Re: PDSA et al.

["John K. Balor" <balor1999@yahoo.com>]

John Dowd makes some nice comments on Taylor, but to me he seems to miss the point.  Taylor's main contribution to management theory, as I see it, is that he introduced SCIENTIFIC management, i.e. advocating the point of view that management is basically a question about making predictions.  Management is a scientific problem that must be dealt with in a scientific manner.  Taylor, Shewhart, Deming, Box and other agreed on that.  The reason Box seems more 'modern' than Taylor is because he was a disciple of Taylor, not because he was following a different kind of rationality.  Would you say that Einstein was more scientific than Newton?
   
  Some people I don't understand.  The way I see it, either we believe in science or we don't.  Either we believe in the rationality used by Taylor, Shewhart and Deming, or we don't.  Many of the TQM, ISO 9000 and Six Sigma believe in systems, variation and psychology (3 out of 4 profound principles), but they don't believe in theory.  They don't believe in science.
   
  The DEN seem to be rather split in the opinion on Scientific Management.  Some believe in Deming's 'theory of knowledge', some obviously don't.
   
  John Balor