In response to Jack Hirschfeld in LO7933 regarding the usefulness of
the "5 Whys" --
Jack, I've found the "5 Whys" approach particularly useful in
introducing teams and workgroups to LO ideas precisely _because_ it's
>not inherently rigorous.
My experience in working with "soft focus" people such as the staff
members of the children's mental health services program for which I
work is that this approach quickly allows them to overcome their
hesitancy about something as mystical as "quality improvement", and
that this approach quite quickly allows them to get hooked into being
able to look past the symptoms of an intractable problem or process,
and begin to "look deeper" into the underlying system. Almost
without fail, people are able after very brief introduction to
understand and work with the notion that the surface appearance
("effect") is masking a larger or more fundamental issue, and that
once we get close to it, we have the better opportunity for leverage
or change.
I guess as a journeyman practitioner of both LO and QI, it's possible
that my own lack of depth expertise has kept me from putting too much
weight on the tool. But I can tell when something this simple is
having an effect on the way people go back to their jobs the next
day, and I like it.
Malcolm Burson <mooney@maine.maine.edu
Community Health & Counseling
Bangor, Maine
--"Malcolm Burson" <mooney@MAINE.MAINE.EDU>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>