In my column, “The Universal Process Flowchart × Four,” I challenged you to look at the everyday use of data as a huge source of hidden waste. I suggested looking at a sample of any routine meeting’s raw data and asking eight questions, the last of which could be the most important of all: Does a plot of these data in their naturally occurring time order exist? How could you construct one?

Here is some wisdom from Dr. Donald Berwick—offered almost 20 years ago during his 1995 Institute for Healthcare Improvement Forum plenary speech, “Run to Space”:

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