The whole category in one page.
QUALITY IS MEETING THE REQUIREMENT CONSISTENTLY, NOT BEING ELABORATE OR EXPENSIVE
Occasional excellence with frequent failure is worse than reliable adequacy, and the cost of prevention is almost always below the cost of failure.
WHEN SOMETHING GOES WRONG, ASK WHAT ALLOWED IT — NOT WHO DID IT
Asking who ends honest reporting immediately, and honest reporting is how you find problems before customers do. Human error is never the end of the chain.
MOST DEFECTS ORIGINATE WHERE WORK PASSES BETWEEN PEOPLE
Define what the receiving person checks, because handovers are where responsibility blurs.
IMPROVEMENTS THAT DEPEND ON PEOPLE BEING MORE CAREFUL DO NOT LAST
Change the process so the old way is difficult. Defaults, required fields and checklists work; exhortation and training alone do not.
IN MOST PROCESSES, WORK SPENDS FAR MORE TIME WAITING THAN BEING WORKED ON
The largest improvements come from removing waiting and approval steps that are never refused, not from working faster.
REACTING TO NORMAL VARIATION MAKES THINGS WORSE
Plot measures over time and look at the pattern. Adjusting a stable process in response to weekly fluctuation increases variation and demoralises people.
KEEP CHECKLISTS SHORT ENOUGH TO BE READ, BECAUSE LONG ONES ARE COMPLETED WITHOUT READING
NEVER MEASURE PEOPLE RATHER THAN PROCESSES, OR ERRORS SIMPLY STOP BEING REPORTED
AND VERIFY THAT CORRECTIVE ACTIONS ACTUALLY WORKED, BECAUSE MOST SYSTEMS RECORD FIXES AND NEVER CHECK THEM
