Deming

Setting arbitrary numerical targets: the fallacy of fives

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 relayed on many occasions, why does it seem targets all appear to be multiples of five? Is nature so organised around fractals of five? Is five the magic number? (I have some vague recollection that was in a song popping up in my mind).

In reality, when we actually assess the current capability of a process or service, how often are the Control Limits so nicely rounded to multiples of fives? OK, yes, I can format numbers in the spreadsheet software to no decimal places, the gradations on the axes in multiples of fives. But, real life data shouldn’t always match convenience of multiples of fives.

I posted about this before when discussing targets (click here). Doesn’t hurt to be reminded, as it keeps appearing.

Recommendation

I am currently enrolled in a 12 Days To Deming course. For more information, click here.

References

Neave HR. The Deming Dimension. Knoxville (TN): SPC Press; 1990.
Deming WE. Out of the Crisis. Cambridge (MA): Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Center for Advanced Engineering Study; 1986.
Deming WE. The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education. 2nd ed. Cambridge (MA): MIT Press; 2000.

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