The W. Edwards Deming Institute Blog

Archive for the ‘data’ Category

Distorting the System, Distorting the Data or Improving the System

In Fourth Generation Management (I highly recommend this book, by the way), Brian Joiner provided an excellent summary of the options to get better “results” (as measured by the data used). The options are to: distort the system distort the data improve the system Obviously we hope to improve the system; and we would like [...]

Where There is Fear You Do Not Get Honest Figures

Fear invites wrong figures. Bearers of bad news fare badly. To keep his job, anyone may present to his boss only good news. W. Edwards Deming, page 94, The New Economics Using data to make decisions is important to effective management. But using data goes far beyond math. To make judgements we need to understand [...]

The Improvement Guide

The Improvement Guide is a fantastic book on using the PDSA cycle well. The 2nd edition was published in 2009. The power of applying the PDSA cycle properly is huge. It leads to successful improvements which is important. Using the PDSA cycle also reinforces many aspects of applying Dr. Deming’s principles. Together with Leader’s Handbook [...]

The Essential Deming – New Book on Dr. Deming’s Work

The Essential Deming: Leadership Principles from the Father of Quality is filled with articles, papers, lectures, and notes touching on a wide range of topics, but which focus on Deming’s overriding message: quality and operations are all about systems, not individual performance; the system has to be designed so that the worker can perform well. [...]

Shortage of Implementation Details

From Lean Thinking by James Womack and Daniel Jones (page 126): the management of Wiremold was soon enrolled in the Deming seminars. As Orrie Fiume notes, “Deming’s Fourteen Points were a perfect fit with our values and we loved the principles. There was only one problem: Deming teaches what he called a “Theory of Management,” [...]

Knowledge of Variation

The System Of Profound Knowledge® (SoPK) is the culmination of W. Edwards Deming’s work on management. The four areas of the system are: appreciation for a system, knowledge of variation, theory of knowledge and psychology. This post explores knowledge of variation in the context of Dr. Deming’s management philosophy. Even the cursory overviews of Dr. [...]

Video of Dr. W. Edwards Deming: Deadly Diseases of Western Management

Dr. Deming added 2 diseases to the lists after this video. He was always learning and updating his thoughts and recommendations. As we have stated earlier, this blog attempts to continue that practice by examining Dr. Deming’s ideas and also looking at how those ideas have evolved as they have been applied. List of the [...]