Curious Cat: Deming on Management
Deming on Tampering
The tendancy to take action, often leads to action without reason which causes more problems than it fixes. Dr. Deming stated that most variation (97% plus) was common cause variation not due to special causes. Tampering is taking action based on the belief that a common cause is a special cause.
Instead of reacting to individual points of data managers should examine the data within the context produced by the process over time. Then when the data signals that a special cause is likely, resources can be expended to examine the special circumstances that caused the significant result. The tool used to do this is the control chart.
"Tampering, over-reacting to variation, is a common method of increasing variation - and costs!" Brian Joiner (Leading for Rapid Improvement seminar notes)
Tampering (as variation) can also be defined as "additional variation induced by adjustments made in response to common cause variation" (Leading for Rapid Improvement seminar notes)
Online Resources:
Highly recommended. An excellent article to increase your understanding of variation and the impact of that knowledge on management improvement.
Deming on Management
- Deming's 14 points
- 7 deadly diseases
- Purpose of an organization
- Running a company on visible figures alone (Deming is often misquoted as saying "you can't manage what you can't measure")
- Innovation
- Destroyed by best efforts
- Performance appraisals
- Eliminating slogans and motivational posters
- Deming's Chain Reaction - improve quality -> reduce cost -> grow sales -> provide more jobs
- Role of government
- Cease dependence of inspection to insure quality
- Zero defects
- Why using targets is a bad management practice
- Excessive health care costs
- Leadership
- Tampering
- Quotes by Dr. Deming