This is a very practical and powerful guide for improvement.

1. The first revelation this book brings is: improvement is a change. From this viewpoint, the fundamental questions faced by the improver (e.g. Green Belts and Black Belts) are:

(1) What are we trying to accomplish? (Define phase)
(2) How will we know if a change will result in an improvement? (What are the key Y's?)
(3) What changes can we make that will result in improvement?
(What are the key X's and their settings to affect Y's)
Appropriate tools from '6-sigma' tool sets can be used to seek answers to (2) and (3).

2. The Guide emphasizes testing a change in small scale before full implementation so we can learn and improve the proposed change using the Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle. This significantly improves our typical 'trial-and-error' approach.

3. The Guide classifies improvement into 3 categories:
(1) Eliminate Quality Problems (the aim of many '6-sigma' projects)
(2) Reduce Costs while maintaining or improving quality (the goal of many internally focused improvement efforts)
(3) Expanding Customer Expectations
Specific advises and examples are presented for each of these categories.

4. Best of all is a list of 70 Change Concepts categorized under 9 sessions, e.g. standardization under Manage Variation, Synchronize under Improve Work Flow.
Using these change concepts can significantly reduce the time to develop the specific changes.

This book is very easy to follow and contains a lot of examples. It is a must read for all improvement practitioners including Green Belts and Black Belts.

Whether involved with improving products/processes within a business or coaching little league baseball, The Improvement Guide provides a practical and fundamental approach for improving performance. The book serves as an excellent reference for those involved with change, specifically, change that will result in improvement.

A few of the items from the book which ring in my mind continuously include:

Improvement can be viewed as a science (in fact, some of us do!).

Three questions provide the framework for improvement: 1.What are we trying to accomplish? 2.How will we know if we if a change will result in an improvement? 3. What changes can we make that will result in improvement?

While there are many opportunities to change, there are only 70 change concepts (included in the Appendix) available to us today.

Any system for improvement will include five activities: 1.Establishing and communicating the purpose of the organization/team. 2.Viewing the organization/team as a system. 3. Designing and managing the a system for gathering information for improvement 4.Planning for improvement and integrating it with business planning. 5. Managing individual and team improvement activities.

Leaders are required to implement change that will result in improvement and they draw their power from three sources (the informal leader gets his/her power from sources 2 and 3 below). 1.Authority or position 2.Knowledge 3.Personality and persuasiveness (caring about people)

These items and many more, are introduced in the book via an easy-to-understand model that uses proven methodology for developing, testing, and implementing change that produces specific, identifiable improvements.

Dr. W. Edwards Deming, whose management ideas and Profound Knowledge provide the theoretical underpinnings of this book, continually asked the question to anxious audiences: "By what method? How do you go about it?" As a professional in the quality sciences field, I believe this book has the answer to those questions as it relates to improvement. The Improvement Guide defines improvement and describes in complete detail workable, easy to use techniques that are effective and time-tested. The book is based around the Improvement Model, an expanded and improved version of the Deming-Shewhart cycle, whose historical roots trace are grounded in applications of the scientific method and applied scientists since Roger Bacon. The principle of testing on a small scale, learning using the Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle, and building knowledge sequentially using the Improvement Model are some of the most practical and useful aspects of the book. Part I is written on an introductory level and provides lots of simple examples that guide the beginner through theory and practice. The heart of the book, and some of its most useful content, describes ways to develop, test, and implement a change. The insights provided, based on decades of experience and knowledge of the authors, are invaluable. They are followed up by thoroughly documented and easy to understand case studies that ring true using real life examples related to manufacturing, services, health care, and a variety of standard business and educational processes. Finally, the third section describes an integrated approach to various standard improvement goals and useful strategies for achieving them. This section also includes extremely insightful guidance for leaders trying to promote and enable improvement, and an innovative and thought-provoking section suggesting techniques for expanding customer expectations to increase demand for products and/or services. This section, too, is replete with examples and case studies to support and illustrate methods and concepts.

This book should be studied by anyone, beginner or experienced professional, interested in a systematic method for improving processes, products, or services. I strongly recommend it.

My four and five year old daughters enjoyed this story about Clifford's new kitten. They laughed at all the silly things Clifford did to gain attention, when suddenly all the attention was shared between Clifford and the kitty. I highly recommend this book... Clifford is always a favorite at our house... as it was when I was a child as well!

The book I read is Clifford's Kitten.
Clifford was so bad and he smashes the car. I liked this book.

Our younger daughter found Clifford, the Big Red Dog, to be one of her favorite characters in picture books. The many humorous plays on his enormous size left her giggling and laughing. The illustrations took the simple ideas in the book and made them unforgettable. This book can help you explain to your children about not being jealous of other children in your family.

"I'm Emily Elizabeth. This is my dog, Clifford. He's the only pet I ever had . . . except for one time last year."

"A kitten came to our house. I think he was lost."

"Mom said we could keep him until he found his owner."

Emily Elizabeth puts the kitten to bed in Clifford's old basket, and puts it close to her bed. Clifford becomes jealous, and sleeps so close outside her window that he knocks the house atilt from its foundation on that side. The next day, Mom says the kitten has to sleep with Clifford.

Whatever the kitten does, Clifford wants to do . . . often with hilarious consequences. The kitten's butterfly chasing leads Clifford to swallow a kite which he has mistaken for a giant butterfly. Dad pays the boy so he can get a new one. The kitten scratches his claws on a tree, and Clifford sharpens his nails on a light pole which is uprooted in the process. The kitten rides in a doll's carriage, and Clifford hops on a real dump truck. The kitten plays with a spool of thread and Clifford knocks a huge spool of fiber optic cable through two walls of a neighbor's garage! But Clifford is not fussy about eating while the kitten is.

The kitten makes a mistake and goes in front of a moving car. Clifford pounces on the car, and stops it before the kitten is injured. The car, however, will need some work.

Eventually, a boy claims the kitten and rides off with him in the basket on the handlebars of his bicycle. Emily Elizabeth sighs, "Oh well, I still have a pretty good dog. The last illustration shows Clifford's enormous pink tongue licking her.

After you have enjoyed this story, I suggest that you talk with your children about how different children in a family can become jealous of one another. You can use this book as an example, and also mention your own feelings towards your siblings when you were young. You want to be sure that older children realize that they got the same tender treatment that the new baby is getting. Pulling out their photos or videos can help.

Focus on companionable pleasure in one another over rivalry at home!

Both my 2 yr old and my 4 yr old love Clifford. He is so lovable! Once again this is a good book to go over with your child to help ABC recognition. Clifford is a good tool for learning both on TV and in books! Your children cannot help but LOVE HIM!

Dogs and kids go together like peanut butter and jelly. Thisbook is a fun way of introducing the alphabet to your child in a funformat!

My daughter loves these books and I love having versions in both Spanish and English. We have about 30 Clifford books and I never tire of reading them over and over.

This book not only teaches to count, but to add as well. I love the Clifford series and my 3-yr old does too. We own these books in Spanish and it's a great series to have.

I never read the book but I saw the episode on TV. Cleo ,
T-bone, and Clifford all were making leave piles. Only T-bone didn't jump in his because, he had to go play fetch with Sheriff Louis. Clifford was extremely tempted and jumped in them. They scattered all over the island. The went all over the island and got them back.They put them back in the yard and waited. Clifford was still tempted, but didn't jump. When T-bone got back they gathered more leaves and added them to the pile.Then they all jumped in it. When they asked T-bone how his game of fetch was he said pretty good. They said they had a pretty good game of fetch too, which was getting back the leaves!Only they didn't tell T-bone. You'll like watching it on TV and I hope you will like the book

This book is a lot of fun. My son loves to hear about Clifford and Emily Elizabeth helping when the circus comes to town. As always Clifford saves the day. The pictures are bright and engaging and the book describes many different aspects of the circus. Just wait till you see what happens when Clifford eats all the cotton candy and then gets thirsty. I reccommend buying this book to find out.

My daughter loves this book...especially the barking noise.The storyline follows Clifford as he goes through his day encounteringvarious situations and people. The main idea is that Clifford barksat most everyone and everything because, as the last page notes, "Clifford's bark means `I like you.'" The concept is simple, but I like the book because the drawings are colorful and varied.

You can't beat this deal. THe price is great and you get enough Clifford Stories for you to read to your kid...without having to repeat yourself every other day. Of course, my son loves the stories.

The pictures are excellent and the stories fun. I like the literary clifford better than the animated one. The animated Clifford is too politically correct. But then again, I'm not 4 years old.

My 12 month old son loves this book. He brings the book to me and sits up on my lap so that I will read it to him. We have to read it at least 5 times in a row. It is a great early counting book.

My daughter loved this book and she could make all the animal sounds by the time she was 16 months old. Now my son wants me to read it to him at least 5 times a sitting and he says bow-wow at the end. (He is 14 months old) I will get him the other 3 in this series for Christmas.

I started reading this book to my son when he was about 8 weeks old. He's 8- months now and we read it nearly everyday. No matter how fussy or distracted he may be, he always stops, looks and smiles when I begin reading this book. He LOVES the animal sounds!

My son has loved this book since we bought it at around age one, to now almost 3. He liked making the noises that the animals say when he was young, now he tries to memorize the short rhymes and "read" the book himself. It is one of the best of this small red puppy series. Consider getting the plush puppy - I haven't seen him anywhere else and my son LOVES him (and he has held up well too!)