure, because in journalism they teach the inverted pyramid structure to tell your story–bottom line up front, what's the big headline, and then the supporting facts. And that's also what I learned in consulting: if you're going to make a recommendation, then you've got to back it up with your supporting points, and then you've got to back that up with your evidence. And I think that's what we've got to be able to do as PI practitioners.
So I learned some of that in consulting, obviously worked to refine that when I was at the hospital. But then at the hospital, I just had a whole new audience. We've all heard of process improvement, we've heard “voice of the customer,” go talk to your customer–what do they want, what metrics, how is this going to improve the process? And then you hear about change management and stakeholder analysis–what's in it for them, what's their motivation, what are their goals? And so I had a whole new group, an audience at the hospital, to present to, to communicate to. And so that's another element of our workshop: talking about audience analysis.
I had a couple stumbling blocks there at the hospital in giving some presentations where I used the wrong word, I used the wrong jargon that I did not explain to my audience, and that just hung up the whole meeting because it was misinterpreted. I had to backpedal–“Let me explain it.” So for the next nine years, whenever I used that term, I put a definition right behind it. And it was, you know, the simple term of what we use in Lean called “waste.” And that was misinterpreted as, “Are people being wasteful, Jacquie? Are you saying people are being wasteful with their time and not working hard?”–when I meant process inefficiency.
Mark Graban:
Right, right.
Jacquie Maupin:
There was so much language that I had to learn because we're used to talking about processes and workflows, but I had to change my language and talk about a process map as a flowchart and talk about a new process or workflow as a new procedure or an algorithm, because that was their language. And so a lot of carrying over from journalism is meeting your audience where they are. And I think PI folks, with all of our lingo and all of our stats and all of our data–we do good work, we work hard, we've produced a lot of material, we're proud of it, we want to share it all, but we've got to make it translatable.
So I worked with my teams and worked hard myself: How can I translate what I'm doing into meaningful language and messages that inform my audience and also influence them? In the end, they're my customer. They've asked me and my team to come help and work on a project, but I cannot come marching in with my Pareto charts and my box plots and my regression analysis and all of that if I'm with a group of people that haven't had stats–or they had it 40 years ago, and they've been managing hospitals for 40 years and are experts on staffing and emergencies that happen and clinical issues. And what I would tell my team, who were just like “gee whiz” super-smart Lean Six Sigma folks and great data analysts, is: Our audience is not “unsmart”; they just know different things.
Mark Graban:
Right?
Jacquie Maupin:
I mean, I would go on rounds with the hospitalists in the morning, and the things they had to remember about their patients and diagnoses and treatment plans and prescriptions–I was just really blown away by the mounds of information. So I would tell my folks, “Hey, we're not going to dumb this down, because our audience–that's not our audience. Our audience is very smart; they just know different things. And we've got to communicate this in a way that resonates with them,” because typically our audience were nurses and doctors and administrators who were busy, executives who were busy, had a ton on their plate. They didn't have a ton of time. So we don't have time to waste in there with extraneous information or jargon that doesn't resonate with them. I mean, that might look cool to use all of my Kaizen terms and my eight deadly wastes, but my audience doesn't know what I'm talking about. That doesn't grow our credibility; that's not of value to them. And also, I'm very mindful–not every hospital and not every organization uses process improvement, Lean, or Six Sigma as the language of the business.
Mark Graban:
Right, right.
Jacquie Maupin:
It's not the default as it was at GE, which I was very fortunate to see that model, but most other models I've seen, it's not that way. And so you've got to be able to translate your work so it's meaningful, it's of value. And, you know, I think PI teams always have to prove their value, especially if they're not a required, mandatory embedded function.
Mark Graban:
Yeah. And I think there's a risk–I mean, hopefully people wouldn't say, “Well, I don't need to sell what we're doing; our work speaks for itself. The value should be obvious.” I see you shaking your head.
Jacquie Maupin:
No, no, I disagree.
Mark Graban:
Listening, that gets people in trouble, sadly–that sometimes leads to process improvement teams getting cut or disbanded when that story isn't being communicated well. So sorry to bring that up. But for people listening, that's a risk or that's true.
Jacquie Maupin:
I mean, I saw that. You know, there was a customer that had, very early on, the executive director of imaging, and she understood what we were doing. She became one of our best customers over 10 years. Our projects were very successful–always got implemented and got good results. And so as time went on, we were able to communicate with her in a bit more shorthand because she understood our process and she saw the value in it. But, you know, I go into the bone marrow clinic for the first time, and I haven't met them in my nine years there. I'm starting from square one, and I can't speak to them in shorthand and make assumptions that, well, that project I did over in imaging should be good enough. And, you know, the cath lab kind of works with imaging, so they should have heard about us. No. I think if it's not the language of the business, it's not an embedded function, you do have to prove your value. And then, you know, just–you asked early on, kind of my message is: meet your audience where they are.
Mark Graban:
Right.
Jacquie Maupin:
So on that huge length-of-stay project, my teammate and I–my data analyst and I–were all embedded in following the DMAIC process. And, you know, what metrics do we use? And, “Oh, we're going to figure out the sigma value.” But we realized early on, we're not sure that our executives had been through the same training we had and were familiar with how to measure length of stay. They mentioned they measured it in days or partial days. And so we had to make that decision. Even though it's meaningful for us to show the sigma value of this process and how it's functioning, it didn't mean anything to our audience. So we're showing, you know, “Our length of stay is X number of days–2.1 or 5.4,” or, you know, even breaking it into days and hours, because that resonated with our audience.
Mark Graban:
Yeah, yeah. I mean, you raised a lot of good points. I definitely recognize the risk that a word could be misinterpreted–like, I've stepped in that “waste” landmine before. I think some of it–I mean, I'll speak for situations I've been in where there's a habit of blaming, a bad habit among leaders of blaming frontline workers, and that's not what we at all mean or imply or suggest. But there's a communication gap. So then you kind of learn to try to preface what you're saying to make it clearer. For example, we're not saying the employees are wasteful; they're working too hard.
Jacquie Maupin:
Hard.
Mark Graban:
It's not that they're not working, right? They don't care. There's certainly the risk that jargon or Japanese words get misinterpreted or irritate people for different reasons. And I think whether it's, you know, throwing around words like muda–like I tend to just say “waste”–we throw around Japanese words, or we could use the English equivalent. We could use Lean terminology or statistical terminology that they don't understand. And I totally agree with you. These executives are smart; they're knowledgeable about certain things. Sometimes there's a bit of politics or ego where they feel like it makes them look bad if they don't know something, and they don't want to ask questions or they don't want to expose that they don't know. And I'm like, well, I wish an organization's culture wouldn't be that way, but sometimes you have to be careful about that. I don't mean to paint with too broad a brush, but if you have an executive or executives where that's sort of the dynamic, you might learn to pre-brief or do different things before you give them the bottom line up front or don't surprise them with the bottom line if they don't like to be surprised. I mean, I think a lot of that's very situational, but those are lessons we sometimes learn through making mistakes, myself included.
Jacquie Maupin:
Yeah, agreed. And I think your comments play right into the audience analysis type of information that we're going to share in our workshop, because that is true. You're going to have some folks that you're going to brief who want to see how the sausage was made–they want all the details. Other people are like, “Just give me the answer, give me the why, and that's it.” And then other people, you do have to gauge their personality or their style because I've briefed some folks and they don't want to look silly, they don't want to look like they don't know, even if it's a small audience. And that's just their preference. So we've got to cater to that and communicate in a way that makes sense.
And then, you know, Mark, there were other groups I had at the hospital. There was one group of physicians we worked with, and they were familiar with the statistics and they wanted to see the box plots, and they would ask, “Okay, that's the average, but what was the median?” So for that group, we had to be prepared, and that's something we could share with them. Now, they were kind of a unique group, but again, it's just knowing your audience. And so I think when we talk in our workshop about doing an audience analysis–and we've got a couple personas that we wrote up about some imaginary executives in this scenario we've put together–we're going to have the folks do an audience analysis. But then also, how are they going to adapt their presentation for this scenario? Because, like those physicians I talked about, I can show them the stats, but another group I'm not going to show them the stats. You're going to have an audience member who always shows up late, somebody who always leaves early. Like I said, somebody who's going to be more collaborative–“Hey, let's noodle through some of these solutions”–whereas somebody else is just like, “Tell me the list of solutions and the pro-con list and the cost-benefit analysis,” and that's kind of the discussion.
Mark Graban:
Yes.
Jacquie Maupin:
And, “What do you need me to do exactly? How can I help?” So it's really putting together what you learn from Voice of the Customer, stakeholder analysis, and some other sources. What's the best way that's going to inform this person and influence them? And I say “inform” because we found often that our executives would have preconceived notions about emergency department throughput and have preconceived notions about how the bone marrow collection process worked. But I would go talk to everybody, understand the end-to-end process, and then there would be some learning when we briefed back the executives that maybe there were a few key parts they weren't aware of or had changed since they were last familiar with the process. We did need to inform them because they needed to know that nugget to make a decision on the data or other information we're showing them. So I include that “inform” part because, yeah, you might have to educate your audience a little bit on what you discover so they can make the decision they need to for the organization.
Mark Graban:
Yeah, yeah, that's a great point. So again, the workshop is the morning–Wednesday morning, February 19th–coming up real soon: From Analysis to Action: Bridging the Gap with Effective Presentations. I think you've given a good sense of what the workshop is about. This is not–when people hear “presentations,” this is not about how to make slides. This is about effective communication.
Jacquie Maupin:
It is. And we've kind of broken it down into three parts: How to analyze your audience so you can communicate best to them and adapt your presentation. So when you do a stakeholder analysis, you use that information and put it into a communication plan or a stakeholder engagement plan. So we're going to show folks how to put this into a kind of presentation strategy. We've got a worksheet they can use–it's a repeatable process. And then the second part, we're going to talk about logical structure, kind of that pyramid structure, and how you can shore up your argument and build your presentation.
We've got an exercise for the group to do where we've put together this mock scenario, and we've got a presentation that this mock PI team is going to present to their executives–here's a whole slew of slides, what's the best way to tell this story? So it's putting the puzzle pieces together. And then last, we talk data because you mentioned one of the lessons learned and one of the things I've seen, especially with super-sharp data analysts–they can manipulate Excel and do Tableau and have all these wonderful graphs, but it'll show up on a page and I may look at it or someone else looks at it, and I'm like, “First of all, I can't read this, I don't know what this is telling me, what does this mean?” and then, “What's the so-what, the conclusion, the takeaway?” And so we're going to talk a little bit about page design, graph design. But our thought is, how can we help the attendees either up their game or move from a data analyst role to a more trusted advisor? Because I've seen data analysts who are like, “Okay, here's your bar chart, here's your graph that you wanted to know about the different patients who were diagnosed with XYZ or patients that had sepsis and all the different outcomes.” And it's just, here's the graph, but what's the rest of the story?
And so we're going to talk a little bit about how those data analysts can look at what they've discovered and peel back the onion and make some more connections that are even more valuable: What does this mean to the organization? What does it mean to our goals? What does it mean to our KPIs? “Hey boss, what if we analyzed it in a different way? We would find out this answer also.” So we're going to talk about that, too–what else you can do to provide that additional value besides, “Hey boss, here's the chart that you asked for,” and go from being a reporter–“Let me report out on what I learned”–to being that trusted advisor and being able to provide that deeper insight. So we've kind of got those three pieces, and we've got some hands-on activities, and Lauren and I have spent quite a bit of time on this, and we're very excited. So we're really looking forward to it.
Mark Graban:
Again, that workshop's coming up Wednesday morning, February 19th. It's titled From Analysis to Bridging the Gap with Effective Presentations. And that's again Jacquie Maupin, who's joined us today, and Lauren Todd from HCA Healthcare. So there'll be links in the show notes–information about how to connect with Jacquie if you want to talk with her about any of this. And, you know, this podcast unfortunately might reach people too late to get them there in 2025, but maybe they'll reach out to the conference this year, or maybe they'll reach out to you to talk about this, or hopefully it'll open some eyes that people should come to the Healthcare Systems Process Improvement Conference 2026 if they're not able to get there this year.
Jacquie Maupin:
Right. Exactly. And thanks so much. I got to talk about some things that I haven't had the opportunity to talk about before. I don't think I've ever had the opportunity to share that linkage that I see between reporting and process improvement. So we went deep on my origin story there, Mark.
Mark Graban:
Well, but I think I'm glad we did. I think there's a lot to learn from that. That's not a topic we've gotten to talk about with other guests here. So, Jacquie, thank you for being a guest, and I look forward to seeing you at the conference.
Jacquie Maupin:
All right. Thanks so much, Mark.
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, hosted by the Society for Health Systems. She and her co-presenter, Lauren Todd from HCA Healthcare, will lead a session titled "From Analysis to Action: Bridging the Gap with Effective Presentations" on February 19.){kind=link}