Deming: Principles for Management Cheat Sheet (DRAFT) by [deleted]

W. Edwards Deming offered 14 key principles for management to follow for signif­icantly improving the effect­iveness of a business or organi­zation. Many of the principles are philos­oph­ical. Others are more progra­mmatic. All are transf­orm­ative in nature. The points were first presented in his book Out of the Crisis. Below is the conden­sation of the 14 Points for Management as they appeared in the book.

1. Create constancy of purpose toward improv­ement of product and service, with the aim to become compet­itive and to stay in business, and to provide jobs.
2. Adopt the new philos­ophy. We are in a new economic age. Western management must awaken to the challenge, must learn their respon­sib­ili­ties, and take on leadership for change.
3. Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality. Eliminate the need for inspection on a mass basis by building quality into the product in the first place.
4. End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag. Instead, minimize total cost. Move toward a single supplier for any one item, on a long-term relati­onship of loyalty and trust.
5. Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service, to improve quality and produc­tivity, and thus constantly decrease costs.
6. Institute training on the job.
7. Institute leadership (see Point 12 and Ch. 8). The aim of superv­ision should be to help people and machines and gadgets to do a better job. Superv­ision of management is in need of overhaul, as well as superv­ision of production workers.
8. Drive out fear, so that everyone may work effect­ively for the company (see Ch. 3).
9. Break down barriers between depart­ments. People in research, design, sales, and production must work as a team, to foresee problems of production and in use that may be encoun­tered with the product or service.
10. Eliminate slogans, exhort­ations, and targets for the work force asking for zero defects and 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.
Eliminate work standards (quotas) on the factory floor. Substitute leader­ship.
Eliminate management by objective. Eliminate management by numbers, numerical goals. Substitute leader­ship.
11. Remove barriers that rob the hourly worker of his right to pride of workma­nship. The respon­sib­ility of superv­isors must be changed from sheer numbers to quality.
12. Remove barriers that rob people in management and in engine­ering of their right to pride of workma­nship. This means, inter alia, abolis­hment of the annual or merit rating and of management by object­ive..
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.

While the 14 Points for Management can be said to express Dr. Deming’s philosophy of transf­orm­ational manage­ment, his Seven Deadly Diseases of Management describe the most serious barriers that management faces to improving effect­iveness and continual improv­ement.

1. Lack of constancy of purpose to plan product and service that will have a market and keep the company in business, and provide jobs.

2. Emphasis on short-term profits: short-term thinking (just the opposite from constancy of purpose to stay in business), fed by fear of unfriendly takeover, and by push from bankers and owners for dividends.

3. Evaluation of perfor­mance, merit rating, or annual review.

4. Mobility of manage­ment; job hopping.

5. Management by use only of visible figures, with little or no consid­eration of figures that are unknown or unknow­able.

6. Excessive medical costs.

7. Excessive costs of liability, swelled by lawyers that work on contin­gency fees.

Neglecting long-range planning
Relying on technology to solve problems
Seeking examples to follow rather than developing solutions
Excuses, such as "our problems are differ­ent­"
Obsole­scence in school that management skill can be taught in classes
Reliance on quality control depart­ments rather than manage­ment, superv­isors, managers of purcha­sing, and production workers
Placing blame on workforces who are only respon­sible for 15% of mistakes where the system designed by management is respon­sible for 85% of the unintended conseq­uences
Relying on quality inspection rather than improving product quality