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barry_x's review
4.0
Ever since I became interested in leadership, management and later systems thinking there has been one individual whose work had been referenced more than any other. The person who influenced great thinkers who have influenced other great thinkers who have influenced me - that person is W. Edwards Deming, the father of systems thinking.
I'd been looking for a copy of 'Out of The Crisis' for a while now and ended up paying over the odds for an imported hardback copy of the book. Often referred to as the 'bible' of systems thinking this was one book I wanted to devour and savour.
So what's the result? Well, this book originally published in 1982 and then again in 1986 was groundbreaking. Many of the observations and lessons Deming shows us would be revolutionary in organisations today. It is a crying shame that many of the principles Deming highlighted are still not the norm in many modern organisations. I can only imagine how revolutionary this book was in the 1980's - of course it was building off the work in Japan from the 50's to the 70's.
The two things that Deming has given us in my opinion are understanding variation in processes and the need to understand statistical control of processes. His principles for transformation and his deadly diseases are as good a point as any for any manager to work on today.
Some of the most important points for me are taking leadership out of the boardrooms and to the work, implementing measures, not targets and most importantly establish purpose and design work towards it. I can see that so many of the people whose ideas have informed me have been influenced by Deming.
There is so much in this book to help people in their work it would be hard to know where to start. That's one of the problems with the book - for every amazing idea or perspective the book is quite hard to read. The book assumes the reader has a strong grounding in algebra and statistical analysis. I'm certainly not inexperienced in either but one needs to concentrate to understand some of the chapters (indeed the later chapters are almost all related to statistics and I think I will benefit from dipping in and out of the book in later years).
The book also is in desperate need of an editor - the book does feel like a collection of notes and the book references itself (Including asking the reader to turn to later pages to illustrate points - why??). Like many great thinkers Deming wasn't a great writer. One thing that bothered me was the sexist language in the book - I know it was a product of it's time but it continually uses the work 'he' and when talking about appointments refers to the 'man'. Women do not exist in this book, even when he references female authored research!)
One thing Deming did well is referencing other great thinkers. Of course the PDCA cycle (Plan-Do-Check-Act) is embedded in many organisations and many refer to it as the Toyota cycle. Of course in Japanese industry they refer to it as the Deming cycle. Deming calls it the Shewhart Cycle after Walter A. Shewhart who first published the model in the 1930's. The book serves as a fine introduction into statistical thinking in pre-war thinking and the transformation of Japanese industry from the 1950's onwards - from someone who was there.
I didn't actually learn much new from reading this book, it's not an easy read for those not familiar with systems thinking principles and it's not well written, so why the high score?
First of all, Deming's work has been rewritten and expounded upon in the decades since this book was written and has been better formatted and explained more simply - Deming's thinking has allowed others to flourish - he laid most of the groundwork for others.
His work is still influential. This book should be a 5* book by default it's influence is that important. Some of the experiments in the book are still worth reviewing today;
The Funnel Experiment is a brilliant illustration of why tampering with a process is a good way of making things worse;
https://deming.org/management-system/funnel-experiment
The Red Beads experiment is a good one for showing why ranking people by performance is a waste of time;
https://deming.org/management-system/red-bead-experiment
The books well worth reading as a historical document but isn't a suitable introduction for systems thinking - for that I recommend looking elsewhere on blogs and other works.
I'd been looking for a copy of 'Out of The Crisis' for a while now and ended up paying over the odds for an imported hardback copy of the book. Often referred to as the 'bible' of systems thinking this was one book I wanted to devour and savour.
So what's the result? Well, this book originally published in 1982 and then again in 1986 was groundbreaking. Many of the observations and lessons Deming shows us would be revolutionary in organisations today. It is a crying shame that many of the principles Deming highlighted are still not the norm in many modern organisations. I can only imagine how revolutionary this book was in the 1980's - of course it was building off the work in Japan from the 50's to the 70's.
The two things that Deming has given us in my opinion are understanding variation in processes and the need to understand statistical control of processes. His principles for transformation and his deadly diseases are as good a point as any for any manager to work on today.
Some of the most important points for me are taking leadership out of the boardrooms and to the work, implementing measures, not targets and most importantly establish purpose and design work towards it. I can see that so many of the people whose ideas have informed me have been influenced by Deming.
There is so much in this book to help people in their work it would be hard to know where to start. That's one of the problems with the book - for every amazing idea or perspective the book is quite hard to read. The book assumes the reader has a strong grounding in algebra and statistical analysis. I'm certainly not inexperienced in either but one needs to concentrate to understand some of the chapters (indeed the later chapters are almost all related to statistics and I think I will benefit from dipping in and out of the book in later years).
The book also is in desperate need of an editor - the book does feel like a collection of notes and the book references itself (Including asking the reader to turn to later pages to illustrate points - why??). Like many great thinkers Deming wasn't a great writer. One thing that bothered me was the sexist language in the book - I know it was a product of it's time but it continually uses the work 'he' and when talking about appointments refers to the 'man'. Women do not exist in this book, even when he references female authored research!)
One thing Deming did well is referencing other great thinkers. Of course the PDCA cycle (Plan-Do-Check-Act) is embedded in many organisations and many refer to it as the Toyota cycle. Of course in Japanese industry they refer to it as the Deming cycle. Deming calls it the Shewhart Cycle after Walter A. Shewhart who first published the model in the 1930's. The book serves as a fine introduction into statistical thinking in pre-war thinking and the transformation of Japanese industry from the 1950's onwards - from someone who was there.
I didn't actually learn much new from reading this book, it's not an easy read for those not familiar with systems thinking principles and it's not well written, so why the high score?
First of all, Deming's work has been rewritten and expounded upon in the decades since this book was written and has been better formatted and explained more simply - Deming's thinking has allowed others to flourish - he laid most of the groundwork for others.
His work is still influential. This book should be a 5* book by default it's influence is that important. Some of the experiments in the book are still worth reviewing today;
The Funnel Experiment is a brilliant illustration of why tampering with a process is a good way of making things worse;
https://deming.org/management-system/funnel-experiment
The Red Beads experiment is a good one for showing why ranking people by performance is a waste of time;
https://deming.org/management-system/red-bead-experiment
The books well worth reading as a historical document but isn't a suitable introduction for systems thinking - for that I recommend looking elsewhere on blogs and other works.
aschweigert's review
1.0
Unfortunately I had to give up on this one. If you like self-important white dudes of a certain generation this might be your cup of tea but it sure wasn't mine.
danslimmon's review
2.0
I read this because I thought I might be able to apply the principles to software delivery and operations (my line of work). But every precept I read was overshadowed by Donald G. Reinertsen's superior (for my purposes) The Principles of Product Development Flow. Deming understands the economics of manufacturing and his advice is probably right on target for manufacturers. But software's quite different.
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