Deming
With a few projects on the go, I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about data. Not unusual. Collect it. Analyse it. Plot it. Report it. Build dashboards around it. Present it in meetings. Yet I keep coming back to a phrase that escaped my mouth in conversation
Ackoff
I was chatting with a colleague today and, as often happens, the conversation drifted toward data. Not just data collection — but what actually happens to the data once it has been collected. One of the points we discussed was how organisations sometimes collect enormous amounts of data that never truly
Deming
You really should be above average? At the very least! Isn't that what society expects of us? What schools teach? Who wants to be average? Even worse, less than average?! Perhaps there are some who don’t care, but how many parents want to hear that their child
Deming
As I enjoyed Day 5 of the ’12 Days to Deming’ course, and one of the Deadly Diseases espoused by Dr Deming, I was reminded of what I termed ‘Bob Lloyd’s Fallacy of Fives’ when it comes to setting targets in aim statements or service level agreements. As Bob
Continual Improvement
“Is it a task or test?” Bob Lloyd’s question lives in my head whenever I read PDSAs in slide presentations or articles. Bob has been a significant influence on my Quality Journey — mentor, inspirer, and someone I consider a friend — and his question still does more useful work in
Deming
A Quality Rebel reflection on variation, stories, and the discipline of understanding systems. We hear a lot these days about hallucinations from AI large language models. The warning is familiar: don’t blindly trust what the machine tells you. AI sometimes produces answers that sound convincing but are completely fabricated.
Deming
Happy New Year. I wish you health, curiosity, and just enough discomfort in 2026 to keep learning. After a properly restorative festive break, I’m rebooting my blog—nudged, once again, by highlights resurfacing through Readwise. If you rely on an e-reader and pipe highlights into a PKM system
Leadership
We hear it all the time: “Change is hard.” It’s almost a reflex now — the moment the word “change” enters the room, resistance follows it in like an unwelcome shadow. I’ll be honest: I don’t leap out of bed each morning eager to reinvent my world. I
Deming
Today’s Readwise highlight covers so much. Without doubt, Respect for Individuals is at the forefront. Simultaneously, there’s appreciation for a system. Even Theory of Knowledge, Psychology and Understanding Variation to give us a full house of Dr Deming’s System of Profound Knowledge. It reminds me of a
Deming
In 2024, I challenged myself to write what are termed 'Atomic Essays' through a fantastic online course ('Ship 30 for 30'). Some of my earlier 'attempted' 'Atomic Essays' were inspired mainly by three things: * The book 'Win-Win: W. Edwards Deming,
Deming
This is the final part of the introduction to Dr. Deming’s System of Profound Knowledge (SOPK), considering the fourth, interconnected aspect of psychology, usually as it relates to change. All systems involve humans, and we are psychological beings. As such, psychology interacts with all three other aspects of SOPK
Deming
Today, let’s maintain our analytical approach and look at another aspect of Deming’s System of Profound Knowledge (SOPK), theory of knowledge, very apt when considering teaching. Scientific thinking would be another way of considering theory of knowledge. What do we mean by this? When we have an idea