Deming said that the traditional organization chart was a flow chart. It
depicted a flow of blame. He advocated that organizations use his
"Production (or Service) viewed as a system" chart (which can be seen on
page 60 of _The New Economics_). (This is not the same as the PDSA.) He
writes that
"The flow diagram shown was the spark that in 1950 and onward turned Japan
around. It displayed to top management and to engineers a system of
production. The Japanese had knowledge, great knowledge, but it was in
bits and pieces, uncoordinated. This flow diagram directed their
knowledge and efforts into a system of production, geared to the market --
namely, prediction of needs of customers. The whole world knows about the
results."
When we ponder the practical application of such heady concepts as
introduced by Capra and Sheldrake, it is worth remembering that Deming got
his PhD in mathematical physics in about 1930. His flow chart depicts a
powerful and useful way to translate some of those concepts of
relationships, probability, and emergent realities into actual changes in
organizational behavior.
-- RonDavison@aol.comLearning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>