Deming’s 14 Points for Total Quality Management (TQM)

1. “Constancy of Purpose” towards Product and Service Improvement

Deming believed that remaining competitive in the market required “constancy of purpose”
towards quality. He saw this, not as a short-term commitment or a luxury, but as a long-term
philosophy that would ensure business survival. When considering Deming’s 14 points, it’s
important to remember that this one is about planning for long-term delivery of quality.

Reactive, short-term solutions can only have a short-term effect. According to Deming, a more
farsighted approach is needed. Doing the same things better is all very well, but Deming believed
that businesses should also innovate, conduct research, and continually improve product design.
Most importantly of all, he reminds businesses that the results of their activities are for the
benefit of the customer, and therefore, the customer’s needs should come first when making
business decisions. After all, without customers, no business can survive.
Since customer needs change over time, it’s up to businesses to prepare for new challenges, and
whatever we do, the goal of continually doing it better should be foremost in our minds.

2. Adopt a New Philosophy

Producing quality requires much more than lip-service. The constancy of purpose must be
supported by a buy-in to quality that runs right through the organization. Achieving this requires
more than traditional management. It requires leadership. That means that staff should be
inspired to support quality rather than needing to be forced to do so.
In other words, Deming’s 14 points support building a culture of quality with a commitment
from every person in your business. At the time, Deming predicted that moving from a
traditional management focus to a leadership focus would be a change in the way we do
business. Just as we have a vision for the future of our businesses, we should have a vision for
the quality we want to deliver. Once this is in place, we can strategize so that we can realize our
vision. Reactive changes made because of competitive pressure don’t necessarily result in
improvements that put the customer first. Deming encourages us to treat quality management as
a strategic priority that leads to the fulfillment of customer needs.
Deming suggested practical interventions including proper training for staff, full management
support when help is needed, proper supervision, and planning for management continuity.
3. Build Quality In – You Can’t Inspect it In
Deming wasn’t impressed by the idea of after-the-fact quality control. He encouraged businesses
to stop depending on inspections to get quality. He pointed out that inspections can miss defects,
that they are costly, and that they don’t improve quality because all they can do is find poor
quality.
Instead, he recommended building quality into every process a business undertakes. Finding
faults may prevent harm to a business, but it’s not good enough. Instead, we should track them
down and change processes so that similar faults can’t happen ever again.
Those of us who aren’t fond of math might balk at Deming’s insistence on using statistical
controls on processes and not only physical ones, but numbers don’t lie. If you aren’t that keen
on learning how to generate valid statistics, don’t worry. Smart software can do the number-
crunching for you; Tallyfy’s built-in analytics are an example of this.

What are you aiming for will all this? We can sum it up by saying that improving processes to
eliminate errors is far better and less costly than trying to correct errors after they have already
occurred.
4. Use Single Suppliers for Any Item
How often have you heard that a supplier is to blame for poor quality? Perhaps you’ve
experienced it yourself. You found a cheaper supplier only to find that the quality or reliability of
the materials or services you received was lacking. You can blame your suppliers all you like,
but at the end of the day, it’s your business’s reputation that suffers.

Deming points out that the relationship between a business and its suppliers should be a mutually
beneficial one. The business should be willing to pay more for quality. When this happens, the
supplier can meet the business’s needs because it has the resources to do so. Nobody is trying to
drive prices down while still expecting the best for less.
Instead, Deming suggests that businesses should build long-term relationships with suppliers.
Focus on one supplier for each input, and there is greater motivation for the supplier to meet your
business’s needs and even go the extra mile.
You can also expect greater consistency. Perhaps there will still be variations in supply that you
need to deal with, but the more suppliers you work with, the more variation there will be and the
harder it will be to manage quality.

Suppliers can become part of your never-ending drive towards improvement, but to do so, there
must be a stable relationship characterized by trust.
5. Improve Processes Constantly. Improve Them Forever
In this point, Deming encourages businesses to continuously analyze and improve the way they
perform processes. He points out that by improving productivity and training its staff so that
they’re able to deliver their best, a business also improves its profits.
For many busy managers and business owners, this may seem like a daunting prospect. Just
when you thought everything was perfect, it turns out that something could be done better. The
temptation to adopt a short-term fix is great. But Deming points out that we can fix flaws in our
business processes permanently. Once we’ve done that, we can move on to the next process
improvement secure in the knowledge that the last issue we uncovered won’t be a problem ever
again.
Back in the eighties, it would probably have been very difficult for businesses, especially small
ones, to constantly keep tabs on every process. Today, Business Process Management software
makes your task a whole lot easier. And when you need to tweak a process, doing so is as simple
as editing the business process you set up. The workflow automatically adjusts to the change.
6. Use On-The-Job Training
As business people, we’re inclined to view training as being costly. Apart from the expense of
sending people on courses, there’s the productive time lost while they return. And unless you
choose the training carefully, you aren’t necessarily going to get tangible results from it.

Deming’s 14 points return to the training theme on several occasions, but his emphasis is on-the-
job training. The aim of training should be quality improvement, and that means reducing
variation and getting consistent, predictable results.

You also don’t want all the knowledge of a process, or even part of it, to rest with only one or
two people. If you do so, your business is at risk. Deming encourages knowledge-sharing, and he
exhorts managers to let their staff see how they fit into a process rather than just giving them
work to do.
In practice, there are several ways we can do this, beginning with the employee onboarding
process. If people know where they fit into a team, and how the team’s results depend on their
work, they are far more likely to care about the results they achieve.

The concept of training extends to management. Although you don’t need to know all the details
of how to do every job, you do need to understand what people do, and what obstacles to quality
your team members face. Armed with this knowledge, you can work to eliminate obstacles to
quality.
7. Use Leadership Skill
According to Deming, managers and supervisors should focus on leadership rather than the
traditional management style that calls for tight supervision and a very formal organizational
structure.
Instead, Deming encourages understanding, collaboration, and a coaching approach to
management. You will always need a certain level of supervision in a business, but working to
help people deliver their best is more effective than taking punitive action when you don’t see
the results you wanted.
A well-lead team will do more than just keep their heads down and work. They become part of
your quality management team. They ask for help, make suggestions, and point out stumbling-
blocks you may not have noticed.
Setting and meeting targets and quotas is all very well, but is your team meeting its potential? As
a leader, you empower them to do so. You don’t just talk and expect others to “do,” you listen,
you understand, and you act. You create an environment in which people can realize their
potential. You motivate them to want to do their best, and they deliver their best.
8. Drive out Fear
Were you ever a junior employee who was scared of the boss? Perhaps you had a teacher at
school who terrified you. Could you deliver your best under these conditions?
There were probably times when you had questions you were too afraid to ask and opinions you
kept to yourself. And the more that boss or teacher reacted to your mistakes, the more mistakes
you made. Then you’d try to cover up those mistakes, hoping against hope that they wouldn’t be
picked up. That’s what fear does. Fear is not conducive to quality.
You, your managers, and your supervisors need to share an understanding of the need to drive
out fear. Your employees should feel free to report problems, own up to their mistakes without
being asked about them first, and know that you’re there to make things better without resorting
to punitive measures.
As a manager, always address the problem, not the person. Work with employees to find
solutions, and share your quality goals so that they know what you’re trying to achieve.
Remember, some of your best quality and process improvement suggestions come from the
coalface – but if you don’t have open lines of communication, you’re never going to hear those
suggestions.

9. Break Down the Barriers Between Departments

When people work as a team, they can achieve more than they would on their own. Although
your company will have departments, they can’t work in isolation. If product designers never
work with production, and if production doesn’t work with sales, your organization is never
going to reach its potential.
True, your designer isn’t about to become a salesperson, but without input from the product’s
designer, your salesperson won’t be able to sell effectively.
What are the product’s special features? How do they meet customer needs? And since your
sales team is in direct contact with customers all day, every day, shouldn’t product designers talk
to the sales team before they even begin work on a new product design?
Meanwhile, the production also needs to be part of the loop. Does the production team foresee
any problems in producing the new design? By working together, departments can spot possible
problems and eliminate them before they ever occur.
Deming recommends that departments recognize, communicate with, and serve the departments
that are the “clients” of their work as well as keeping end-users of products or services in mind.
10. Ditch Slogans and Communicate With Individuals
Slogans sound so nifty, but do they have any real effect? “We put the customer first” is a typical
example. It sounds great, but what is its practical meaning? How does it apply to every worker in
your internal value chain?
How about “Let’s try harder”? If you’re already doing your level best, you aren’t going to be
happy about being told to make some mysterious change to the way you work.

Deming is alive to the resentments that generalized catch-phrases and exhortations to ever better
performance can cause. He points out that any productivity or quality problems you face won’t
be fixed with a slogan. Instead, you need to look into business process improvement. If your
processes work well, then your business is already delivering good quality and working
productively.
We also can’t expect generalized goals to become personal ones. Deming recommends setting
individualized goals for every person, and along with the new goals, there needs to be a roadmap
that shows them how to achieve them.
Simply put, reducing defects means finding out where they occur and how the process allows
them to occur. Increasing productivity means identifying obstacles to productivity and removing
them. Use tools like Fishbone Diagrams to help you get down to root causes before you suggest
solutions.
11. Quotas are Incompatible With Quality in Production
It’s true that you need to have some numerical targets, but for too many companies, setting a
quota becomes a replacement for good leadership. In Deming’s opinion, high production targets
make quality suffer. For instance, if you are production line worker and you get paid per piece,
you will finish as many pieces as possible. You are working as fast as you can, but are you
working as well as you can?
Again, Deming urges us to focus on processes. A well-designed process should deliver the
results we want. If it doesn’t, then the process needs attention. He reminds us that good
leadership will encourage people to feel proud of their work. They already want to perform well.
It’s up to management to create an environment in which they can do so.
numerical target, are you encouraging people to take shortcuts that will affect quality? What
behavior would you prefer to motivate? Remember, what you measure is what you get.
Finally, if you want to set a numerical goal, be very sure you know how your business can reach
it. Without a plan and a method, numbers are meaningless.
12. Remove Barriers that Prevent Teams From Feeling Proud of Their Work
Deming believed that taking pride in one’s work is essential to quality and process improvement.
You’ve probably experienced this yourself. When you love what you do, you do it better, and
you feel good about the results. But if people are constantly criticising you and comparing you to
others, you stop enjoying what you previously loved.
It’s natural that some workers will acquire skills faster than others, and it’s natural that they will
get better results than their counterparts. While it’s great to recognize achievements, the rest of
the team should never feel judged or be made to feel that they are valued less than others are.
Deming says that the quality system will ultimately get everyone working according to the same
standard.
Deming makes a tough call on managers. As a leader, your job is to help other people do their
jobs by creating systems that work. If someone falls outside of the system, you have to correct
that, but if they’re working inside the system, you need to work with them to figure out where
the system fails.
13. Encourage Education and Self-Improvement
While Deming talks about on-the-job training first, he also advocates personal growth through
continued education. When people are learning things that are relevant to their jobs or your
business, their skills improve, and they are better able to face the challenges your business faces
in the present and the future.
Just as exercise makes a body more agile, education helps us to improve our thinking
processesThe better the quality of the skills-sets your business has its disposal, says Deming, the
better the overall product and service quality you can deliver.
14. Make Transformation Everybody’s Job
Dr. Deming points out that if you want to improve quality or productivity, you need to look to
your systems rather than your people. But when it comes to finding solutions, he advocates
getting as much input as possible from the people who carry out the process.
Finally, when the time comes to implement change, your team is ready to make it happen.
Perhaps members will spot a few extras that could work better, and they won’t be afraid to share
their observations. You now have the beginnings of a culture of excellence where improvement
is ongoing, and the sky’s the limit!
Putting Deming’s 14 Points Into Action
Deming doesn’t go into detail about how to effect change, but his philosophies have had a
profound influence on the world of business. From a practical perspective, using Deming’s 14
points as an overarching philosophy will result in change – and it will be a change for the better.
With modern workflow software like Tallyfy at our fingertips, implementing the process changes
that stem from adopting Deming’s thinking becomes easier. There’s no need for staff to
remember every change and every tweak when they receive full instructions for process tasks
through Tallyfy. And when you and your team decides that this or that detail could work more
efficiently, making the change part of the way you always work is as simple as changing,
removing, or adjusting a process step.