Process Improvement Flashcards

A coach helps a team leader whose team keeps repeating the same billing error. Which tool best helps the team move past symptoms to the underlying cause?

Answer: The 5 Whys technique

The 5 Whys asks 'why' over and over to trace a problem from its symptom back to its root cause.

In the PDCA cycle, what is the main purpose of the 'Check' phase?

Answer: To compare actual results against the expected outcomes

Check means studying the pilot results against the predicted results to see whether the change worked.

A manager wants to see which few causes produce most of a team's customer complaints. Which tool fits best?

Answer: Pareto chart

A Pareto chart ranks causes by how often they occur, showing the 'vital few' behind about 80% of the effect.

Which statement best describes 'Kaizen' as an approach to process improvement?

Answer: Continuous, incremental improvement involving all employees

Kaizen stresses small, ongoing improvements driven by people at every level.

When coaching a leader to start a process improvement effort, why is setting a baseline measurement important?

Answer: It provides a reference point to judge whether changes actually improve performance

Without a baseline, you can't objectively measure whether an intervention made things better.

In Lean thinking, which of the following is an example of the waste called 'overprocessing'?

Answer: Adding report details and formatting that no customer or stakeholder uses

Overprocessing means doing more work than the customer values, such as unneeded polish or extra steps.

A fishbone (Ishikawa) diagram is most useful for what purpose?

Answer: Organizing possible causes of a problem into categories

The fishbone diagram groups potential causes into categories such as People, Methods, Machines, and Materials.