Seven Quality Tools of an Improvement Ninja, Part 1

The cause and effect diagram

Writing articles for Quality Digest Daily has created some positive if unpredicted consequences for me. I’m fortunate that people read what I write and even reach out with feedback. Recently one such reader, just beginning her quality career in Chicago, emailed me, and we started a conversation about the “seven basic quality tools.” Initially she was unaware of these tools, but she was resourceful enough to do her own research and learn more.

This got me thinking about the quality of quality teaching, if you’ll excuse the pun, as well as the general awareness of the principles in our field. Are our quality colleagues across the world fully conversant with the history or the basics of our discipline?

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Comments

Fishbone diagram is useless

Hi Paul,

Hooray, it's not just me!

The Fishbone Diagram has always been a crock, in my view.

It yields half-baked fixes at best. It can't work because it requires guesses to be drawn up front about where the problems might lie. Hence, it suffers from "Solutions First Syndrome", as I call it, the antithesis of systemic improvement. So far as I can tell, Dr Deming did not include it in his 4 day seminars; I can well imagine he regarded it as tampering.

I have an alternative I call the Binary Model, based on Prof James Reason's Swiss Chese Model and Dean Gano's Reality Charting. The following link takes you to my paper at the World Business Capability Confrerence in Auckland NZ just before Christmas.

http://www.worldbusinesscapabilitycongress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Ian-Hendra_Clearline-Services-Ltd_Paper_Solutions-first-syndrome-or-the-easy-way-to-avoid-continual-improvement.pdf

I hope the paper is of interest. Any probs drop me an email via LinkedIn.

Cheers

Ian

Guess work

Thanks for your comment Ian, you are right in reference to the fishbone diagram having some limitations, however most tools and techniques in my experience do. The cause and effect through traditional teaching is a brainstorming exercise, however the benefit of the system is that it is an initiator to other investigation techniques. I am glad you are familiar with Reason et al, as these more advanced tools help us further ourselves in our Quality career, however, as I said at the start, I'm trying to enlighten our freshman colleagues. I do hope some go onto further study this area, and perhaps review your paper (which I have read - props). Keep up the writing and please send more over to me.

The Thirty-Nine Steps

Hi, Mr. Naysmith. I agree with you, writing for Quality Digest is a life-enriching experience. But, if you read my columns - I'm the white-bearded guy wearing a green shirt - and my comments, too, you'll notice that i'm rather more on the side of holistic, continuous approaches, than step-wise mechanisms. In my work career I've seen to many cases of 4M's and Evironment - based fish-bone charts happily ending with a "human error" root cause: what else is to be expected? Any- and every-thing we do is done by humans, it's only logical that any and every final cause has to be allocated to one or more humans. I much prefer - because I find it more effective - a free-wheeling approach; or - even better - "free-willing". You are surely familar with Run@Rate practices: I find more viable "Run@Risk" approaches. Thank you.

A journey of one thousand miles starts with a single step

To the white-bearded guy wearing a green shirt, from the flame haired improvement Ninja, I appreciate your sentiment on writing for QD and your continued pursuit of excellence. I'm not 100% conversant with Run@Risk and I would appreciate any articles you could send my way.

Cause and Effect is not for solutions

Paul,

Thanks for an interesting article - everyone should know about these simple tools.

The purpose of a fishbone diagram is to capture the knowledge and experience of those working in the process and use this to narrow down the areas to gather data on. The solutions come out of the data analysis, not the brainstorming to create the fishbone. It is a great tool and there is no need to search for an alternative, as suggested by other commenters.

It does happen that teams suggest that human error is the cause of the problem. My advice is to ask them to gather data to prove this (while gently reminding them of Dr. Demings assertion that 99% of issues are due to the process and 1% due to the people). I have never found a case where the data confirmed their original idea, so they go back to the fishbone diagram and look for the next likely area to study. This is all part of the learning process that a team goes through. Using the fishbone to narrow down prevents the team from attempting to gather and analyse data on all aspects of the process.

It is snowing heavily in Scotland just now - thought that you would like to know.

Its +24C in Louisiana

Thanks for the comment Mike, I too love the question "what causes the human to make a mistake?" such a simple but powerful way to approach a systems failure, and I am sure you too ask this question all the time. Thanks also for the weather update, I see on the BBC Scotland website there are fantastic pictures of Scotland looking like the ice planet Hoth.

Interactions

Dear Paul,

Not too long ago I read a book by William Zinsser titled "Writing to Learn". The title nicely summarizes why everyone should write. Writing forces you to understand the topic properly. It causes you to reconcile ideas you didn't know were in conflict as well as illuminating connections between ideas you thought were disparate. You exit the writing process wiser and more knowledgeable. So, cheers to you for writing and especially for writing about foundational tools of the quality professional.

The seven basic tools you outlined are not complex. Anyone can grasp them in a matter of minutes. Their power lies in their interactions with one another. They prod the problem solving process along. The factors you think up as causes with the Cause & Effect Diagram lead you to investigating their importance with a Pareto chart. You can then evaluate if the vital factors are in control with control charts. And so on. The tools form a system.

Looking forward to reading your experiences using these tools in your place of work (or even at home). I'm sure examples will be helpful to those new to the quality field.

Best regards,

Shrikant Kalegaonkar

twitter: @shrikale

A diversity of counter measures

A diversity of counter measures was taken to stop the behavior of the ninja. Precautions were often taken besides shooting, such as weapons covered in the lavatory, or under a detachable floorboard. Buildings were constructed with traps and trip ropes attached to alarm bells.