- Edward Deming taught Japanese business leaders about quality management in the 1950s, emphasizing that quality must be a top priority led by senior management. - Following Deming's teachings, Japanese companies flourished internationally by focusing on high quality, outcompeting American firms that prioritized quantity over quality. - Deming's 14 Points for management transformation centered on continuous improvement, cooperation across departments, and making quality everyone's responsibility. These principles can guide IT organizations to build quality into systems from the start.

1. Ref. Patric P., 2014 - wwwdotleantechnologytransformationdotblogspotdotcom
The KAIZEN Institute Experts Owner, 2014 www.linkedin.com/groups/KAIZEN-Institute-Experts-4410060
Lean Transformation for Technology
Who is Responsible for Quality in IT (Or Any Department)?
When Edward Deming, the Grandfather of Quality, taught his methods to the Japanese in the 1950's, he
was working with a group that had historically been known for poor quality. Invited by the Japanese
Union of Scientists and Engineers to assist Japan in their post-war reconstruction efforts, Deming
taught Japanese management, scholars and engineers to focus on quality in order to produce world-
class results and become competitive in world markets.
Japanese Leadership
During his early lectures, Deming quickly realized that quality cannot be sustained unless an
organization’s
leadership focuses on its importance. Initially, he lectured plant managers and engineers who had no
authority to implement change. When Deming consulted with his Japanese hosts, they understood the
problem and arranged for him to speak to about 100 top-level business leaders.
Deming instilled in these leaders a sense of responsibility for quality in their organizations. He
maintained that, ultimately, quality is created in the boardroom and is the responsibility of top
management. With senior management supporting quality efforts, the Japanese companies and
economy would flourish.
Japanese Success
Deming predicted that Japanese companies would export their products all over the world and
companies in other countries would be clamoring for trade protection from the Japanese within five
years if they followed his recommendations for improving quality. Although the Japanese business
leaders did not initially share his vision, they did as he instructed so they would not lose face. Japan
surprised the world with their success and even beat Deming’s prediction by a year.
You probably know the rest of the story regarding Japan's success and what American organizations had
and still have to do to catch up with Japanese firms. American firms confused quantity with quality.
Demand for American goods was so high in the 50's and 60's the American manufacturing companies
assumed this translated to quality for the customer.
However, this misconception was created from the great economies of scale available to American
companies due to the war engine. At the time, the United States was the only country in the world
which could produce at levels necessary to meet demand. As soon as Japan could both meet demand
and offer higher quality, American companies fell behind in world markets.
Putting Out Fires

2. Ref. Patric P., 2014 - wwwdotleantechnologytransformationdotblogspotdotcom
The KAIZEN Institute Experts Owner, 2014 www.linkedin.com/groups/KAIZEN-Institute-Experts-4410060
I have found that many IT organizations function similarly to the manufacturing model that existed
before Deming’s quality movement. They judge the quality of their product, IT services, by the
demand for that product.
For example, when a system goes down and IT team members scramble to get it working again,
companies reward this behavior by praising the heroes who got up in the middle of the night to fix the
issue. These individuals are suddenly visible and valuable. They are motivated to continue putting out
fires rather than to improve system stability. The incentive to become system arsonists is greater than
the motivation to create quality systems.
Continuous improvement is a hard sell for some IT professionals because doing a quality job means
nobody notices IT. The better the systems run, the fewer chances there are for heroics. A quality IT
group is almost invisible.
Deming’s 14 Points
Below are Deming’s 14 points for management transformation. They were originally published in Out of
the Crisis by W. Edwards Deming.
Although the 14 points were written for a manufacturing scenario, try to translate the
recommendations into ideas for an IT team. Following these points in your IT group can help you focus
on making quality everyone's responsibility.
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. 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.
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.
a. Eliminate work standards (quotas) on the factory floor. Substitute leadership.

3. Ref. Patric P., 2014 - wwwdotleantechnologytransformationdotblogspotdotcom
The KAIZEN Institute Experts Owner, 2014 www.linkedin.com/groups/KAIZEN-Institute-Experts-4410060
b. 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 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.
Deming’s 14 points transformed manufacturing into a quality-focused delivery system. The same
benefits can be realized in IT, creating continuous improvement in IT processes and products. When
quality is built into your IT systems you can increase the value of your department to the business,
decrease time spent on downtime and reduce the load on team members who have to fix problems
caused by a lack of quality.
The Journey Toward Quality
I realize I am not giving much in the way of suggestions for translating the 14 points into action but I
would encourage you to study how you can facilitate making quality core to your business.
All the excuses you will hear from your team about why these 14 points won’t work in IT are probably
the
same excuses manufacturers made before they made the shift to quality. The arguments have already
been made and overcome and the benefits of following the 14 points have been clearly demonstrated.
If you haven’t started the journey toward increased quality excellence and would like help (e.g., as the
IEC/ISO 20000 its principles and practice) feel free to reach out to us, or you can link to the noted
Group, I can help you directions to start. Good luck!