As we saw on Part I, there are some fundamentally flawed conceptual problems with Six Sigma and its statistical underpinnings are shaky indeed.But the aspect of Six Sigma that makes it that makes it least useful as a tool to improve competitiveness is that it is based on defect detection and elimination (reduction) and not [...]
Variation is ubiquitous and affects teams in all aspects of team activity from formation to team retirement. Once source of variability in teams is diversity. In fact, one of the key benefits of teamwork is that people of varying backgrounds, skills, and interests will find more robust solutions to problems than homogeneous groups. Of course, [...]
Virtually all improvement efforts involve the use of teams. Most problems are cross-departmental and even problems within a department have many facets and are best addressed by a group of people with differing perspectives. Thus, the setting up and management of these team efforts effectively is a key to successful improvement efforts. Deming gave us a [...]
Dr. W. E. Deming was fond of saying in his seminars, “This diagram was on the wall in Japan.” Deming, an esteemed statistician who is perhaps best known for his work in Japan, later made systems thinking one of the four parts of what he call the System of Profound Knowledge, profound, he said, because [...]
It has always been clear to me that Deming understood how to optimize organizational effectiveness. Whether that is increasing global competitiveness in the commercial sector of providing higher quality service at lower cost in, for example, healthcare.
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