Questions related to component 1:

1. What does Deming mean by appreciation for a system?  
    (See the summaries of The New Economics Chapter 3 and Chapter 4,
     Mintzberg & Van der Heyden, and Castellano, Young & Roehm).

3. Why is Deming against management by objectives? 
    (See the summaries of The New Economics Chapter 2 and Levinson).

4. Why is Deming against voting and compromise?

Questions related to component 2: (Knowledge about variation)

5. What does he mean by knowledge about variation? 
    (See the summaries of The New Economics Chapter 4 and Castellano, Young & Roehm).

7. Joiner and Gaudard indicate that there are four causes of variation: common, special,
    tampering and structural. What is tampering? How do we know it is tampering? 
    (See the summaries of Joiner & Gaudard and The New Economics Chapter 9).

8. How is the funnel experiment used to illustrate the concept of tampering?
    (See the summary of The New Economics Chapter 9).

9. What is structural variation? (See the Joiner & Gaudard summary and MAAW's Chapter 3
    Class problem 2).

10. Do you think there are four types of variation or just two? Explain.

11. Explain why Deming was opposed to ranking people from the variation perspective?
      (See the summary of The New Economics Chapter 2).

Questions related to component 3: (Theory of Knowledge)

12. What does Deming mean by the theory of knowledge? 
      (See the summary of The New Economics Chapter 4).

14. According to Deming, information is not knowledge. Why not?
     (See the summary of The New Economics Chapter 4).

15. Why does Deming say that experience teaches nothing without theory? 
      (See the Deming quotes and the The Beer Game summary for some ideas). 

16. Why is Deming against copying examples?

Questions related to component 4. (Psychology)

17. What does Deming mean by psychology? What motivates people?
     (See the summaries of The New Economics Chapter 4, Herzberg, Levinson, 
      Katzenbach & Santamaria and Amabile).

18. Why do organizations need to drive out fear?
      (See the summary of The New Economics Chapter 4, Herzberg, Levinson, 
      Katzenbach & Santamaria and Amabile).

19. What did Deming learn at the Hawthorne plant lighting experiment?

20. Why was Deming opposed to ranking people from the behavioral and system's perspectives?
      (See the summaries of The New Economics Chapter 4 and Chapter 6). 
      (Also see the summaries of Pfeffer, Stevens, Herzberg, Amabile and Kohn).

Questions related to diseases and obstacles:

Diseases include: 1. Lack of constancy of purpose, 2. Emphasis on short terms profits 3. Evaluation by performance reviews and merit ratings, 4. Management mobility, 5. Management by visible figures alone, 6. Excessive medical costs, 7. Excessive costs of liability.

22. What does he mean by lack of constancy of purpose? (See the short summary).

23. Which diseases and obstacles are related to accounting?  
     (See the summary of The New Economics Chapter 6 and the short summary).

Other questions:

24. Deming did not use, or even recognize, the term total quality management. 
     Why do you think Deming was opposed to this term?

25. From Deming's perspective, what is wrong with managing by results?
      (See Deming quotes and the Collingwood, Healy & Wahlen, Dechow & Skinner
      and Chow, Kato & Merchant summaries).

26. Compare Deming's concept of a leader with the traditional American management concept
      of a leader. (See the summaries of The New Economics Chapter 6 and Spear,
      Sobek, Stevens).

27. Do you disagree with any of Deming's arguments? Explain.

28. Deming said "We are being ruined by best efforts." What did he mean? 
     (See the Deming quotes and The Beer Game).

29. There is a popular saying, "If you can't measure it, you can't manage it." 
      Deming disagreed. Why?

30. From Deming's perspective, what should be the role of government? 
     (See the Stevens summary).

31. Deming was not a fan of the ISO 9000 series of international standards. Why not? 
     (See the ISO website and the Stevens summary).

32. Deming was critical of the Malcolm Baldrige award. Why? 
     (See the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award and the Stevens summary).

33. Although Deming was a consultant for some of the largest organizations (e.g., General
     Motors, Ford, Xerox, Procter and Gamble, and of course Japan),  he was not a rich man. 
     He lived in a relatively small two story brick house in Washington D.C. and worked in the
     basement. What do you think is the reason for Deming's modest lifestyle? 
     (See the Herzberg, and Amabile summaries).

34. Bazerman, Loewenstein & Moore (BLM) and Healy & Palepu make some recommendations 
     related to auditing. BLM argue that the problem is unconscious self-serving bias in 
     the client-auditor relationship. Are they blaming the auditors or the system? Discuss
     their recommendations in relation to Deming's views on leadership and solving problems.

35. Read the Joke on American management. Can you relate this to Deming's criticisms of American management?

36. Dr. Deming taught that companies should compete with each other, not against each other. What did he mean ?

 

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