"An example of a system, well optimized, is a good orchestra." - W. Edwards Deming

Post by Kevin Cahill, Executive Director of The Deming Institute. John Hunter has led the blogging efforts of The Deming Institute, including our first post on October 1, 2012, followed by biweekly posts ever since.   As we transition the role of hosting our blogs from John to Bill Bellows, our Deputy Director, we are […]

By John Hunter, author of the Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog. Presentation by W. Edwards Deming at Western CT State University – February 1990 We are being ruined by best efforts without knowledge. Sure we want best efforts but guided with knowledge. Efforts guided by instinct do more harm than good. Our problem is best […]

By John Hunter, founder of CuriousCat.com. There are many online resources for those looking to improve the practice of management in their organization in a way consistent with Dr. Deming’s management system. The W. Edwards Deming Institute maintains several online resources: The W. Edwards Deming Institute web site, which includes a wealth of resources including […]

By John Hunter, author of the Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog (since 2004). Professor Ravi Roy, Director of the W. Edwards Deming Incubator for Public Affairs at Southern Utah University spoke at the Deming Management in Public Administration Conference earlier this year on Public Administration: Past, Present, and Future. Quoting Denzau and North (from Shared […]

By John Hunter, author of Management Matters: Building Enterprise Capability. Those organizations that can delight customers today and take the steps today that position the organization to delight customers in the future will prosper and grow. But building and maintaining a management culture that reinforces delighting customers and long term thinking is quite difficult. I […]

By John Hunter, author of the Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog. Sharon Lohr presented the 2014 American Statistical Association (ASA) Deming Lecture – Red Beads and Profound Knowledge: Deming and Quality of Education (slides with notes and references). Dr. Lohr earned her doctorate in statistics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she learned about Deming’s […]

By John Hunter, author of Management Matters: Building Enterprise Capability. W. Edwards Deming’s 14th point is: Put everybody in the company to work to accomplish the transformation. The transformation is everybody’s job. One important point to note is that quotes lose a great deal when taken out of context. You can also find quotes by […]

By John Hunter, founder of CuriousCat.com. Doug Hall,CEO and founder of Innovation Engineering, participated in a previous podcast on Using Systems Thinking to Power Strategy, Innovation and Growth. He returns to the Deming Institute podcast again (download) and he shares his approach for using innovation or leadership to improve management practices. Doug talks about command […]

By John Hunter, author of the Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog (since 2004). That quote is from The New Economics, published in 1993. Still today many companies would benefit greatly from adopting this thinking. So often companies fail to focus on the needs of customers. So often companies focus on the short term to the […]