Concepts Index
~ 5 min reading
This page is a map, not a dictionary. It exists for readers who have just found this course from a search engine — searching for something like “Deming 14 points” or “what is the funnel experiment” — and want a quick answer to “does this course cover that, and where?” Each entry below is a one-line orientation, not a full definition; providing the definition is the course’s job, not this page’s.
That’s a deliberate contrast with the Glossary, which defines the small number of terms a reader needs to hold in mind to follow Neave’s argument, at the point they first meet them in the course. The glossary is capped at around ten terms on purpose — see docs/glossary-audit.md for why — because a glossary entry for every term the course introduces would invite you to look the term up instead of reading the chapter that teaches it. This index doesn’t have that problem, because it doesn’t try to teach you anything either: it just points. Where a concept below is also one of the glossary’s seven terms, the link goes to the same place the glossary links to, and is marked accordingly.
The 23 concepts are listed in roughly the order the course introduces them, Day 1 through Day 12.
The System of Profound Knowledge
Deming’s four interlinked areas of knowledge — appreciation for a system, understanding variation, theory of knowledge, and psychology — that together make up his whole approach to management.
Taught in: Day 1, “The Deming Story” (also in the Glossary).
The chain reaction
Deming’s argument that improving quality lowers costs, which captures market share, which keeps the business in operation and creates more jobs — the opposite of the belief that quality costs more.
Taught in: Day 1, “The Deming Story”.
Common-cause variation
Variation built into a process by its own design and operation — always present until the process itself is changed.
Taught in: Day 1, “The Deming Story” (also in the Glossary).
Special-cause variation
A one-off or temporary influence on a process, distinct from its everyday common-cause variation — what Shewhart called an “assignable” cause.
Taught in: Day 1, “The Deming Story” (also in the Glossary).
Statistical control
A process whose variation is stable and predictable over time, as opposed to one being disturbed by special causes.
Taught in: Day 1, “The Deming Story” (also in the Glossary).
The PDSA cycle
Plan-Do-Study-Act: Deming’s iterative cycle for improvement, which he always called the Shewhart Cycle.
Taught in: Day 1, “The Deming Story” (also in the Glossary).
The Red Bead Experiment
Deming’s live demonstration in which workers are “blamed” for producing red beads that are actually pure common-cause variation of the process they’re trapped in.
Taught in: Day 2, “Introduction to the Red Beads Experiment”.
Run charts
A simple plot of a measurement over time — the starting point for seeing whether what looks like a trend is really just noise.
Taught in: Day 2, “Run Charts”.
Control charts
Shewhart’s chart for separating common-cause variation from special-cause variation, using calculated control limits rather than gut feeling.
Taught in: Day 2, “Our First Control Chart”.
The Funnel Experiment
A simulation showing that adjusting a stable process in reaction to its normal variation — rather than leaving it alone — makes performance worse, not better.
Taught in: Day 3, “Introduction to the Funnel Experiment”.
Tampering
Reacting to ordinary common-cause variation as though it were a special cause — the mistake the Funnel Experiment exists to make visible.
Taught in: Day 3, “The First Two Rules of the Funnel”.
The Joiner Triangle
A three-cornered summary of the Deming philosophy — Obsession With Quality, All One Team, and Scientific Approach — used throughout this course as an organising framework.
Taught in: Day 4, “The Joiner Triangle”.
The 14 Points
Deming’s fourteen management obligations for transformation, from “constancy of purpose” to “put everybody to work on it”.
Taught in: Day 4, “Points 1 to 6”.
The Deadly Diseases
Deming’s short list of deep-rooted management practices — short-term thinking, judgmental performance appraisal among them — that block transformation.
Taught in: Day 5, “The Deadly Diseases”.
Numerical targets
Deming’s objection to arbitrary quotas and goals set without a method for reaching them — a target is not a plan.
Taught in: Day 5, “Points 7 to 14” (Point 11).
Performance appraisal
Deming’s case against judgmental, ranking-based appraisal — one of the Deadly Diseases, and one of the course’s most contested topics.
Taught in: Day 5, “The Deadly Diseases” (Disease 3).
Joy in work
The natural satisfaction Deming believed every worker is entitled to, and that most management systems inadvertently destroy.
Taught in: Day 8, “Joy in Work”.
Win-win cooperation
Deming’s alternative to internal competition — arranging work so that everyone involved can gain, rather than one party’s gain being another’s loss.
Taught in: Day 8, “Cooperation: Win-Win”.
Appreciation for a system
Understanding an organisation as a network of interdependent parts working toward a shared aim, rather than a collection of parts optimised separately.
Taught in: Day 10, “Appreciation for a System”.
Theory of knowledge
Deming’s third area of profound knowledge: how prediction, theory, and learning from experience relate to each other.
Taught in: Day 11, “Part C: Theory of Knowledge”.
Operational definitions
A definition precise enough that everyone measuring or judging the same thing gets the same answer — “communicable meaning”, in Deming’s words.
Taught in: Day 11, “Theory of Knowledge — Operational Definitions” (also in the Glossary).
Psychology and intrinsic motivation
Deming’s fourth area of profound knowledge: how people are naturally motivated from within, and how management practices often crush that motivation.
Taught in: Day 11, “Part D: Knowledge of Psychology”.
Transformation
The discontinuous shift in thinking Deming believed follows from understanding the System of Profound Knowledge — a change in how you see, not just what you do.
Taught in: Day 12, “But What Can I Do?” (also in the Glossary).