Speak with Data

In Monday's paper, there was an interesting editorial from Dr. Maria L. Goodloe-Johnson, superintentent of the Charleston County School District. The article summarized the progress made in 2005 and looked forward to 2006.

In one paragraph, Dr. Johnson states, "We are using data to drive the district and the data show things are getting better." If you have lived in this area for a while, you know how much our school system appears in the news. Arguments in school board meetings. Superintendents being fired (we've had three in my time here).

Point is, this is a very emotional subject. If not managed properly, any effort to improve such a system will inevitably result in emotional decisions and heated debate. No improvement will result. No value will be added.

This applies in myriad forums: churches, sports teams, manufacturing plants. People come with different skill levels and brains full of opinions. Couple this will weak leadership, and you'll manage chaos instead of continuous improvement.

So how do you prevent emotional decision making? Easy. Speak with data-whatever direction you go in on your journey to improve the school system or your plan to grow the church or your strategy for improving the team. Each must stem from objective evidence. (data)

First, you must know what to collect. Second, the data must be analyzed. There are a multitude of analysis tools but I like to keep it simple. The seven basic quality tools can serve almost every situation: Checklist, Trend chart, Histogram, Cause and Effect Diagram, Control Chart, Pareto Diagram, and Scatter Plot.

Once the data is analyzed, conclusions are drawn and actions taken. There may be mild debate but the data speaks for itself. Any argument against this approach would be foolish.

This is the right approach to manage any process or system.