Quality doesn’t come from inspection, pressure, or choosing between speed and accuracy. It comes from well-designed systems, capable processes, and leaders who focus on learning instead of blame. This archive brings together blog posts, podcasts, and reflections on quality through a Lean and Deming lens—covering psychological safety, metrics, variation, leadership behavior, healthcare quality, and why sustainable improvement depends on fixing systems rather than managing people harder.
ASQ and others have announced the passing of a quality legend, Dr. Genichi Taguchi, in Japan, at age 88. Dr. Taguchi is known for, among other methods, the Taguchi Loss Function and other statistical quality improvement methods. He was awarded the…
Virginia Mason Medical Center, a world-renowned leader in the application of Lean principles in healthcare, has a new blog: Virginia Mason Blog. They name blogs the way I do, simple and direct :-) One of their first posts highlights a…
Near our old home in the Fort Worth, Texas area was this city park in Southlake. The sign always made me do a double take when driving by… Koalaty Park. WTF? The spelling (which I’m sure is intentional… for some…
Dr. Robert Wachter has a great column in today’s USA Today: “Column: Gregory House M.D.: RIP” and it’s republished on his blog, with its own comment section. I wrote a comment, which is awaiting moderation, and I’ll repost it here….…
There’s a new TED conference video from April 2012 featuring Dr. Atul Gawande, author of amazing books including The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right.” The core of the video will be familiar if you remember my blog post…
In this month’s installment of the “ASQ Influential Voices” blog series, ASQ President Paul Borawski asked, “Are Quality Professionals Happy On the Job?,” citing a study published in Forbes Magazine that named software quality assurance engineer as the “happiest job”…
In a recurring feature, here are links to some more articles I’ve read recently that might be of interest: Luxury car program brings cancer patients to treatment in style (KVUE-TV, Austin) – a great non-profit effort started by a former…
Episode #144 is a discussion with Dean Gruner, MD, the president & CEO of ThedaCare, talking about Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) and how ThedaCare is using this approach, along with Lean methods, to improve the coordination of care for patients.
Back by popular demand, here are links to some more articles I’ve read recently that might be of interest on a number of Lean related topics: Potent Medicine Delivers a Treatment Plan for U.S. Health Care (new book from Dr.…
Here’s a great video of Paul O’Neill, former CEO of Alcoa and former U.S. Treasury Secretary, talking to healthcare leaders about their leadership role in improving quality and patient safety. You can listen to my earlier podcast with him here.…
Here are links to some articles I’ve read recently that might be of interest: Can Hospital CEOs Be Team Players? (H&HN News) Preventing Hospital Blunders (Science 2.0) Rise of the Medical Expertocracy (WSJ) At Weschester Medical Center, executives get raises,…
My friend Mike Thelen, who works in the dairy industry, has a guest post I’m going to publish next week talking about the seemingly unfounded hysteria over so-called “pink slime” that has been in the news recently. I was nauseated…
