4 ms·

I think I get it now. The point of the experiment is to ELI5 the concept of variance to management types who skipped statistics classes :) Could be useful for s

I think I get it now. The point of the experiment is to ELI5 the concept of variance to management types who skipped statistics classes :) Could be useful for some bosses I had :)

function_seven 5y ago
So I'm watching a video of this right now[0], and it's even more enlightening than I figured it would be! Deming makes comments throughout the demonstration that I swear I've heard in the real world. For example, one worker—whose previous results put him on probation (he had 12 red beads)—managed to have only 6 the next day. "Looks like probation worked". Meanwhile another worker—previously scoring 5, and getting a merit-based raise from it—did poorly with 12. The remark: "That raise went to his head. He's getting lazy". So yeah, the value of this is in the actual doing of it. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pXu0qxtWPg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pXu0qxtWPg
ignoramous 5y ago
Not just variance but also the concept of essential complexity: One cannot possibly hope to control all the variables, and so one must strive to continually seek to improve the system ("monitoring/alerting") as defects emerge ("hidden factories"), conduct experiments to evaluate predictions against actual outcomes ("a/b tests"), to not erroneously change systems and processes to fix "special-causes" [but understand that most causes of quality degradation are "commons-causes", which has to be fixed by changing systems and processes ("root-cause analysis")], to not drive down costs for the sake of it but rather seek to drive down long-term costs ("ecosystem"), to have a more humanist approach to management... among a host of other concepts. If you are curious (and have the stomach for some MBA-ness), this article (four parts) should be well worth your time: https://archive.is/tXJhw https://archive.is/tXJhw

I think I get it now. The point of the experiment is to ELI5 the concept of variance to management types who skipped statistics classes :) Could be useful for some bosses I had :)

function_seven 5y ago

So I'm watching a video of this right now[0], and it's even more enlightening than I figured it would be! Deming makes comments throughout the demonstration that I swear I've heard in the real world. For example, one worker—whose previous results put him on probation (he had 12 red beads)—managed to have only 6 the next day. "Looks like probation worked". Meanwhile another worker—previously scoring 5, and getting a merit-based raise from it—did poorly with 12. The remark: "That raise went to his head. He's getting lazy". So yeah, the value of this is in the actual doing of it. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pXu0qxtWPg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pXu0qxtWPg

ignoramous 5y ago

Not just variance but also the concept of essential complexity: One cannot possibly hope to control all the variables, and so one must strive to continually seek to improve the system ("monitoring/alerting") as defects emerge ("hidden factories"), conduct experiments to evaluate predictions against actual outcomes ("a/b tests"), to not erroneously change systems and processes to fix "special-causes" [but understand that most causes of quality degradation are "commons-causes", which has to be fixed by changing systems and processes ("root-cause analysis")], to not drive down costs for the sake of it but rather seek to drive down long-term costs ("ecosystem"), to have a more humanist approach to management... among a host of other concepts. If you are curious (and have the stomach for some MBA-ness), this article (four parts) should be well worth your time: https://archive.is/tXJhw https://archive.is/tXJhw