Heynemann – Just another dev

Introduction

William Edwards Deming was an American statistician, professor, author, lecturer and consultant. He is best known for his work in Japan to improve quality in general.

Reading the Poppendieck’s  second book in the series of Lean Software Development, I was reminded of some things that really matter.

Deming was awarded many prizes in Japan and America alike for his contributions to the overall good of each nation.

DISCLAIMER: Many portions of this post were extracted from the wikipedia article.

The Deming System of Profound Knowledge

Deming advocated that all managers need to have what he called a System of Profound Knowledge, consisting of four parts:

1. Appreciation of a system: understanding the overall processes involving suppliers, producers, and customers (or recipients) of goods and services;
2. Knowledge of variation: the range and causes of variation in quality, and use of statistical sampling in measurements;
3. Theory of knowledge: the concepts explaining knowledge and the limits of what can be known;
4. Knowledge of psychology: concepts of human nature.

“The various segments of the system of profound knowledge proposed here cannot be separated. They interact with each other. Thus, knowledge of psychology is incomplete without knowledge of variation.” – Deming

What Deming means is that even if you don’t need to be proficient in all of the four pillars of the system of profound knowledge, you need to apply them consistently together. For more info on the System of Profound Knowledge check wikipedia’s article or Deming’s book.

From those pillars, Deming elaborates a set of 14 principles for management for transforming business effectiveness. These principles were first presented in his book Out of the Crisis.

Key Principles

You can see the original 14 principles presented by Deming in the wikipedia article. I’ll show here the updated version introduced by Mary and Tom Poppendieck in their “Implementing Lean Software Development: From concept to cash” book.

1. Provide for the long-range needs of the company; don’t focus on short-term profitability. The goal is to stay in business and provide jobs.
2. The world has changed, and managers need to adopt a new way of thinking. Delays, mistakes, defective worksmanship, and poor service are no longer acceptable.
3. Quit depending on inspection to find defects, and start building quality into products while they are being built. Use statistical process control.
4. Don’t choose suppliers on the basis of low bids alone. Minimize total cost by establishing long-term relationships with suppliers that are based on loyalty and trust.
5. Work continually to improve the system of production and service. Improvement is not a one-time effort; every activity in the system must be continually improved to reduce wast and improve quality (bold by Bernardo Heynemann).
6. Institute training. Managers should know how to do the job they supervise and be able to train workers. Managers also need training to understand the system of production.
7. Institute leadership. The job of managers is to help people do a better job and remove barriers in the system that keep them from doing their job with pride. The greatest waste in America is failure to use the abilities of people.
8. Drive out fear (bold by Bernardo Heynemann). People need to feel secure in order to do their job well. There should never be a conflict between doing what is best for the company and meeting the expectations of a person’s immediate job.
9. Break down barriers between departments. Create cross-functional teams so everyone can understand each-other’s perspective. Do not undermine team cooperation by rewarding individual performance (bold by Bernardo Heynemann).
10. Stop using slogans, exhortations, and targets. It is the system, not the workers, that creates defects and lowers productivity (bold by Bernardo Heynemann). Exhortations don’t change the system; that is a management responsibility.
11. Eliminate numerical quotas for workers and numerical goals for people in management. (We – Tom and Mary Poppendieck – add: Eliminate arbitrary deadlines for development teams.) This is management by fear. Try leadership (bold by Bernardo Heynemann).
12. Eliminate barriers that rob the people of their right to pride of worksmanship. Stop treating hourly workers like a commodity. Eliminate annual performance ratings for salaried workers.
13. Encourage education and self-improvement for everyone. An educated workforce and management is the key to the future.
14. Take action to accomplish the transformation. A top management team must lead the effort with action, not just support.

Conclusion

Reading the work of someone like W. Edwards Deming is both inspiring and rewarding. How can this knowledge be publicly available and not put to good use?