Page 25 - Lean six sigma demystified

4 Lean Six Sigma DemystifieD

For your five senses to detect all of the varying levels of problems in your
business you would need

• The awareness of a world champion poker player to detect all of the
opposing player’s “tells”
• Eagle eyes
• Bat radar
• Dolphin sonar

• Dog ears
• Shark smell
• Surgical feel
• Gourmet taste

Here’s my point. Your normal sensory apparatus isn’t up to the task of finding
and fixing the more subtle problems that affect your job, department, or busi-
ness. Like a doctor using an EKG or MRI, you need the right kind of tools to
help you detect patterns you cannot detect with the naked eye.
Sure, every once in a while a problem will happen frequently enough with
sufficient unpleasantness to trigger some action. You’ll feel good about that, but
you’ll have missed the huge opportunities that lie just below the surface of your
detection capabilities.
That’s why you need control charts, Pareto charts, histograms, and control
charts: to help you detect hidden patterns and problems.

Control charts are like an EKG; they show the pulse of your business pro-
cesses over time.

Pareto charts are like an MRI; they help you slice the problem into clearly
observable patterns.
Control charts and histograms have the added benefit of showing expected
variation that allows you to predict your performance.
Just because you can’t see, hear, feel, smell, or taste a problem doesn’t mean
that there isn’t one. It just means that your sensory system isn’t precise enough
to detect the problem.
Did you know that there are dogs that can smell cancer? They don’t need any
fancy equipment because they’ve got a nose that’s 10,000 to 100,000 times
better than ours.