W. Edwards Deming1900-1993

The University of CaliforniaBerkeley Extension

Copyright © 2007 Patrick McDermott

pmcdermott@msn.com

Deming, W. Edwards, Out of the Crisis, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press (0-262-54115-7), 2000 (1982).

Japan’s 日米 Guru

• Japan’s greatest Business Guru– Not some aesthete who lived in the

mountains pondering his navel• Surprise: He’s not even Japanese, but

American!• Major use of Statistics!• Taught the Japanese about Quality

– “Made in Japan” meant “cheap and flimsy”• Deming is famous for his 14 Points

Instant Pudding

• Hope for Instant Pudding• NSB: “No silver bullet”

• ACM article by Frederick Brooks, Reprinted in

• You don’t just “Adopt Quality”, “Get CASE tools”, “Become Object Oriented”, or “Install CRM” and magically solve all problems and fix everything.

Fads constantly offer various purported silver bullets, most of which weren’t even lead bullets, but paper bullets.

Brooks, Frederick P., Jr., The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, 20th Anniversary Edition, Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley (0-201-83595-9), 1995 (1975).

False Starts

• Fads• Don’t join the Methodology of the Month

Club– Stay with a new methodology long enough

to realize some benefit

Some companies happily embrace the fad of the moment, and never actually recover the innovation costs of one methodology, tool or package before going on to the next.

Jasper Johns, False Start, 1959

Automation as Transformation• The supposition that solving problems,

automation, gadgets and new machinery will transform industry

• Don’t adopt technology for technology’s sake

• If IT Doesn’t Change Your Way Of Doing Business, Don’t Bother

“Computation of savings from use of a gadget (automation or robotic machinery) ought to take account of total cost, as an economist would define it. In my experience, people are seldom able to come through with figures on total cost.”

Search for Examples

• Cookbook methodologies and benchmarking are examples

• If it worked at XYZ company it will work here– Assuming it actually Did

“Oh good, we have a methodology, we can all turn our brains off and stop thinking!”

Obsolescence in Schools

Not here, of Course• Lifelong learning is the name of the game

in systems development• It’s hard for the schools to keep up• Most university academic courses are,

well, academic, & often behind the times

The Unmanned Computer

• Autopilot• The computer can be a curse or

blessing– But you must still use your brain

• Users too often accept the word of the computer as unquestionable truth

• Programmers, who of all people should know better, sometimes do it, too

• Example: CASE tools and code generators

Just Meet Specifications• The supposition that it is only necessary to

meet specifications• Deming cites an example of a programmer:

– “She learns, after she finishes the job, that she programmed very well the specifications as delivered to her, but that they were deficient. If she had only known the purpose of the program, she could have done it right for the purpose, even though the specifications were deficient.”

You should be able to explain why any feature makes sense from a business perspective before putting it into a system.

Inadequate Testing

• Inadequate testing of prototypes

• ’Nuff said!

Bruce McCandless II tests a Mobile Foot RestraintSpace Shuttle Challenger, 1984

The 14 Points (1-7)1. Create constancy of purpose toward improvement of product

and service, with the aim to become competitive and to stay in business, and to provide jobs.

2. Adopt the new philosophy. We are in a new economic age. Western management must awaken to the challenge, must learn their responsibilities, and take on leadership for change.

3. Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality. Eliminate the need for inspection on a mass basis by building quality into the product in the first place.

4. End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag. Instead, minimize total cost.

5. Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service, to improve quality and productivity, and thus constantly decrease costs. [ 改善 Kaizen]

6. Institute training on the job. 7. Institute leadership. …

The 14 Points, Continued 8. Drive out fear, so that everyone may work effectively for the

company. 9. Break down barriers between departments. 10. Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the work

force asking for zero defects and new levels of productivity. 11a. Eliminate work standards (quotas) on the factory floor.

Substitute leadership. b. Eliminate management by objective. Eliminate management by numbers, numerical goals. Substitute leadership.

12a. Remove barriers that rob the hourly worker of his right to pride of workmanship. b. Remove barriers that rob people in management and in engineering of their right to pride of workmanship.

13. Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement.

14. Put everybody in the company to work to accomplish the transformation.