Nine Questions You Can’t Answer if You Don’t Visualize Your Work

Our brains love visuals

There are many techniques to visualize your work. Obviously, our most popular is Personal Kanban. The way the human brain is constructed, we’re very sensitive to the content of visual information, and we quickly assimilate it. Just walking down the street, we’re exposed to different buildings with different uses and different qualities. We take this information in stride, so to speak. But if we want to see something less visual, like a list, we have to stop and read it carefully and then interpret it.

When we don’t visualize our work (i.e., turn it into something like a map or the real world), we can’t see what we’re doing. We can’t immediately answer these nine key questions.

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Insert between Item #8 and 9

I think or feel that something is missing from your definition.

I think you need one more item between #8 and #9. Call it Operational Definition. It will tell you how to decide when something is “done” or is ready for a next step in the process. Deming defined an operational definition as agreement by all interested parties that allows them to do “business.” That used to draw a lot of questions in his four day seminars. So, he gave this more precise definition. I think it is loosely based on the scientific method. Deming would probably attribute it to Walter Shewhart.

Item #1 is a set of criteria upon which or with which all interested parties can agree. This allows them to “Do business” or carry on through the process. Deming used the example of “What is 50% Wool and 50% Cotton?”

Item #2 is a test of that criterion or criteria which quantifiably determines or excludes membership in the group or class defined in #1. Again, all parties agree on the test and the results produce the intended outcome. Again, Deming’s example would ask if half the material were all cotton and the other half were all wool then where would the test sample be obtained? Now, assume the wool and cotton are thoroughly mixed. A one inch square is cut from the material and destructively tested to determine its components. Is 0.499999% sufficient for membership? Or does it have to be 0.50000009%? These numbers would be predefined.

Item #3 is a decision rule or set of rules which are used in conjunction with #1 and #2 to determine or exclude membership into the group or class. As an example the rule might be, “If the results of 5 tests of the material obtained randomly from five different areas of the material show between 0.49999999 and 0.50000001 wool then the material is 50% wool and 50% cotton.

This used the specs and requirements of a product or system or service, and included a “Test Oracle” against which the sample results could be compared. If the sample met the criteria then the decision rule would classify it’s membership into the group or class. I realize that the methods and language of Hypothesis Testing should be used.