Presentation: Control Chart by Balaji Reddie

As some of you may know, I am a strong advocate of Control Chart and I speak often about it, internally at work and externally with the community, and you can find the slides to a public presentation I did years back.

Invented by Shewhart, and popularized by Deming. He called it “the communicable operation definition” of when to act and which way to act.

In this video, Balaji, who is the founder of Deming Forum in India, explains its concepts and application. During the pandemic, which we are still in, he worked directly with the Association of Healthcare Providers of India to look at data differently to draw new conclusions. You can watch the full video here.

I’m recommending this video because I haven’t seen a good one for a while, and Balaji presented it in a clear and concise manner. If you are new to the tool or would like a refresher, here are a few things to take note of:

• Control Chart uses a 3-sigma approach to define upper & lower control limits.
• You don’t rush into making a prediction, you work towards getting things under control first.
• As the upper and lower control limits narrow down, through process improvement, making prediction becomes easier.

I have found success using it to drive process improvement at work, through Jira. Although there’s a lack of extreme homogeneity in the data which represents our work, it is still helpful to use it to understand the software development process or the performance of a service desk.

If you have found success with its application, leave me a comment and tell me your story!