By David M. Williams, Ph.D. “What is YOUR definition of ‘improvement’?” she asked. The leadership team just finished reviewing the improvement efforts from last year. Teams summarized their projects and shared reflections on key learnings and barriers. The team worked together all year, and their investment of time, energy, and desire was evident. Enthusiasm was […]
by David M. Williams, Ph.D. How many times have you heard someone say, “this always happens” or “this happened to me before?” Every organization has improvement opportunities, but when quality is your strategy, you need a system to fix problems on the spot when possible or capture the problem in a structured way and add it […]
by David M. Williams, Ph.D. I love barbeque. Texas is known for our love of the craft and everyone has a favorite place. Ruby’s BBQ is a franchise operated locally in Austin by K & N Management. In 2010, they became the second restaurant to be awarded the Malcolm Baldrige Award for Excellence. While teaching at […]
by David M. Williams, Ph.D. Photo by İrfan Simsar on Unsplash Whether you are a leader in a new role or one wanting to reboot your current one, you need an approach to make your work visible, to assess current conditions, and make a game plan. Here is guidance to help. Reviewing key inputs A good […]
By David M. Williams, Ph.D. Figure. Vector of Measures Displayed in Shewhart Charts Source: Mecklenburg EMS Agency, Charlotte, NC, USA One of the toughest struggles for leaders is figuring out how to focus attention on the work that best serves the customer and will get the desired results. A great place to begin is your […]
By David M. Williams, Ph.D. Making changes to a process is essential to improvement. Improvement efforts require chartering projects that will impact strategic processes requiring design or redesign. Organizations routinely struggle with selecting processes needing improvement and that will achieve the organization’s objectives. What follows is a structured process, using qualitative methods, to support selecting […]
By David M. Williams, Ph.D. Every organization tracks a family of measures with data from various moments of time. The list of indicators often blend measures created by leadership with a mix of from other sources like accreditation bodies, regulators, and benchmarking vendors. These data are usually at an aggregate level or minimally stratified by […]
By David M. Williams, Ph.D. No one likes to talk about dying. Sudden death due to heart disease occurs 250,000 times a year in the United States. A person is just living their life and unexpectedly their heart stops. Just like that…you’re officially clinically dead. Not so fast. If this happens when you’re not […]
By David M. Williams, Ph.D. The Breakthrough Series Collaborative model is an improvement learning system that brings teams together to pursue a shared aim. Teams use an evidence-based change theory and improvement methods including the Plan, Do, Study, Act (PDSA) Cycle and time-series data (run charts and Shewhart Control Charts). In the Institute for Healthcare […]
By David M. Williams, Ph.D. Source: James L Reinertsen, MD, The Reinertsen Group Recently I sat down with Dr. Jim Reinersten to think about what makes traditional leaders shift to being quality leaders. Dr. Reinersten is a rheumatologist by training and former hospital chief executive. He’s also a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement […]