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.

Ryan McCormack’s Operational Excellence Mixtape: January 9, 2026

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Summary: Today's "mixtape" post brings together timely ideas on continuous improvement, leadership, productivity, and workplace culture. From avoiding "blank slate" metrics and rethinking PDCA/PDSA...

Two Data Points Don’t Make a Trend: A Gas Price Lesson...

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TL;DR: Two data points don't make a trend -- whether it's gas prices, Oscars ratings, or your team's monthly KPIs. Snapshot comparisons ("up from...

Why Psychological Safety Is Essential to Quality and Continuous Improvement

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In this special bonus episode, Mark Graban and C.J. Kaufman preview the ASQ Cincinnati-Dayton 2025 conference and explore why quality, leadership, and psychological safety...

Profitable at Any Price: Lessons from Toyota, Daily Kaizen, and Safer...

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Scroll down for how to subscribe, transcript, and more My guest for Episode #535 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Gregg Stocker, a seasoned...

Kaizen Alone Isn’t Enough: Why Leaders Must Fix the System for...

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TL;DR: Daily Kaizen is essential--but it can't overcome broken systems. Only leaders can fix structural constraints like layout, staffing, policies, and budgets. When leaders...

Three Ways Pressure Warps Performance Metrics–and What Leaders Must Do Instead

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TL;DR: When leaders apply pressure instead of support, people don't improve processes--they distort data or hide problems. Real improvement starts when leaders make it...

Two Kinds of Mistakes–and the Wisdom of Shewhart, 100 Years Later

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Recently, I saw someone reference a chapter from Dr. W. Edwards Deming's book Out of the Crisis on LinkedIn--Chapter 11, titled "Common Causes and...

Red Bead Game Reflections: Leadership Lessons from Atlanta to Australia

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TL;DR: The Red Bead Game shows--everywhere in the world--that blaming people for random variation is ineffective. Only system change drives improvement. So far in 2025,...

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

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Scroll down for how to subscribe, transcript, and more My guest for Episode #525 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Christopher R. Chapman. He's...

John Willis on Deming’s Journey to Profound Knowledge in IT and...

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Scroll down for how to subscribe, transcript, and more My guest for Episode #524 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is John Willis, an accomplished...

Registration Open Now! My Workshop in Cincinnati

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Note: The original workshop concept had to be scrubbed because Chris Chapman had to back out. But Mark Graban will now be doing a...

Join Me at HSPI 2025: Red Beads, Lean Leadership, and Smarter...

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I'm thrilled to announce that I'll be presenting a 90-minute "intensive" session at the 2025 Health Systems Process Improvement (HSPI) conference, organized by the...
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