Lean Blog Interviews: Real-World Lean Leadership Conversations in Healthcare and Beyond

From Noise to Knowledge: Embracing Data-Driven Leadership - Christopher R. Chapman

11 snips

Mar 19, 2025

Christopher R. Chapman, an Agile coach and founder of Derailleur Consulting, discusses the power of data-driven leadership. He emphasizes the importance of seeing teams as reflections of broader systemic issues rather than isolated units. The conversation dives into experiential learning, including the Red Bead Experiment, and practical tools like process behavior charts to improve decision-making. Chapman shares insights on leadership competencies, the pitfalls of extrinsic rewards, and how leveraging systemic thinking can dramatically enhance team performance and organizational quality.

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ANECDOTE

Career Shift From Teams To Leadership

Christopher R. Chapman shifted from 70% team / 30% leadership to 70% leadership / 30% team over his career.
He realized team problems often reflect broader systemic and leadership issues, not broken teams.

ANECDOTE

Overloaded Teams And Saying No

Chapman described a telco where teams were overloaded and couldn't collaborate because they couldn't say no.
Teaching teams to limit work-in-progress helped one team excel while exposing systemic overload that leadership had to fix.

INSIGHT

Deming As Decoder Glasses

Chapman compares learning Deming to getting decoder glasses that reveal systemic causes behind familiar problems.
That perspective enables leaders to hypothesize, test, and avoid reactive blame of individuals.

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My guest for Episode #525 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Christopher R. Chapman. He's an experienced agile coach and consultant with a background in software development and agile transformation.

Episode page with video, transcript, and more

Since founding Derailleur Consulting in 2010, he has guided teams and leaders in adopting agile frameworks like Scrum and Kanban while integrating applied systems thinking inspired by Deming and other thought leaders.

Christopher is also known for cultivating communities through initiatives such as #SystemsThinkingTO and for sharing his insights in his popular Substack newsletter, The Digestible Deming.

In this episode, Chris and I discussed our upcoming collaborative workshops--"From Noise to Knowledge, Executive Leadership Through Data Driven Insight"--scheduled for

May 13 in Toronto and
June 17 in Cincinnati.

We highlighted how the sessions will blend experiential learning, such as the Red Bead Experiment, with practical tools like process behavior charts to help leaders decode variation and improve decision-making. The conversation emphasized the Deming philosophy as a core framework, exploring how leadership behaviors and systemic practices directly impact team performance and overall organizational quality. We also noted the engaging social aspect of the workshops, mentioning optional outings to local MLB baseball games as an opportunity for continued dialogue.

The discussion then shifted to our personal journeys with continuous improvement, agile methodologies, and the evolution of leadership roles. Chris shared insights from his transition from software development to coaching senior management, focusing on moving beyond traditional, isolated team interventions toward a holistic, systems-oriented approach. We both underlined the need for leadership to embrace a mindset shift--recognizing that issues within teams often reflect broader organizational constraints. We also debated common pitfalls, such as misinterpreting data due to superficial analyses, and argued for using robust, statistical tools to establish meaningful insights, setting the stage for transformative change in management practices.

Questions, Notes, and Highlights:

How do Deming's principles transform executive leadership and team performance?
What key insights does the Red Bead Experiment offer for practical improvement?
In what ways do process behavior charts enhance decision-making in complex systems?
How can agile methodologies and Deming's philosophy be integrated effectively?
What systemic issues underlie team challenges, and how should leadership address them?
How can statistical process control complement traditional metrics in agile environments?
What strategies enable leaders to shift from reactive problem-solving to proactive system improvement?
How do extrinsic incentives impact collaboration and quality within teams?
What methods best embed systems thinking into agile practices?
How can workshop formats foster lasting changes in leadership mindsets?

This podcast is part of the #LeanCommunicators network.