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A Surgeon's View of Data-Driven Quality Improvement
There has been plenty of noisy disagreement about the state of health care in the past several years, but when you get beyond the controversies surrounding various programs and changes, a great deal of...
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Do Those Who Work Less, Work Best?
I live with a German national, who often tells me that we Americans spend way too much of our lives at work. He also frequently comments that we work much less efficiently than Germans do, during the...
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Predicting the 2016 NCAA Tournament
Probability. It's really the heart and soul of most statistical analyses. Anytime you get a p-value, you're dealing with a probability. The probability is telling you how likely it was (or will be) for...
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Taking the F out of the WTF test
Many moons ago, I wrote a post entitled "So, Why Does the World Trust Minitab?" In that post, I alluded to upcoming improvements to one of our statistical tests. At that time, I could not give any...
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Submitting an A+ Presentation Abstract, Even About Statistics
For the majority of my career with Minitab, I've had the opportunity to speak at conferences and other events somewhat regularly. I thought some of my talks were pretty good, and some were not so good...
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Celebrating Women in Statistics
Did you know that March is Women’s History Month? The celebration was started in the 1980s by the U.S. government to pay tribute to generations of influential women.To celebrate, here’s a roundup of...
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Gage R&R Metrics: What Do They All Mean?
When you analyze a Gage R&R study in statistical software, your results can be overwhelming. There are a lot of statistics listed in Minitab's Session Window—what do they all mean, and are they...
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The American Statistical Association's Statement on the Use of P Values
P values have been around for nearly a century and they’ve been the subject of criticism since their origins. In recent years, the debate over P values has risen to a fever pitch. In particular, there...
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How to Remove Leading or Trailing Spaces from a Data Set
Leading and trailing spaces in a data set are like termites in your house. If you don’t realize they are there and you don’t get rid of them, they’re going to wreak havoc.Here are a few easy ways to...
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Minitab 17.3 Takes a Quantum Leap with Data Import
If you watched television between 1989 and 1993, then you might have had the chance to see original episodes of the television series Quantum Leap.The premise was that a scientist involved in a...
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A DOE in a Manufacturing Environment (Part 1)
I used to work in the manufacturing industry. Some processes were so complex that even a very experienced and competent engineer would not necessarily know how to identify the best settings for the...
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A DOE in a Manufacturing Environment (Part 2)
In my last post, I discussed how a DOE was chosen to optimize a chemical-mechanical polishing process in the microelectronics industry. This important process improved the plant's final manufacturing...
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Are You Putting the Data Cart Before the Horse? Best Practices for Prepping...
Most of us have heard a backwards way of completing a task, or doing something in the conventionally wrong order, described as “putting the cart before the horse.” That’s because a horse pulling a cart...
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What Are the Odds? Chutes and Ladders
Allow me to make a confession up front: I won't hesitate to beat my kids at a game.My kids are young enough that in pretty much any game that is predominantly determined by skill and not luck, I can...
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Linking Minitab to Excel to Get Fast Answers
Since opening a new office in Phoenix to support our customers on the West Coast, some evenings in Minitab technical support feel busier than others. (By evenings, I mean after 5:30 p.m. Eastern time,...
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Best Way to Analyze Likert Item Data: Two Sample T-Test versus Mann-Whitney
Five-point Likert scales are commonly associated with surveys and are used in a wide variety of settings. You’ve run into the Likert scale if you’ve ever been asked whether you strongly agree, agree,...
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What Are Degrees of Freedom in Statistics?
About a year ago, a reader asked if I could try to explain degrees of freedom in statistics. Since then, I’ve been circling around that request very cautiously, like it’s some kind of wild beast that...
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3 Ways to Examine Data Over Time
Did you know that Minitab provides several tools you can use to view patterns in data over time? If you want to examine, say, monthly sales for your company, or even how the number of patients admitted...
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Better Home$ and Baseboards: Using Data Distributions to Set a List Price
People say that I overthink everything. I've given this assertion considerable thought, and I don't believe that it is true. After all, how can any one person possibly overthink every possible thing in...
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What If Major League Baseball Had a 16-Game Season?
When it comes to statistical analyses, collecting a large enough sample size is essential to obtaining quality results. If your sample size is too small, confidence intervals may be too wide to be...
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