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The Cult of Statistical Significance – Simplified

robertgerst — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:19:59 +0000

Converge Consulting Group clients have heard us talk about the misuse of statistical significance testing, specifically, using statistical significance as a test for practical importance or material significance. This is the reason why so much employee, customer and operational research gets the answers so wrong, so often, amounting to little more, and often less, than junk

The Decline of Health Services in Alberta

robertgerst — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 21:42:07 +0000

The Triumph of Professional over Real Management The past 20 years have seen a steady decline in the provision of health services to Albertans. Waiting times for surgeries, diagnostic services and emergency room visits is increasing, costs are escalating and quality of care has remained constant at best. A day doesn’t go by without the

Inspections and Audits

robertgerst — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 23:20:29 +0000

Developing a cost effective approach Some organizations equate quality with the level of inspection. The greater the number of inspections, checks, audits or evaluations, the greater the level of quality that is assumed to be in the final product or service. Unfortunately for these organizations, just the opposite is true. Quality assurance is only required when processes

Analyzing WCB Injury Rate Data

robertgerst — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 21:20:25 +0000

How to properly analyze and interpret Alberta injury rate data On October 01, 2010, the Alberta Government publically released workplace injury & fatality records. This made the Province the first in Canada to release a comprehensive list. Anyone can now access information about worksite injuries and fatalities involving more than 140,000 employers insured by the Workers

The New Management Thinking

robertgerst — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 16:18:08 +0000

Managers are being flooded by a host of management ideas and models — Six Sigma, process re-engineering, Lean Enterprise, Lean Production, operational excellence, quality management, value chain analysis, business process redesign, process outcomes management and performance measurement. Whatever else these things are intended to produce, confusion is definitely a by-product. To help work through the

Voice of the Employee FAQ

robertgerst — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 16:09:21 +0000

More and more organizations are abandoning traditional survey research in favour of Voice of the Customer (VoC) or Voice of the Employee (VoE) methods. This trend has accelerated with recent attacks by the scientific/statistical community on the widespread misapplication of traditional survey research (including misuse of statistical significance) and flagrant overreaching, especially when making comparisons