In 2006 I was at a presentation by a world leader in quality (WLQ) who has been singing W. Edwards Deming’s praises since the late 1980s and even does the famous red bead experiment as part of some of his plenaries.

He presented the following bar graph showing a comparison of the sum of rankings for 10 aspects of 21 counties in a small country’s healthcare system (considered on the cutting edge of quality). Lower sums are better: Minimum = 10, maximum = 210, average = 10 × 11 = 110.

He even mentioned something about “quartiles.”

My antennae went up. A bar graph? With absolutely no context of variation for interpretation? Quartiles? And a literal interpretation of the rankings? 

Envision a meeting to discuss these rankings, possibly revise them, and then decide on how to take action. We’ve all been at these types of meetings. I’m reminded of a favorite saying of Deming: “Off to the Milky Way!”

Let’s consider the process-oriented and systems-thinking approach Deming used in his red bead experiment.

I wrote the WLQ for the raw data, and he graciously complied.

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