Quotes in problem solving

Why did the system allow that mistake to be made?

What? You can’t expect us to design systems that prevent mistakes from being made.

Yes I can. That is much more sensible than expecting people never to make a mistake.

Less than 5 percent result from people committing errors. Human error is a negligible source of our problems. Yet because we don't understand systems, we act as though human error were the primary cause of our problems.

The supposition is prevalent the world over that there would be no problems in production or service if only our production workers would do their jobs in the way that they were taught. Pleasant dreams. The workers are handicapped by the system, and the system belongs to the management.

A disciplined approach to problem solving moves a team from wishful thinking to new knowledge, specific countermeasures, and permanent results.

A good question for anybody in business to ask is What business are we in? To do well what we are doing-i.e., to turn out a good product, or good service, whatever it be? Yes, of course, but this is not enough. We must keep asking - What product or service would help our customers more? We must think about the future. What will we be making 5 years from now? 10 years from now?

The important thing in my view is not to pin the blame for a mistake on somebody, but rather to find out what caused the mistake.

blame the process not the person. We need to ask, "how did the process allow this to happen?"

A problem never exists in isolation; it is surrounded by other problems in space and time. The more of the context of a problem that a scientist can comprehend, the greater are his chances of finding a truly adequate solution.

Putting out fires is not improvement of the process. Neither is discovery and removal of a special cause detected by a point out of control. This only puts the process back to where it should have been in the first place.

A coach is someone who can give correction without causing resentment.