the blog post

In this episode, Mark Graban previews his upcoming half-day workshop at the AME St. Louis 2025 International Conference: The Deming Red Bead Game and Process Behavior Charts: Practical Applications for Lean Management.

If you’ve ever felt stuck in the exhausting cycle of reacting to every up and down in your performance metrics—or frustrated by red/green scorecards that drive pressure and finger-pointing more than improvement—this session is for you.

Mark explains why Process Behavior Charts provide a more thoughtful, statistically sound alternative to arbitrary targets and binary dashboards. He also shares how the famous Deming Red Bead Game makes visible the ways that systems set people up to fail—and how leaders can do better.

What you’ll learn in this episode:

• How to distinguish between signal and noise in performance data

• Why Process Behavior Charts help leaders react less and improve more

• The pitfalls of red/green scorecards and arbitrary targets

• How to connect better data interpretation to Lean management and strategy deployment

Whether you’re a leader, manager, or improvement professional in any industry, you’ll come away with practical takeaways to reduce firefighting and improve decision-making.