MoreSteam Experts to Present at Annual Lean & Six Sigma Conference

On Thursday, March 24th, MoreSteam.com will support the 2016 Annual Lean & Six Sigma Conference by offering two presentations to an audience of Lean Six Sigma leaders gathered at the event.
MoreSteam.com’s President and founder, Bill Hathaway, will lead participants in the exploration of Agile Process Design. Agile Process Design (“APD”) incorporates proven techniques to achieve superior results in designing and deploying processes of all types. Beginning with techniques and tools for learning and defining process specifications, APD entails developing proposed solutions and rapidly prototyping them, which in turn creates opportunities for further innovation and experimentation. Once a possible solution is developed, piloting and testing against specifications (validation) provides a feedback loop for further innovation, development, piloting, and testing. At the core of ADP is a highly iterative approach which provides a useful toolbox to Lean & Six Sigma practitioners.
In describing this area of design, Hathaway expanded on the motivation for developing this area of study: “Lean Six Sigma has been around for over 20 years. TQM has been around even longer. Despite the robust body of knowledge and practitioners, broken processes continue to fuel DMAIC projects year after year. The solution to shutting this rework factory down is to redesign the process that is used to design new processes – to turn process design on itself.”
Mr. Hathaway’s workshop will be on Thursday, March 24, 2016 at the Buena Vista Palace Hotel & Spa in Orlando beginning at 11:25 a.m.
MoreSteam.com’s Principal Statistician and Product Manager, Smita Skrivanek, also will speak at the conference on the topic of statistical significance, and how to think critically about statistical significance in terms of “practical significance.” Statistical significance refers to whether an observed effect is larger than we would expect by chance and is typically addressed by p-values associated with T-tests or ANOVAs, etc. Practical significance is about whether the effect is useful in an applied context. In her presentation “Practical Significance: When Analysis and Cost Intersect,” Ms. Skrivanek will address the importance of understanding that, while an effect could be statistically significant, such significance in itself means that the result should be pursued in the context of the problem to be solved. In commenting on the topic, Ms. Skrivanek observed, “we will address the roles that cost and risk play when considered relative to potential gains in process improvement, and how these considerations should be reflected both in test setup and interpretation of analytical results.” Case studies will illustrate how the issues of risk, cost, and practical significance affect choices presented to decision makers faced with analytical results.