Seeing the Invisible

["Turner, D. John" <jturner@usa.capgemini.com>]

Alan Meekins states:

Also, if I tried to do an SPC chart of the data crossing his desk, I
guarantee it would show nothing outside the guidelines top and bottom -
such is the aggregation of data at that level in such a large
organisation.  The law of large numbers takes over at that scale to
smooth out process-level variations.

I agree with Alan that the aggregation of numbers will tend to smooth out
process variations, unless that is one of the numbers and results that your
CEO needs to see - that the external effects on his portfolio of businesses
is not a special cause of variation.  If there is a problem, then he needs
to look in more detail in any case.

To provide a parallel, if all the red and white beads were viewed at a
sufficiently long distance all that would be seen is a pinkish uniform patch
- and that is not much use to anyone.  I believe that any CEO needs to see
numbers (preferably as control charts) at a sufficient level of granularity
to be able to detect variation.  It may be that the charts are chosen for
him to allow management by exception - look for the things that are working
well and leverage them and look for the things that are going badly and
investigate.  It may be that the CEO will be focusing on one part of the
business that is subject to change (using PDSA) and so he is monitoring his
predictions to see that they are correct.  It may be that he is following up
on a previous situation that needed his attention.  He still needs a
selection of charts, not one which aggregates all the numbers.

I do not believe that David was saying that all data needs to be aggregated
at the CEO level.  I do believe that it is necessary to start at the top to
ensure the success of any transformation, and so the CEO should be provided,
or preferably request, charts that are sufficiently granular for him to be
able to work with effectively.

Best Regards
John Turner
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