When leaders tell me they have a culture of continuous improvement, I often ask them some simple questions:

If leaders stumble over answering any (or all) of these questions, I’m certain that their culture is not reflective of an organization on a journey toward excellence.  Why? Because organizations that have been recognized with the Baldrige National Quality Award or other Baldrige-based Quality Awards (such as the AHCA Gold Award or the top-level award from an Alliance program) have invested in training their employees in improvement methodologies and reinforce their participation in identifying opportunities.

Many of our clients have gravitated toward PDSA (Plan, Do, Study, Act) or PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Act) as their improvement methodology believing that a simple model will be easy to deploy and easy for any employee to grasp. PDSA is largely a problem-solving methodology. However, we believe it lacks some of the rigor and discipline that another methodology offers – DMAIC or Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control.

Widely attributed to the Six Sigma craze of the 1990s, DMAIC took hold in many organizations. However, it sometimes got lost in the heavy emphasis on other statistically-based tools.  That’s unfortunate because DMAIC, when broken into its steps, is really easy to understand and to apply. DMAIC describes the steps for improving process effectiveness or efficiency.

“A problem defined, is a problem half solved.” is often attributed to Albert Einstein. Regardless of who said it, the wisdom is evident with even a simple example. People often complain that their computer is “slow.” That doesn’t seem ambiguous; does it? But it is unclear without further discussion to define what is meant. Is it slow on start-up?  Is it slow during signing in?  Is it slow when running a certain application?  Is it slow when there are many windows open?  Is it slow when surfing the web?  Is it slow when trying to shut the system down?  Each of these scenarios require a different “fix” to resolve the problem.

Would you go on a scavenger hunt without a list of the articles you’re supposed to bring back? Of course not! Similarly, don’t launch an improvement project without first truly understanding the problem.

One of the Baldrige Core Values and Principles is “management by fact.”  That means we need to collect data on the problem we’ve defined. But what data?  What’s readily available, or what provides true insight into the problem or process? And don’t focus only on quantitative data but qualitative data as well. People performing the work or who are closest to the problem often have insights that lend themselves to further exploration.

People frequently speak about “moving the needle,” and it’s important to establish a baseline of performance that can be evaluated for progress during the improvement effort. Measurement of performance against important requirements is necessary for analyzing effectiveness in the next step.

There are so many analytical techniques that are available. We often rely on data visualization to help us identify trends, correlations, and other displays that help us explore the problem further and inform us about potential solutions.  Another helpful technique is to analyze a process from the customer’s perspective. We may judge efficiency, but the customer is the only party capable of judging effectiveness.

Analyze also supports the fact-based evaluation that is part of the Learning in ADLI, the Process Scoring Guidelines.

The tools for problem solving and process improvement should be part of the training on the overarching methodology. And they should be regularly exercised to keep them part of the repertoire on the journey to excellence. Both of us are knowledgeable in Six Sigma and Lean, but we also rely on tried-and-true improvement techniques such as value-stream mapping, concentration diagrams, and 5S. Our philosophy is that the situation and opportunity drive the selection of the tools to use, not the dogmatic adherence to only one approach.

This step is a powerful addition to many other improvement methodologies. It’s meant to ensure that you hold the gains you accomplished with the previous four steps.  What are some effective means of control?  Documentation, documentation, documentation!  Procedures, checklists, and periodic surveys reinforce the change and help it become your new normal.  Refresher training, return demonstrations, and observations by coaches also serve to instill new habits.

How effective is your culture of continuous improvement?  Go back and answer the five questions at the beginning of this blog.