Solution Session(GE-type Workout)
Colliding Creative Problem Solving & 6-Sigma
Methods
Duke Rohe, BS, FHIMSS
Performance Improvement Specialist
Estella Woodard, the MT Qween
Diagnostic Center
Duke
Estella
How would you like ?
1. To engage diverse functions to fight
a common problem
2. Have meetings that only allow the
best and the action-ready to come
3. To accomplish in hours what
traditionally took months
4. To line the dominoes up in your
favor
5. To bust your culture
Project origin
– Tube system had unused capacity
– 10,000 hrs/yr walking specimens to/from
Lab
– Spills are too high ~ 2/month
– Unable to gain consensus on a
workable tube system policy
Our Problema
 Transporting specimens alongside a
pneumatic tube system is dumb!
 Idea! Let’s use the tube system to
transport
 8 functions + 3 months = 0 policies
 Tip: The easy path is ALWAYS
mined
GE Workout features
• Bust up the existing way
• Jack Welch-driven (you will find a
solution or we will find someone who
can)
• Event oriented. You don’t stop til’ it’s
solved
• Come prepared (available knowledge)
to change
• “System Solutions” prevails over
departmental ones
Osborn-Parnes
Creative Problem Solving Process
• Developed studying how geniuses think
• Think two ways: Divergent and
Convergent
• Migrate from Objective Finding to Problem
Finding to Solution Finding to Acceptance
Finding
• Creates Ideas/Thinking threefold
• Forces consensus fast
Team Leader
a bulldog mentality
• Qualities: Leader, Thinker, Supporter,
Robocop,
• Nothing less than SUCCESS will do
• Prepares attendees for the event
• Follows up on commitments
• Funnel for all key information
• Tough-hide, Tender-hearted
da Plan, da Plan
Team Leader: Call to Arms
4 hours or BUST
 Find a “Mr. Big” Jack Welch facsimile
 Prepare a Shared Need
 Invite the leaders impacted
 Prepare the “Rules of Engagement”
 Establish “Sensing” Sessions so they
come aware of their accountability
 Implied: If you don’t come with your
best equipped, you let down the team
Facilitator
• Think on their feet, energy source
• Supports and prompts the Team Leader
(note: it is their show)
• Thinks ahead so the dominoes fall just right
• Asks great questions that lead to the right
answers
• Helps draw out the greatness in others
• Positive spirit of a Chihuahua on steroids
Sensing Session
if they don’t know their role, it’s your fault
 Imply this is not for the faint-hearted
 Amp up the importance
 Prepare a set of good questions for
them to answer “Fact Finding”
 Create a momentum for success
 Put them in the position of
representing their field.
 Be prepared for horse trading
Improvements anticipated:
– Increased revenues from patient
chargeable urine vaccutainer
– Phlebotomy time freed up (6 FTEs)
– Smoother workload in the lab:
smaller, more frequent batches
– Combine with implementation of
blood product delivery
Preparation, preparation
 We consumed a month in preparing
for a 4 hour event
 Details planned, yet ready to change
• Beat the Communication tom-toms
• Practice paranoia, surface landmines
• Prepare posters, binders, slides
• Oh, Make it FUN
The Workout Session
 If Mr. Big comes in, Great
 Stress they will be pushed hard,
ideas will seem half-baked
 Use the Post-it Brainstorming
Process
• Go with the process…or lose
• Inertia is half the battle. Schedule
follow-up meeting on commitments
(2 weeks)
da Process
Objective Finding -- list significant
challenges opportunities, then isolate the
main ones
Fact finding – what is known, and what has
the greatest impact
Problem Finding – list of problem statements,
then identify the best wording of the central
problem. Start statement with “how 2”
Idea Finding – list of intriguing ideas, then
isolation of the best
Solution Finding – possible solutions from
the ideas, then the selection of the best
one(s)
Acceptance Finding – the action steps
needed for successful installation
da Right Way
da Wrong Way
Refinement/Implementation
 Usually takes 2 follow-up meetings
Action Finding >>> Implementation
 Team Leader and Facilitator see to it
sub-team sessions are conducted
 Expect minor solar flares
• Team Leader ultimately responsible
for output.
Plans are Nothing,
Planning is Everything
Dwight Eisenhower
Well, Was it a success ?!*
Kinda, Sorta
 All the units send specimens via the
tube system
 1/3 of the units get Blood via the tube
system. (working on the rest)
 No spills in the tube system
• The Workout has been replicated
successfully five times with similar
results.
• We now term it a “Solution Session”
• This started a “Systems Mindset”
Any Questions Out There?
It’s what you do
now when you
don’t have to do
anything that
takes you where
you want to be
when it is too
late to do
anything about
it. modifed Robert Gary