Guest Post
This guest post is an excerpt from Ed Baker’s book (pages 104-105), The Symphony of Profound Knowledge, which was created in partnership with Aileron.org. The distinction between the meanings of the words ethical and moral is not always clear, and often they are used interchangeably as synonyms. Ethics has been used to refer to a system of […]
Guest post by Edward Martin Baker. A version of this post originally appeared on Aileron.org. Years ago, a “friend” who thought he was a mechanic, as did I, offered to improve my car’s performance. He removed parts of the engine, fiddled around with them, and reassembled them. When he finished, I saw some of the […]
In our schools, targets and rankings cause cheating, focus on achievement, and drive in fear and suck the joy out of learning.
Guest post by Edward Martin Baker. A version of this post originally appeared on Aileron.org. In a previous blog, “Leaders can make music,” I used the analogy of the leader as orchestra conductor who follows a score to orchestrate people playing together. The score to which I referred was Deming’s System of Profound Knowledge. Another […]
“An example of a system, well optimized, is a good orchestra.” – W. Edwards Deming
Guest post by Mark Graban About ten years ago, somebody sent me a PDF file of Dr. Deming’s “Some Notes on Management in a Hospital.” I felt like somebody had shared a bootleg tape of my favorite band, as I wasn’t sure the article had ever been formally published anywhere. Since I wasn’t sure if […]
Guest post by Mark Graban As I wrote about in my first post, my first job out of college was at the GM Livonia Engine Plant, outside of Detroit. General Motors wasn’t my ideal workplace after having read Deming’s Out of the Crisis and learning a bit about Lean manufacturing in college. If possible, I […]
Guest post by Mark Graban, founder and lead blogger and podcaster at LeanBlog.org, While my work is usually associated with the term “Lean” and the lessons from the Toyota Production System, some of my earliest learning and inspiration for improvement came from the work of W. Edwards Deming. I don’t think I learned anything about […]
Guest post by Bill Bellows (originally written as a comment about the question of how Dr. Deming viewed Six Sigma Quality). While Dr. Deming was known for his appreciation of continuous improvement, he was also know for encouraging us to think of variation and improvement from a systems perspective. As such, I do not believe […]
Guest post by Victoria Morgan The quality of maternity services in England is in the spotlight. National audits have shown that whilst outcomes have improved significantly over the last decade there is marked variation in outcomes that cannot be explained by clinical and social risk factors (Mothers and Babies: Reducing Risk through Audits and Confidential […]