Davis Balestracci

Consultant, teacher, and author

Davis Balestracci is a past chair of ASQ’s statistics division. He has synthesized W. Edwards Deming’s philosophy as Deming intended—as an approach to leadership—in the second edition of Data Sanity (Medical Group Management Association, 2015), with a foreword by Donald Berwick, M.D. Shipped free or as an ebook, Data Sanity offers a new way of thinking using a common organizational language based in process and understanding variation (data sanity), applied to everyday data and management. It also integrates Balestracci’s 20 years of studying organizational psychology into an “improvement as built in” approach as opposed to most current “quality as bolt-on” programs. Balestracci would love to wake up your conferences with his dynamic style and entertaining insights into the places where process, statistics, organizational culture, and quality meet.

Tue, 07/14/2020 - 12:03
Frustrated by Glacial Improvement Progress? Human behavior is as simple as A-B-C
Wed, 01/25/2012 - 16:58
As I’m sure most of you have discovered, transformation is not a linear, predictable process. People have insights and breakthroughs in fits and starts, and growth is full of individual, inner personal transformational phenomena. This process can be…
Isn’t It Time We Consider the Overlooked Problems? Ponderings after another IHI forum
Mon, 12/12/2011 - 12:26
I recently attended the annual forum of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), which is probably the leading health improvement organization in the world. The forum has grown from under 100 attendees in 1989 to almost 6,000 this year—…
Don’t Create Standards Just to Create Standards, Part 2 The logistics of standardizing a specific process
Mon, 08/22/2011 - 14:48
Any improvement effort ultimately faces the issue of standardizing processes, in many cases under the intense pressure of an impending certification audit. Ask yourself: Is your rationale for standardization merely to pass the audit, or is it a…
Don’t Create Standards Just to Create Standards, Part 1 The logistics of making standardization a process
Mon, 08/22/2011 - 13:15
Because many organizations are trying for formal certification, the pressure is on to standardize and document processes. This is also true for any robust improvement effort. Organizations are currently drowning in processes that have evolved…
Trend: The Display That Won’t Die As time goes on, I have an increasing affection for the much-neglected run chart
Thu, 08/18/2011 - 12:30
Any article about control charts leads to inevitable (and torturous) discussions of special cause tests—all nine of them. No wonder confused people continue to use things like trend lines. But I’m getting ahead of myself.…
A New Conversation for Quality Management It’s time to move beyond passionate lip service
Tue, 08/02/2011 - 12:18
Finally, the medical industry is putting aside its “We’re medicine; we’re different” mindset and taking a more practical look at quality improvement. Bravo! Although an element of physician culture remains convinced that improvement is all about…
The Road to Health Care Reform Is Paved with Missed Opportunities What has really changed these past 15 to 20 years?
Mon, 07/18/2011 - 15:52
After reading Joe De Feo’s July 8, 2011, Quality Digest Daily article, “A Positive Prognosis: Transforming Health Care in America,” I took another look at the wonderful book, Escape Fire (Jossey-Bass, 2003), a compendium of Dr. Donald Berwick’s…
What Did Deming Really Say? “I really didn’t say everything I said.” —Yogi Berra
Wed, 04/20/2011 - 05:30
My March 30, 2011 article ended with wisdom from Yogi Berra as a warning to the quality profession. Some prickly reactions to it got me thinking about the last 30 years or so of quality improvement. ADVERTISEMENT
The 1980 NBC television…
Four Control Chart Myths from Foolish Experts Don’t teach people statistics—teach them to solve problems
Wed, 03/30/2011 - 10:00
There are four statements regarding control charts that are myths and in my experience, just refuse to die. The next time you're sitting in a seminar and someone tries to teach you how to transform data to make them normally distributed, or at any…
A Statistician’s Favorite Answer: ‘It Depends,’ Part 2 Stop getting sucked into the swamp of calculation minutiae
Tue, 03/22/2011 - 08:22
When teaching the I-chart, I’m barely done describing the technique (never mind teaching it) when, as if on cue, someone will ask, “When and how often should I recalculate my limits?” I’m at the point where this triggers an internal “fingernails…