Talk:W. Edwards Deming

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 * Benchmarking is the last stage of civilization.
 * If you can't describe what you are doing as a process, you don't know what you're doing.
 * In God we trust, all others bring data.
 * Innovation comes from freedom. It comes from those who are obligated to no one. It comes from people who are responsible only to themselves.
 * ISO 9000 shows a lack of brains.
 * It is important that an aim never be defined in terms of activity or methods. It must always relate directly to how life is better for everyone. . . . The aim of the system must be clear to everyone in the system. The aim must include plans for the future. The aim is a value judgment.
 * There is a penalty for ignorance. We are paying through the nose.
 * What we need to do is learn to work in the system, by which I mean that everybody, every team, every platform, every division, every component is there not for individual competitive profit or recognition, but for contribution to the system as a whole on a win-win basis.
 * Zero defects, down the tubes we go.
 * If you do not know how to ask the right question, you discover nothing.
 * The emphasis should be on why we do a job.
 * It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.
 * We should work on our process, not the outcome of our processes.
 * Rational behavior requires theory. Reactive behavior requires only reflex action.
 * Innovation comes from the producer -- not from the customer.
 * It does not happen all at once. There is no instant pudding.
 * If you stay in this world, you will never learn another one.
 * Does experience help? NO! Not if we are doing the wrong things.
 * We are here to make another world.
 * Lack of knowledge... that is the problem.
 * Whenever there is fear, you will get wrong figures.
 * There must be consistency in direction.
 * Hold everybody accountable? Ridiculous!
 * Choice of aim is clearly a matter of clarification of values, especially on the choice between possible options.
 * We must understand variation.
 * You can not define being exactly on time.
 * You should not ask questions without knowledge.
 * When a system is stable, telling the worker about mistakes is only tampering.