Successful Relationship Diagrams

摘要

Revealing, the relationships among all the elements of a problem allows a quality improvement team to focus on the one or two elements most strongly driving the problem-the root causes. This makes sense, yet it's not a very popular concept. Choosing a focus, one or two things among several that will be prioritized, means we might not do something else. One of the most effective tools to help a team focus and prioritize is a relationship diagram (see Figure 1). Loretto provides residential and health services to the aged population in New York. Its director of process improvement, Cindy Oehmigen, helped a team use this tool to focus on the increasing number of claims made for worker's compensation. The team identified a lack of awareness about safety and how equipment should be used as the key element influencing the problem.