Have you ever had to explain what it is you do to your mother? It’s easy if you are a doctor or a lawyer or a pizza cook. I had no trouble explaining when I was tech support or a project manager. Things got a little more tricky when I became a Lean Six Sigma Process Improvement Manager. Conversations went in strange circles:

“Well, I use DMAIC to look for problems. No, DMAIC isn’t a computer, it’s a model. No, not like the planes I used to build. It’s a set of practices and tools. No, not like grandpa’s tools. They are methods and statistics that we use to measure and improve things. Well, yes. we do use computers for some of that. No, it’s not a DMAIC computer, just a regular computer. Can we just pretend I’m still a project manager and leave it at that?”

My mother is a smart woman. She has a masters degree and worked in health care where there are currently so many improvement efforts taking place. I wanted to find a way to make it something to which she could relate. It took a while but I finally came up with the connection:

“Remember when I was a kid and you used to have me clean my room? Remember how I would sit and examine the tasks and try to find the quickest way to complete the tasks with the least effort possible? You said I was procrastinating or being lazy. Now they say I’m a Process Improvement Manager!”

It took something that was strange to her and put it into a context that she had seen play out a hundred times (I never kept a clean room). And she understood what it was I did. That’s what I want to do with this blog. I want to take some of these process improvement terms and tools and put them in a context that anyone can apply and understand. Hopefully it will give you a slightly different way to view your business operations.

Since I currently have a 12-year-old son, I can’t send this off without adding a lame “yo momma” joke which seems to be all the rage in junior high this year. So here goes:

“Yo momma is such a process improvement manager that she 5-S’ed her whole kitchen!” 

If you smiled or groaned, you’ve already been exposed to this process improvement technique. If you have no idea, I’m working on a future article all about the 5-S improvements.

So, do you have any trouble explaining what you do to your parents? Drop a comment below!