Tag: Deming

W. Edwards Deming: Leadership, Quality, and Continuous Improvement

W. Edwards Deming’s ideas about leadership, systems, variation, and psychology continue to shape how organizations pursue quality and improvement. This archive brings together blog posts, podcasts, and reflections exploring Deming’s teachings—and how they apply to Lean, healthcare, management, and continuous improvement today. Many of these posts challenge common misinterpretations of Deming’s work, emphasizing that quality cannot be delegated and that improvement starts with leadership.

Blame: Human Error Occurs Even IF We’re Being Careful

18
I'm not sure why "error" was put in quotes since this seems like an actual error, not a quote-unquote error: Staff 'error' blamed for chlorine...

Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich, Deming, and Lean Leadership

5
Since moving to San Antonio two years ago, I've become a big fan of the San Antonio Spurs. For one, it's essentially a civic...

Dr. Deming & Kaizen: Employees Should Not Just Suggest, But Try...

6
I've really enjoyed reading the book The Essential Deming: Leadership Principles from the Father of Quality, which was published last year. I think this link...

My Comments on #Lean Healthcare in These Challenging Times

3
Thanks to Dodge Communications for interviewing me for their blog: "Improving healthcare--there's no instant pudding." I was, of course, citing the late great Dr. W....

Steve Jobs on Continuous Improvement: Rare 1990 Video Shows Early Lean...

7
tl;dr: This post features a rare 1990 video of Steve Jobs describing continuous improvement in ways that closely echo Lean and Kaizen principles. He...

Learning Not to Blame: Baseball Edition

9
Following up my post about not blaming a bartender, here's another look at learning to cast aside our old habit of blaming individuals... this...

Putting Quality First at GM: The Day I Almost Got Fired

11
Following up on yesterday's post that talked about "the old GM" putting cost ahead of quality, I sometimes get flashbacks to my days working for...

How Do You Make Time for Improvement? Here are Nine Takes...

3
I'm happy to be a participating author on "The Lean Edge" blog/site that's hosted by Michael Ballé author of The Gold Mine and other books. Their most recent question...

Should Lean Consultants Be Paid a Percentage of Cost Savings?

50
The price paid for most management consulting work is based on either a daily rate or some variation of a flat-rate fee based on...

Did GM Forget that the Customer Should Come First? And Who...

9
I wrote an article for LinkedIn yesterday about the recent GM ignition problem controversy and recall. I commented mainly on the video put out...

Is it Lean’s Fault or the Old Management System’s?

18
It's easy for an organization to say they are "doing Lean" or they have "started a Lean transformation." They might hire a consultant or...

The Truth About Data and PDSA/PDCA from a Toyota Publication

5
Out there in the Lean and quality improvement communities, you sometimes hear some silly things. Sometimes, I want to attach the "Lean As...
An AI that won't just give you the answer. That's what makes it useful.Free Demo -- Learn More
+ +
lean coach ad hand drawn