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The above article explains the experiment but I didn't get the point of it until reading this: https://blogs.mtu.edu/improvement/2015/06/18/the-red-bead-experim

The above article explains the experiment but I didn't get the point of it until reading this: https://blogs.mtu.edu/improvement/2015/06/18/the-red-bead-experiment/ https://blogs.mtu.edu/improvement/2015/06/18/the-red-bead-ex... It seems to be that is a demonstration of the following: 1) Take a task that can only be minimally affected by skill or effort (drawing random beads) 2) Pretend it's a task that can be affected by skill or effort, leading to natural interventions like worker incentives, praise, etc. And together you get that 2) doesn't affect 1) at all. And maybe people feel bad about it afterwards. This illustrates the point that you can't just use worker incentives to optimize the system, you might need to change the system (e.g. suggest new tools). (Please correct me if this interpretation is way off). I can see why this is an important point: many managers do think it's all about employee skill and effort, and don't look at the system. But here is my criticism: I would say it's not an experiment, but instead a demonstration or even illustration. I (and many people) can easily predict the outcome of this illustration if it was just verbally described. Also, 2) not working in situation 1) dangerously should not be read to mean 2) will never work. There can be many situations where the opposite of 1) applies: where the only thing that matters is worker skill and effort, like moving bricks from one pile to another without tools (presuming that is a necessary and irreducible task). In that case 2) can be the largest lever possible.

kqr 5y ago
> There can be many situations where the opposite of 1) applies: where the only thing that matters is worker skill and effort, like moving bricks from one pile to another without tools (presuming that is a necessary and irreducible task). In that case 2) can be the largest lever possible. You're absolutely right here, of course. However, I'd argue that the "necessary and irreducible task without tools" constraint is much stricter than we see in practise anywhere in real life. In my experience, even mundane tasks like these (I grew up on a pseudo-farm for some early years of my life, so I have seen plenty of variations of the moving-bricks task) can be optimised to the point of near elimination if performed in a system that encourages thinking. When comparing the two neighbouring pseudo-farms where I grew up, you could easily see one operated with much higher efficiency than the other even when they had roughly the same moving-brick-like tasks to perform.
- metacritic12 5y ago
  Sure -- that's fair enough, very few real world tasks are actually irreducible. (When I first wrote my comment, I wrote just "moving bricks" but then realized that Deming was right after all: you could move bricks with tools =).)
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gfxgirl 5y ago
Well, let's apply it to tech. I know lots of people getting praised for their work and others not, but they didn't get to choose their work, it was assigned. So, some got sexy/glamorous tasks, some got maintenance tasks, some ran into very hard to diagnose existing bugs that took weeks to solve while others didn't so their velocity looks higher. Others got assigned tasks that appeared simple but had rippling effects that made the task 10x larger than it appear. this meant it looked like they accomplished less since the only thing they're being judged on is did they finish this original task that was perceived as simple. And then, managers give praise or encouragement to do better, all based on those issues. Note: I'm not saying some employees don't have more skills than others, only that the things out of an employee's control seem similar to the Deming red bead experiment.

kqr 5y ago

> There can be many situations where the opposite of 1) applies: where the only thing that matters is worker skill and effort, like moving bricks from one pile to another without tools (presuming that is a necessary and irreducible task). In that case 2) can be the largest lever possible. You're absolutely right here, of course. However, I'd argue that the "necessary and irreducible task without tools" constraint is much stricter than we see in practise anywhere in real life. In my experience, even mundane tasks like these (I grew up on a pseudo-farm for some early years of my life, so I have seen plenty of variations of the moving-bricks task) can be optimised to the point of near elimination if performed in a system that encourages thinking. When comparing the two neighbouring pseudo-farms where I grew up, you could easily see one operated with much higher efficiency than the other even when they had roughly the same moving-brick-like tasks to perform.

metacritic12 5y ago
Sure -- that's fair enough, very few real world tasks are actually irreducible. (When I first wrote my comment, I wrote just "moving bricks" but then realized that Deming was right after all: you could move bricks with tools =).)

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gfxgirl 5y ago

Well, let's apply it to tech. I know lots of people getting praised for their work and others not, but they didn't get to choose their work, it was assigned. So, some got sexy/glamorous tasks, some got maintenance tasks, some ran into very hard to diagnose existing bugs that took weeks to solve while others didn't so their velocity looks higher. Others got assigned tasks that appeared simple but had rippling effects that made the task 10x larger than it appear. this meant it looked like they accomplished less since the only thing they're being judged on is did they finish this original task that was perceived as simple. And then, managers give praise or encouragement to do better, all based on those issues. Note: I'm not saying some employees don't have more skills than others, only that the things out of an employee's control seem similar to the Deming red bead experiment.