What is a QI project…

    A question came in: How do we define a QI project for those new to the experience?
    Answer:
    I strongly encourage you all to look at continuous improvement and the achievement of exceptional performance as the result of a holistic approach to managing complex operating systems and not something achieved by QI projects or particular production control [...]

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    About Steve

    Steven J. Spear, five-time winner of the Shingo Prize for research excellence and recipient of the McKinsey Award, is a senior lecturer at MIT and former assistant professor at Harvard. A senior fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, he is the author of numerous articles appearing in academic and trade publications, including the Harvard Business Review, Annals of Internal Medicine, Academic Medicine, The Boston Globe, and The New York Times. An active public speaker, he has addressed audiences as diverse as the Association for Manufacturing Excellence, the Shingo Prize Annual Conference, and the Institute of Medicine.

Business Strategy
Innovation
Organizational Learning

ASQ Honors The High Velocity Edge with Philip Crosby Medal

ASQ Rewards Achievements in Quality Recipients honored for advancing the quality profession The High Velocity Edge to ...

What’s best for fostering CI and innovation?

The common challenge to all organizations is taking what is poorly understood--the needs of a market, the design of products ...

Triggers and Objectives for Process Change–Shortfalls, failures, and imperfection

Summary: There are at least four conditions that trigger improvement: what we did didn't work as planned, we disappointed a ...

Auto Industry

Cutting Gas Consumption: A better way than CAFE standards?

In “Obama’s Chance to Reduce Auto Emissions and Our Thirst for Oil,” Daniel Becker and James Gerstenzang, cheer the benefits of raising CAFE requirements, the miles per gallon automakers have to average across the fleet of cars they sell.
It seems, there is a simpler and more effective way to meet the objective of reducing oil [...]

High Velocity Organizations

What is a QI project…

A question came in: How do we define a QI project for those new to the experience?
Answer:
I strongly encourage you all to look at continuous improvement and the achievement of exceptional performance as the result of a holistic approach to managing complex operating systems and not something achieved by QI projects or particular production control [...]

Health Care

Harvard Pilgrim rewards patients for switching care…

Harvard Pilgrim’s efforts to redirect patients to lower cost diagnostic tests (Boston Globe, December 20) can be a first step in having healthcare sourcing decisions made based on quality and cost. This depends on the insurer’s recommendations reflecting both quality of care and cost data.  On the other hand, merely rewarding providers who have negotiated [...]