Pontefract's Page

11:49pm: Old photographs
Over the last week or so I've scanned a load of photographs I've been carefully been storing since about 1992 in a plastic bag under the bed. Over the years they've travelled with me to wherever I've been living at the time, not been indexed in any way shape or form and some of them have been been blue-tacked on walls and cupboard doors and then put back in the bag when I've moved. I've now uploaded a good chunk of them onto Facebook, and it feels good both to be able to share them with old friends, and know that I've got an online backup them, of sorts.

What I've found weird about looking at them (besides realising the way I look has now been through about four Doctor Who style transformations; some for the better, some not) is the realisation of how digital photography has changed the way we take pictures. For years I had a bog standard fairly cheap film camera with a flash - really nothing special at all. But as film cost about a fiver for a 24 frame roll and a fiver to develop, photo taking was mainly restricted to special occasions - student balls, parties, holidays etc. (though occasionally a few pics got 'ran off' to use up a roll). Worse, if you took a crap unusable pic (and I took plenty), you had to pay for it as part of the roll and developing process.

When you consider how easy, cheap and good quality modern cameras are - even on phones - it makes me wonder how radically it's changed the way we take pictures and how we treat them. Even a trip down the pub these days yields a few phone camera shots that are better than my old camera ever managed. Taken a crap pic? Just delete it, or even edit it.

Will future generations take it for granted that they will have access to a huge online digital visual record of their past? And will this reduce the relative rarity of those special moments when you see an old picture that suddenly brings back lots of associated memories?

Only one thing's for sure - the era of amateur film photography is over, and I for one don't miss the expense and hassle associated with it (though I'd welcome the waistline and youth of the period I was part of it back like a shot).

7:50pm: Noise With a Purpose
A couple of years ago I released an album of original music - it had taken me almost 10 years to write and a year on and off to record. The goal was to create something unique but listenable, using only basic instruments (guitar, bass, drums, voice) with tons of electronic effects applied. The sonic approach is pretty avant-garde in places, but it's all based around fairly traditional ideas of song construction.

The result was an album called 'Noise With A Purpose' and in my view was worth every bit of time spent on it. If you'd like to listen to it, you can now download the whole thing for free here:

http://www.zen92285.zen.co.uk/noise_with_a_purpose/

(The above is released under creative commons licensing - you can distribute this work, but not modify it or use it for commercial purposes).

If after hearing it you'd like a proper full-sound-quality CD with printed artwork and everything, you can buy one here:

http://www.fivetrees.com/shop/index.php?shop_id=48

Hope you enjoy it, or at least find it interesting.

3:28pm: Quotes
A huge list of my favourite quotes, for no reasons other than I'd like a backup of them online somewhere and some readers may find them interesting/thought-provoking.

"All anyone asks for is a chance to work with pride." - W. Edwards Deming

"When solving problems, dig at the roots instead of just hacking at the leaves." - Anthony J. D'Angelo

"It is better to do the right thing wrong than the wrong thing right." - Russell L. Ackoff

"20 years from now, you'll be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than the things you did. So throw off the bowlines; sail away from the safe harbour; catch the trade winds in your sails. Dream. Explore. Discover..." - Mark Twain

"Beneath the effort directed toward the accumulation of worldly goods lies all too frequently the illusion that this is the most substantial and desirable end to be achieved; but there is, fortunately, a minority composed of those who recognize early in their lives that the most beautiful and satisfying experiences open to humankind are not derived from the outside, but are bound up with the development of the individual's own feeling, thinking and acting." - Albert Einstein

"If you do not know how to ask the right question, you discover nothing." - W. Edwards Deming

"Rational behavior requires theory. Reactive behavior requires only reflex action." - W. Edwards Deming

"Profit in business comes from repeat customers, customers that boast about your product or service, and that bring friends with them." - W. Edwards Deming

"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival." - W. Edwards Deming

"It is not enough to do your best; you must know what to do, and then do your best." - W. Edwards Deming

"Eliminate numerical quotas, including Management by Objectives." - W. Edwards Deming

"If you can't describe what you are doing as a process, you don't know what you're doing." - W. Edwards Deming

"The emphasis should be on why we do a job." - W. Edwards Deming

"To manage a system effectively, you might focus on the interactions of the parts rather than their behavior taken separately." - Russell L. Ackoff

"Why not make the work easier and more interesting so that people do not have to sweat? The Toyota style is not to create results by working hard. It is a system that says there is no limit to people's creativity. People don't go to Toyota to 'work', they go there to 'think'." - Taiichi Ohno

"Without changing our patterns of thought we will not be able to solve the problems we created with our current patterns of thought." - Albert Einstein

"The worthwhile problems are the ones you can really solve or help solve, the ones you can really contribute something to." - Richard Feynmann

"What we need to do is learn to work in the system, by which I mean that everybody, every team, every platform, every division, every component is there not for individual competitive profit or recognition, but for contribution to the system as a whole on a win-win basis." - W. Edwards Deming

"It is important that an aim never be defined in terms of activity or methods. It must always relate directly to how life is better for everyone. . . . The aim of the system must be clear to everyone in the system. The aim must include plans for the future. The aim is a value judgment." - W. Edwards Deming

"So much of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to work." - Peter Drucker

"Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things." - Peter Drucker

"Quality in a product or service is not what the supplier puts in. It is what the customer gets out and is willing to pay for. A product is not quality because it is hard to make and costs a lot of money, as manufacturers typically believe. This is incompetence. Customers pay only for what is of use to them and gives them value. Nothing else constitutes quality." - Peter Drucker

"We now accept the fact that learning is a lifelong process of keeping abreast of change. And the most pressing task is to teach people how to learn." - Peter Drucker

"Accept the fact that we have to treat almost anybody as a volunteer." - Peter Drucker

"Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes." - Peter Drucker

"People who don't take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year. People who do take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year." - Peter Drucker

"Rank does not confer privilege or give power. It imposes responsibility." - Peter Drucker

"The only thing we know about the future is that it will be different." - Peter Drucker

"A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be." - Albert Einstein

"A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new." - Albert Einstein

"All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded the individual." - Albert Einstein

"Any fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage - to move in the opposite direction." - Albert Einstein

"Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either." - Albert Einstein

"Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted." - Albert Einstein

"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough." - Albert Einstein

"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." - Albert Einstein

"It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge." - Albert Einstein

"Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning." - Albert Einstein

"Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value." - Albert Einstein

"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing." - Albert Einstein

"A corporation is organized as a system - it has this department, that department, that department... they don't have any meaning separately; they only can function together. And also the body is a system. Society is a system in some sense. And so on." - David Bohm

"People don't resist change. They resist being changed!" - Peter M. Senge

"Change is the essence of life. Be willing to surrender what you are for what you could become." - Peter M. Senge

"Good management is the art of making problems so interesting and their solutions so constructive that everyone wants to get to work and deal with them." - Paul Hawken

"If you don't ask the right questions, you don't get the right answers. A question asked in the right way often points to its own answer. Asking questions is the ABC of diagnosis. Only the inquiring mind solves problems." - Edward Hodnett

"If there is no worker involvement, there is no quality system." - Lloyd Dobyns and Clare Crawford-Mason

"A leader is someone who steps back from the entire system and tries to build a more collaborative, more innovative system that will work over the long term." - Robert Reich

"... What is the source of all this trouble? I'm saying that the source is basically in thought. Many people would think that such a statement is crazy, because thought is the one thing we have with which to solve our problems. That's part of our tradition. Yet it looks as if the thing we use to solve our problems with is the source of our problems. It's like going to the doctor and having him make you ill." - David Bohm

"The conventional definition of management is getting work done through people, but real management is developing people through work." - Agha Hasan Abedi

"Most discussions of decision making assume that only senior executives make decisions or that only senior executives' decisions matter. This is a dangerous mistake." - Peter Drucker

"A system is a network of interdependent components that work together to try to accomplish the aim of the system. A system must have an aim. Without the aim, there is no system." - W. Edwards Deming

11:26pm: The A-Team
A blog entry reproducing a comment thread on Facebook:

--

"Director Ridley Scott has signed up to produce the big screen remake of 1980s TV show The A-Team, according to industry paper Variety."

Anne Brooks Butcher
So, any suggestions for casting? My ideas are

Hannibal: George Clooney
Face: Brad Pitt? or any other pretty actor really
Murdock: Ben Stiller
BA: Ving Rhames

--

*cue comments from others about potential casting, until...*

--

Paul Simpson at 15:39, on 30 January.
There's no point trying to recreate old glories. I'm a huge A-Team fan, and it's low-budget, simplistic, 80s-militaristic combo of a washed-up alcoholic Hollywood has-been, bit-part TV star, Broadway thesp and ex-nightclub doorman in a stripy van with guns and welding torches remains inimitable.

With all that in mind, I'd go for an avant-garde reboot of the franchise:

Hannibal: Morgan Freeman
Face: Megan Fox
Howling Mad: Jon LaJoie (Google him)
BA: That bloke who played Mr. Eko in 'Lost'

The above inhabit the present-day LA underground defending those who the law fail by killing those who antagonise them. With guns - Very Big Guns. And nukes, which they make in a grim deserted industrial unit from parts bought on the Russian black market. And Murdoch has an actual degrading mental condition which, far from making him a light comic relief, makes him a total ****ing psycho who's dangerous to be anywhere near without wearing body armour. And Face is a sex addict with drug problems. And Mr. T isn't afraid of planes, he throws people out of them. 'Cause his milk has been drugged so many times by the others to overcome his phobia he's developed a severe personality disorder and constatly refers to himself in the third person as "that crazy foo'".

And Hannibal is gay.

--

Mark Harris at 15:48, on 30 January.
Seems about right... but Gay and VERY PC

--

Paul Simpson at 16:03, on 30 January.
Gay and very PC? K. How about...

Hannibal: Henry Rollins
Face: Henry Rollins
Howling Mad: Henry Rollins in a blue baseball cap
BA: Henry Rollins in full Minstrel blackface make-up

The A-Team traverse the LA underground punishing wrong-doers by raping them. In the ear. And the navel. With guns. That are on fire.

The film consists of 20 grisly eye-watering and plot-free minutes of the above, then inexplicably ends when everything - Earth, the Sun and the whole flippin' Solar System, the lot - explodes in slow-motion killing everyone, including God.

--

Paul Simpson at 16:05, on 30 January.
Man, I'm bored.

--

Anne Brooks Butcher at 17:22, on 30 January.
Paul, there's something very wrong with you today. Go outside, get some fresh air, maybe have a walk in a nice leafy green environment. You'll feel much better I'm sure.

--

Paul Simpson at 17:30, on 30 January.
I think I've been reading too much Warren Ellis.

9:23pm: An update
A quick update for the few that are still following this blog via RSS/LJ friends pages.

6 months in, and life as a consultant is best described as... varied.

The job itself can only be described as *utterly fantastic* - all the expectations I had of what a full-on Systems Thinking approach to the design and management of work can achieve when done properly have been borne out. Reading case studies gives you a rough idea, but it's nothing compared to the experience of being part of a full-on, root-and-branch intervention. The bits of work I'd done with Systems Thinking before becoming a consultant suggested this would be so, and its nice to have expectations confirmed. Almost zero work queues, job turnaround time improved by 93%, costs lowered, increased staff morale, increased customer satisfaction? Check, check, check, check, check. Being able to teach these ideas to others who want to learn them - who can see a way to make the daily 'fire-fighting' chaos of their work lives disappear - while learning huge amounts myself has made the last 6 months some of the most rewarding time I've ever spent.

Of course, everything comes at a price, and in my case it's been the sheer amount of travel involved. I never imagined I'd come to actively *hate* a strip of tarmac as much as I've gradually come to loathe the endless, grey, seemingly perma-jammed strip of joyless immobility and dullness that is the M6. I've become an expert in using SatNav, have all sorts of traffic monitoring software on my iPhone, and yet the weekly ritual of sitting among fellow travellers going nowhere in wheeled metal boxes has become as inevitable as death and taxes.

Trains? I'd always scoffed a bit at those besuited corporate-looking business travellers who had no choice but to cram onto packed, noisy carriages at times dictated by office hours - and now, of course, I'm one of them. Arse.

Hotels, while on the whole very comfortable, can become a rather solitary experience. End-of-week evenings back home at the local pub in the company of friends have become extraordinary valuable, as has Facebook, which gets left running in the background while browsing in the evenings.

While I'm still enjoying the work as much as I am, the trade-off between personal and work life remains tolerable - in the long run, we'll see how ths goes.

I'm in the process of setting up an anonymous work-realted research blog - if you'd like a link to this, e-mail me at the usual address you'll have this if I know you IRL) and I'll send you the URL.

On a closing musical note: after many years of actively disliking Jazz, the last year has seen me enjoying 'classic' Jazz (Miles Davis, John Coltrane et al) immensely. If your head is where I mine used to be ("urgh! Twiddly intellectual nonsense! With horns in!"), have a listen to the following with as little prejudice as possible:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10862796

10:01pm: Diary Of A Systems Thinker: Part 1
So, it seems I'm a Consultant now. Or at least, a trainee one.

I'm two weeks into my new job, and so far... it rocks, mightily. A whole new world of charts, teaching, engaging managers in new ways of thinking, coffee, books, trains and hotels. Sorted.

To paraphrase Oppenheimer: I Am Become Deming, Destroyer of Wastes.

It seems I've finally found my vocation in life, and feel extraordinarily lucky.

More hotel-based journal entries to come, quite possibly more compelling than this brief effort.

10:28pm: Change. Again. But this time even bigger...
The last time I made a post like this was some time ago - there's been some fairly life-changing activity going on on my part recently, which I can now reveal.

After 7 years working in IT, I'm making a big change - I'll soon be starting work in my new job as a management consultant for Vanguard. Vanguard helps service oragnisations to understand and use the ideas for design and management of work that I described in a series of posts made on my website last year.

I'll still be living in Rochdale, but my new job will require travel all over the UK and beyond. I start at the end of May, and I can't wait :)

12:42pm: Passion for Work
The simple 4-question test to see if someone has a passion for their work:

When was the last time you read a trade/professional journal or book/attended an industry conference/took a course related to your work?
Today.

Name at least two of the key people in your field.
W. Edwards Deming, Russell L. Ackoff

If you had to, would you spend your own money to buy tools or other materials that would improve the quality of your work?
Yes; do all the time.

If you did not do this for work, would you still do it (or something related to it) as a hobby?
Yep.

5:10pm: Meme thing
I've been tagged by ian_myatt for this one, so...

a. List seven habits/quirks/facts about yourself.
b. Tag seven people to do the same.
c. Do not tag the person who tagged you or say that you tag "whoever wants to do it".

1 - Whenever I've finished playing a guitar, the last thing I always do before putting it down is to play an open E chord, then mute the strings. This 'discharges' the music out of the guitar so it's safe to put it down. As a (mostly) rational person, I am not proud of my idiomatic logic regarding this.

2 - I really like onions.

3 - Despite actively despising jazz for as long as I can remember, I'm starting to develop a huge appreciation for it, at least modal jazz. I'm putting this down to being One Of Those Things That Happens In Your Thirties.

4 - I have Synesthesia, which mostly takes the form of Grapheme-color synesthesia. As the years go by my Sound → color synesthesia has become much less 'vivid', if it could be described as such.

5 - I recently became a convert to Apple Mac computers.

6 - I recently discovered Systems Thinking which is one of the most powerful ideas/things I've come across in my life.

7 - My favourite drink is Guinness.

I tag Steady, Caitlin, Phil, Tufty, Mark, Dave and Caz.

6:47pm: The F***ing F***er (not work safe. No s***.)
"Vast ranges of tone are available from the G-1000. We cannot even begin to explain its flexibility. The G-1000 is NOT intended for middle-aged “tone questers”, who believe that they will be able to play like Eric Clapton by simply spending a lot of $$$ on equipment. We HATE those people. The G-1000 is intended for the intrepid experimenter, not the pathetic imitator. Tone questers are invited to DIE."

This amp was made for me. It must have been.

I must own one as soon as humanly possible, if not sooner.

7:08pm: Nerd!

What Be Your Nerd Type? Your Result: Musician   Doo doo de doo waaaa doo de doo! (<-- That's you playing something.) Everyone appreciates the band/orchestra geeks and the pretty voices. Whether you sing in the choir, participate in a school/local band, or sit at home writing music, you contribute a joy to society that everyone can agree on. Yay! Welcome to actually doing something for poor, pathetic human souls. (Just kidding.)
Science/Math Nerd
Literature Nerd
Artistic Nerd
Social Nerd
Gamer/Computer Nerd
Drama Nerd
Anime Nerd
What Be Your Nerd Type? Quizzes for MySpace

9:23pm: That time of year again
A quick post to say to anyone who reads my updates on psimpson.net or via RSS: whatever you celebrate at this time of year and however you celebrate it, have an absolute belter!

7:42pm: Um
Proof, if any were needed, that facial-recognition software is a non-starter as a concept:

2:35am: Adventures in Quality: Part 6
After reading about the abstract management theory I've been writing about in these last few posts, you may be wondering what practical things you can do at work to implement these ideas. Although these ideas apply to any activity, I'm best equipped to state what works in a service organisation, so this is what I will focus on:

- Start by defining the role of your team/dept./company in customer terms, not company terms. From a customers point of view, what is it that you are at work to do or achieve? If you have problems doing this, you'll find the next step helps.

- Carefully look at the nature of demand that customers place on your system - why do they contact you? About what? And how often? Gather hard data about this - measure it. You will find that there are two types of demand placed by customers on you: failure demand, which happens when you have failed to do something for a customer ("I don't understand this form/these instructions" "Where is my order?" etc) and value demand, which is for the work that you are there to do - the stuff customers need you for. All failure demand is defined as waste. Stop treating all demand that comes in as just work that has to be done, and make clear distinctions between value work and waste.

- Measure the capability of how well you respond to value demand. This will require learning how to construct capability (or 'control') charts to examine average end-to-end times for how long it takes to deliver what customers require and how variable and predictable this is.

- When you have data about the type and frequency of demand you face, silently examine one piece of high frequency value work as it 'flows' through the company. Don't tell anyone who does the work what you are doing, or ask them their opinion - just observe the path it takes, and what happens when. Observe where rework takes place, where inspection takes place, where handovers take place and vital information is obscured/lost, where delays happen and anything that stands in the way of value work being done - all this, and anything else that isn't value work, counts as waste in the flow of work.

- Redesign your systems and processes to do only the value work, removing failure demand and waste in flow.

- Rinse and repeat. This cycle carries on forever, continuously improving the system people work in.

Sounds simple in theory, but this is very hard to do in practice. When doing this you will need to manage in a very different way, as you have to involve everyone who does the work in decision making - the people who do the work control the work using measures derived from the work, and the role of a manager changes to improving the system. Focusing on 'people management' is of no use, as 95% of variation (and hence waste) in any system lies with the system itself. You have to learn to manage as though you have no formal authority, which is a difficult discipline to learn and practice. It is vital that you consult your team and come to a genuine team consensus about what needs to be done, and to realise that you as a manager do not have the best answer to any given problem, as those who do the work have a better perspective than yourself - you do not have all the answers just because you are a manager, no matter how tempting it sometimes is to believe that. Get rid of arbitrary measures and targets, and instead focus on measures derived from the work and how to improve them via good leadership. Never tell anyone the answer to problems to questions of how to solve problems - regularly challenge staff to come up with solutions to problems or improvements to eliminate waste, and to then implement them (for help with this, try listening to the episodes of The Lean Blog Podcast that feature Norman Bodek, as they feature excellent practical advice - in fact, just listen to as many episodes of this Podcast as you can find time for, it's excellent).

All of this is difficult to do, but the value gained in huge. The problem comes when you have an understanding of the systems approach and try and discuss it with those who still view the world in analytical, command-and-control terms - both approaches share a common language, so most non-systems thinkers will believe they 'get it' when in fact they don't - unless this approach is understood by 'doing', it's almost impossible to understand how different it is from standard, hierarchical, inefficient, demoralizing and vastly sub-optimised Western management. Changing peoples views of how to 'see' things in a different way is extraordinarily difficult - this, however, is a whole separate subject of it's own... The best advice I can offer here is only to get colleagues curious by demonstrating practically how hugely effective systems thinking is compared to 'standard' practice, and don't just discuss it - conversations about it invariably go nowhere due to misunderstanding. When people see the outcomes - vastly improved service, happier customers and increased staff morale - they tend come to you and ask how you are getting such good results.

As a closing note - I have learned that Systems Thinking as applied to management is only one application of this philosophy of approaching problems, and so I am currently studying Systems Thinking in wider terms of general problem-solving - I would recommend the following links to anyone else who would like to learn more about the subject, as I have discovered Russell Ackoff to be an excellent teacher in this subject:

A Day with Dr. Russel L. Ackoff (streaming video - requires RealPlayer)

A talk by Russell Ackoff (mp3)

I hope that anyone who might have read these last few posts finds them useful, or at least interesting, and that they may encourage others to follow their own interests and curiosity in this area.

9:59pm: Adventures in Quality: Part 5
Having got a basic grip on the theory behind Deming's ideas, I was looking for ways to apply them in the field I work in - that of providing high quality services. Although Deming's ideas can be applied to any activity, most of the work done using them in the 20th century had been in the field of manufacturing. Looking on Google for present-day organisations that offered training or materials seemed to bear out the idea that training in Deming's ideas was not being offered in the UK due to lack of demand, as there didn't seem to be any on the web.

...And then another of the regular 'aha!' moments I had during my Quality-based research occurred when I saw the website for Vanguard, a UK-based company offering exactly what I was looking for.



Vanguard was founded in the mid-80s by John Seddon, an occupational psychologist who had been tasked in the mid-80s with investigating why programmes of change constantly failed to have any significant effect when implemented in companies. While doing this he discovered the work of Deming and Taiichi Ohno, the genius who created the Toyota Production System (a Deming-based system that has enabled Toyota to become the largest car manufacturer in the world). Seddon synthesized the work of Deming and Ohno and other systems-thinkers into a model for applying these ideas to service organisations. The result is service delivered at both premium quality and the lowest possible cost - a theme that runs through all of Deming's work that most find very counter-intuitive. Most conventional analytic thinking dictates that to provide the best possible quality requires high financial outlay, but in reality the opposite is true - that is, costs actually decrease as quality increases - if a systems approach is used instead.



I bought Seddon's book 'Freedom From Command And Control' and the corresponding DVDs, and they provide a superb model for how to manage service delivery for any organisation. Having done some very small-scale, carefully chosen experiments myself with these ideas at work I can say from experience that the results are amazing. In the present-day UK where manufacturing is all but extinct, it's a tragedy that these ideas are not more widely applied.

To learn more about Vanguard's model for applying systems thinking in service organisations follow the links below:

A clip from a speech by John Seddon (see link at upper-right of page)

A video interview with John Seddon

Video clips of Vanguard's consultants discussing their work

No cliffhanger ending for this entry - I'll round up this series next time with some words about continuously learning more about systems thinking in general.

11:58pm: Adventures in Quality: Part 4


From the 1950s onwards, the main method that Dr. W. Edwards Deming used to educate managers in his methods was a four-day seminar that comprehensively covered his management philosophy. He continuously developed the seminar over almost 50 years to educate management in the methods required to create quality product and services, as he had deduced that the responsibility for quality lies at the top, not with the workers.



Deming's seminars were in constant high demand from 1980 until 1993 when he passed away, and were attended by the very highest levels of management from countries all over the world. Attendance cost in the region of $2000 for the four days of Deming giving presentations on his management philosophy along with practical demonstrations in the form of what he called 'experiments'.



After reading so much about the four day seminar and how it had so radically affected Japan and some companies in 1980s America - Deming consulted for Ford in the early 80s; Ford subsequently went from 3 billion dollars in debt to being the 2nd largest car manufacturer behind General Motors within 6 years - I wanted to experience the seminar for myself. I discovered that the Deming Institute in Washington offers the full four-day seminar in a DVD set so, reasoning that the price is cheaper than the real thing was and that, unlike the real thing, I could watch it as many times as I like, I decided to invest. I spoke to a very nice British chap on the phone who worked at the Deming Institute in Washington and had been the head of the UK Deming Association (it turned out he had married Deming's daughter) and ordered the DVD set.

The seminar was recorded in 1992 towards the end of Deming's life, and it's clear from watching that his health is failing him. His mind is still sharp however, and the presentations he gives are full of insight into his work. His presentation style put off many managers in America, and it's easy to see why - he presents counter-intuitive ideas and concepts while simultaneously delivering a scathing, damning condemnation of Western management. Deming's upbringing was during a harsh period of shortage and recession, and during his academic and professional career he constantly refused to compromise. I can only imagine his presentation style was an attempt to catch the attention of senior management of large companies and clearly delineate between their current thinking and the new ideas he described, but it comes across as very old-fashioned and in fact reminds me of some of the older University lecturers I've been taught by - little patience, stern no-nonsense delivery and occasional flashes of wry humour.

Like his book Out Of The Crisis, you have to be prepared to make a serious effort to get to grips with a Deming seminar (some managers from large US companies were known to attend multiple times), but the value you get from it in terms of understanding and changing your own thinking is huge. The Red Bead Experiment in particular is a conclusive and surprising demonstration of the influence of a system and psychology on quality of output. 12 hours of Deming is a lot to take in, but watching it in 1 hour chunks and digesting each segment helps, and the DVD set comes with a useful study guide. I'd have to say that, for me at least, it was well worth the price, and I continue to use it as useful reference material.

After watching the seminar and discussing Deming's ideas with management at work I set out to find if there were any organizations that were carrying on developing Deming's work and offering training or materials about how to apply these ideas specifically to my area of work - that of delivering high quality services. I consulted with a management trainer at a local college whose course I had once sat and asked them if any companies offered anything like this - I was told that there weren't any, as there was no demand for it in the UK.

As it turns out, they were wrong...

11:54pm: Adventures in Quality: Part 3


After digesting Deming's two main works I decided to buy further books to help develop a further understanding of how to actually apply the principles he describes, as this is the aspect which is largly ignored in his teachings. I was soon to discover that the reason Deming didn't describe how to apply his methods is that this is something that can't be learned from a book or TV programme - it's something that you have to work out for yourself by doing it day to day in your work, and it is not easy. The specific methods that work for one company will not work for another. The principles Deming describes are universal, but require a lot of effort to work out how they apply to you, your work and your company. However, you more than get out what you put in.

The legacy of Deming's belated fame in 1980s Japan-obsessed America are a lot of 'snake oil' books that promise a easy, quick way to increase quality in your company. The problem is that there is no such thing - it's just not that simple. As Deming put it - "there is no instant pudding". Bearing this in mind, I chose the following books carefully and tried to stick to authors that had worked closely with Deming himself.

The Deming Management Method is an excellent Deming-endorsed companion to Out Of The Crisis - it usefully expands on Deming's core principles, gives some insights into the four-day seminars he held to teach managers his methods and - most interestingly for me - the second half is packed with case studies of compnies who have applied Deming's management philosophy and the problems (and huge subsquent rewards, both financial and in terms of staff morale) that they met in doing so. Highly recommended, especially if Out Of The Crisis seems too daunting or abstract.

Four Days with Dr. Deming: A Strategy for Modern Methods of Management is an illustrated, multi-faceted description of Deming's four-day seminar, detailing the content of the seminar, accompanying diagrams and common reactions of those who attended (usually high-ranking managers). A useful account of how Deming taught his methods in person, and lots of insight is provided into how these ideas are likely to be received should you try to explain them to others (usually, not very well).

The Leader's Handbook: Making Things Happen, Getting Things Done is an excellent guide to how to approach others with Deming's ideas once you've got a grip on them. Because so much of what Deming taught is so counter-intuitive, most will dismiss it as soon as they are exposed to it. Also includes some interesting insights into the early development of 'standard' military-derived old-school (and vastly inefficient in the modern business world) management practises used today that were created in the latter years of the 19th century.

The World of W. Edwards Deming is a biography of sorts of Deming, put together by his secretary of 40 years, Cecelia Kilian. I'll admit, I bought this for the same reasons that I've also read so many Hendrix biographies - I just wanted to know more about the man behind such an amazing body of work. It turns out Deming was a keen musician and composer, as well as a scientiic and mathematical genius (term not used lightly) earlier in his career. It amazes me how someone who has had such a profound effect on the modern industrial world is so little known, a fact that was not lost on Deming himself. He was 'discovered' in America in 1980 after a TV programme called 'If Japan can... why can't we?' featured his work and made him an instant celebrity. He then spent the last 13 years of his life working non-stop with (largely non-comprehending) American and European companies atempting to make up for lost time, though the impact he ultimately had in the West was miniscule compared to the influence he had in Japan, and still has to this day some 14 years after his passing.

After reading so much about Deming's teachings, I reflected on how lucky those who got to attend his seminars in person were, and how I would never be able to experience anything similar.

Or would I?

11:55pm: Adventures in Quality: Part 2


W. Edwards Deming wrote just a handful of books in his lifetime, only two of which gained any sort of widespread recognition: Out Of The Crisis, his magnum opus, and The New Economics, a condensed version of Out Of The Crisis.

I set out on a Saturday afternoon to but a copy of Out Of The Crisis to study Deming's work in depth. I met up with a work colleague in Manchester to discuss my discovery of Deming over a drink, then set off to Waterstone's to buy the book.

I was, to say the least, surprised to find they had no books of Deming's at all in any of the bookstores we went to. Here's a guy who enabled Japan to become the foremost manufacturer in the world in the second half of the 20th century, and his books aren't stocked by retailers?

Amazon came up trumps though, and I ordered both of Deming's best known books.

Out Of The Crisis is not, it has to be said, an easy read. But to anyone who is seeking to create the best possible quality in whatever they do, it's safe to say that this is the best possible text on the subject - whatever effort you put into reading this book you will more than get out of it. The advice it contains forms a complete philosophy of management which can be applied to any business anywhere. The principles are quite simple, but applying them successfully takes much careful consideration and thought.

To briefly summarise the most important parts of this book; Deming advocated that all managers need to adopt what he called a System of Profound Knowledge, consisting of:

1. Appreciation of a system
2. Knowledge of variation
3. Theory of knowledge
4. Knowledge of psychology

This is the basis of his famous 14 points for management for transforming business effectiveness, which can be summarised as follows:

1. Create constancy of purpose for the improvement of product and service, with the aim to become competitive, stay in business, and provide jobs.
2. Adopt a new philosophy of cooperation (win-win) in which everybody wins and put it into practice by teaching it to employees, customers and suppliers.
3. Cease dependence on mass inspection to achieve quality. Instead, improve the process and build quality into the product in the first place.
4. End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag alone. Instead, minimize total cost in the long run. Move toward a single supplier for any one item, based on a long-term relationship of loyalty and trust.
5. Improve constantly, and forever, the system of production, service, planning, of any activity. This will improve quality and productivity and thus constantly decrease costs.
6. Institute training for skills.
7. Adopt and institute leadership for the management of people, recognizing their different abilities, capabilities, and aspiration. The aim of leadership should be to help people, machines, and gadgets do a better job. Leadership of management is in need of overhaul, as well as leadership of production workers.
8. Drive out fear and build trust so that everyone can work more effectively.
9. Break down barriers between departments. Abolish competition and build a win-win system of cooperation within the organization. People in research, design, sales, and production must work as a team to foresee problems of production and use that might be encountered with the product or service.
10. Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets asking for zero defects or new levels of productivity. Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships, as the bulk of the causes of low quality and low productivity belong to the system and thus lie beyond the power of the work force.
11. Eliminate numerical goals, numerical quotas and management by objectives. Substitute leadership.
12. Remove barriers that rob people of joy in their work. This will mean abolishing the annual rating or merit system that ranks people and creates competition and conflict.
13. Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement.
14. Put everybody in the company to work to accomplish the transformation. The transformation is everybody's job.

In addition to the 14 points, Deming also defined what he called The Seven Deadly Diseases of management:

1. Lack of constancy of purpose.
2. Emphasis on short-term profits.
3. Evaluation by performance, merit rating, or annual review of performance.
4. Mobility of management.
5. Running a company on visible figures alone.
6. Excessive medical costs.
7. Excessive costs of warranty, fueled by lawyers who work for contingency fees.

In addition to The Seven Deadly Diseases, there is also A Lesser Category of Obstacles:

1. Neglect of long-range planning.
2. Relying on technology to solve problems.
3. Seeking examples to follow rather than developing solutions.
4. Excuses such as "Our problems are different".

To understand and use this knowledge takes a lot of careful thought and study, which is why so few managers use it in the West. I was determined to apply this to my own work, which meant buying several more books to help me in this goal - I'll review these in the next entry for anyone else who might wish to do the same.

10:05pm: Adventures in Quality: Part 1
Having discovered the work of W. Edwards Deming via Wikipedia, the first thing I did was to Google as much information as I could about his work in the field of quality.

The first website I found was that of the W. Edwards Deming Institute, which was founded shortly before his death in 1993. This contained a few interesting articles, but not much of use. The website of The UK Deming Forum website was similar in scope.

A search on Google Video followed, and... bingo! The BBC had made a documentary on Deming in 1992 that detailed his life and work and contined case studies:

Deming Documentary - Part 1

Deming Documentary - Part 2

Deming Documentary - Part 3

Further searching also turned up a BBC Radio 4 'In Business' documentary about Deming, which I've archived as an MP3 here, and is well worth a listen.

The next major discovery was the Deming Electronic Network Web Site, which is a vast online resource of Deming-related material and discussion, which has proved to be invaluable, if only for the brilliant papers written by Myron Tribus about Deming (Tribus was an associate of Deming's in the 80s) and the immensely useful guide to quality control tools.

After this initial research I was beginning to get a better appreciation for Deming's work, but I knew that to really start to understand it I'd have to go right to the source... which I'll write about in the next entry.

11:43pm: What happened next
So, a while ago I wrote this journal entry about thoughts I was having at the time about doing something other than recording music and work. I thought I'd provide an update about what I've been up to since, and why I've been updating this blog so infrequently.

In a nutshell: I've become obsessed with work. I said I wouldn't, but I did. These things happen.

What actually happened was this: the company I work for is one where high quality service and products are primary goals for everyone that works there. I became interested in the following questions:

- Why do companies tend to provide lower quality services as they get bigger in size, and how can this be avoided?

- What is quality anyway? How do you define it? How do you measure it? How do you 'create' it?

These questions have interested me for a long time, especially as my previous employer has one of the worst reputations in its industry and my present employer has one of the best. No one sets out to create bad service or products as heir goal, so - how does this happen? And why does it happen in so many companies?

These aren't easy questions and I had no idea where to begin looking for the answers, so I started by looking at the entry for quality on Wikipedia - it may not be the world's most reliable source of information, but at least it's a starting point. From there I clicked on a lot of links related to the subject and... got nowhere fast. I was recommended to read 'Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance' as a 'classic' text on quality, but this didn't get me far in practical terms of understanding what to actually do about 'creating' quality. The most useful definition I found of quality tself was the following:

"a subjective term for which each person has his or her own definition. In technical usage, quality can have two meanings:
1. the characteristics of a product or service that bear on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs.
2. a product or service free of deficiencies."

- which isn't of much use, as it basically means that quality is whatever you define it to be.

And then.

By chance I clicked on a link in Wikipedia that led to the entry for the late Dr. W. Edwards Deming, and all of a sudden the lights came on. It may sound weird, but I hadn't had a 'moment' like that since I first heard Jimi Hendrix on the radio - everything I read on that page made perfect sense, and just 'clicked'. This was everything I had been looking for, and addressed everything I knew (though only instinctively) to be wrong with companies I had worked for in the past.

I knew that I had to thoroughly research and understand Deming's work to fully understand how it could be applied to my own and this is what I've done, at my own expense of both time and money. There are no courses where you can learn about this stuff, so I've had to do my own research and reading to teach myself about the work that Deming did and how it can be put to practical use. I've found this hard work but hugely enjoyable, as it feels like discovering some arcane, almost cultish but immensely powerful and useful knowledge that is little-used in the Western world (as most managers in the West find it too difficult to get to grips with), though in countries such as Japan it has been second nature since just after World war II when Deming, an American statistical expert, was sent to a devasted enemy country to help the Japanese rebuild their industries and economy. In future posts I'll document the research I have done and the 'journey' it has taken me on (both for my own future reference and in case others find this information in any way useful).

11:52am: Ooops - back
Got back from France last Saturday - uber-smooth journey there and back, "which was nice" :) Spent the fortnight doing exactly what I had planned to - acheiving nothing, relaxing, reading, drinking and eating. Went walking, visited St. Tropez, swam, sunbathed, visited the local lakes, dredged my memory for French vocabulary (I'm not fluent, but I can get by), went to local cafes... bliss.

Pics to come soon.

12:39am: Off to France
Off to France - back in a couple of weeks.

6:34pm: Product Recall!
URGENT NOTICE!

It's been brought to my attention that some copies of my CD Noise With A Purpose have a track order that differs from the cover. I have no idea what's caused the problem, but if you have a CD that seems to have track numbering that differs from the listing on the case, email me at p_r_simpson@hotmail.com with your name and address and I shall post you a defect-free CD asap.

Apologies for this folks - these songs are meant to be listened to in a particular order and this is as annoying for me as it is for anyone else. Spread the word to anyone who might have a defective CD and hopefully I can replace them all. If all else fails I'll just replace all the CDs that have already been posted, though oddly only some seem to have the problem.

11:27pm: Podcasted
I'm hugely flattered that a track from Noise With A Purpose is featured on the current episode of NeiloMac's Music Attack podcast - check out Neil's Podcast, it features some really cool unsigned bands.

11:45pm: Change
Have just spent some time tidying and sorting my studio room getting it from 'full on recording mode' to 'civilised and tidy' mode. The pedals have all been put away, leads coiled up and stored and the place is vaguely habitable again as a place to sit without thinking that I should be recording music in here.

It's an odd feeling having finished my album... I'm glad it's done, but I'm now looking for 'the next thing'. There will be another recorded music project shortly - more details to come soon - but it will be far, far less labour intensive than Noise With A Purpose was. There may even be a few gigs in the Manchester area playing songs from Noise With A Purpose live, but even that isn't a big new project in it's own right.

I'm thinking it's time to move on to other things, though I have no idea what. Music will always be important to me, and I have no intention to ever stop playing guitar as it means so much to me, but... there's more to life.

Time to do other things than work, play guitar, record music and mess with technology I think. The PC that Noise With A Purpose was mixed and mastered on is being retired as a file server in the spare room, and my main computer is going to be my shiny, ultra-portable and efficient MacBook. It's very possible that this swapping of computers will be symbolic of a new approach to life. It's also very possible that that previous sentence was complete bollocks.

A repeat of a (very) in-joke that only possibly Steady will get: "let's see what's out there' :)