Another loss of data relating to children was reported today. The spokesman for the council involved expressed his dismay that procedures had been flouted. That word again – though to be fair he was taking a much more measured & sensible view than some ministers we have heard reacting to similar disappointments
When procedures keep failing to produce results of the required quality, it is time to think hard about what we are doing & how we are trying to do it
We could do worse than revisit Deming – the American physicist turned statistician who is credited with having transformed Japanese industry after WW II by his teaching of quality control methods
By coincidence I found a copy of his 2 basic lists of principles - The Fourteen Admonitions & The Seven Deadly Diseases - on a website devoted to software project management!
Government ministers in particular might ponder 5 of the 14 Admonitions:
1 Create constancy of purpose
8 Drive out fear
10 Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the workforce.
11 Eliminate numerical quotas
12 Remove barriers to pride of workmanship
When Ed Balls says in Parliament we will hold people to account he is not helping to engender the circumstances needed to produce quality outcomes.
In effect he is just blaming the servants again
