I’ve been involved in an online discussion about Deming’s model for creating knowledge (aka continuous improvement) called PDSA. Most correspondents have argued that PDSA is just another version of the “scientific method”.
PDSA is not the scientific method and for good reason. The scientific method is a ball and chain view of the world that is killing us!
The paradigm of the scientific method (hereafter “SM”) supposes us pulling back of the curtain on the nature of a reality, asserting that we are or can be external observers. Even when we accept that our faculties of observation—our senses and senses extended by means of technology—are limited and imperfect, SM continues to insist that the world out there and our observation of it are separate.
As I surfed the web for some definitive rendering of SM, I came across many versions, but all boiled down to the following:
1. Make an OBSERVATION—>
2. Formulate a tentative explanation (hypothesis)—>
3. Design a plan for testing the hypothesis—>
4. Run the test under conditions of control and gather data—->
5. Use the data to decide if there is evidence in support of the hypothesis or reject the hypothesis.
We can add a 6th step not usually included…
8. If the hypothesis is supported, conditionally accept it and build upon it by using it to explain other observations (generalizing it) and exploiting it as technology**.
** By technology we mean not just machines and equipment but also organizational schemes “scientifically” designed or order to serve some purposes. (Our educational “system” is a good example.)
Plan-Do-Study-Act
Now let’s compare SM with PDSA, with particular attention to the first stage, not typically included in the PDSA diagram.
1. Determine what our AIMS are. What future are we trying to create? What’s RIGHT?
2. Devise a PLAN by which we believe that future can be pursued. Include in that plan a method for evaluating the efficacy of our plan by means of observation and measurement.
3. DO your plan as faithfully as possible even if, in process, we discover weaknesses in the plan. The aim is to test the efficacy of the plan and not to achieve the plan’s desired outcomes.
4. STUDY what the performance of the plan has created. Outcomes will never be identical with those predicted. Does the planned process show evidence of control? What is the nature of variation produced by the planned process and in its outcomes. Does the planned process serve the aims for which it was devised. Does it do useful and desirable work, the product of which varies within acceptable limits? What is the nature of unanticipated outcomes—useful, useless or dangerous?
5. Act to improve by revising one or more or all of the elements. Are the AIMS still RIGHT? Does the PLAN show promise in terms of aims? Is the plan DOable as formulated from the standpoint of practice? Are the methods used for STUDY valid, reliable, and doable and can they be improved?
6. If the plan works, predictably within acceptable limits , put it to use, keep track of what it is doing and improve it continuously.
The challenge that guides the process of PDSA is not to explain the true world but to DO RIGHT THINGS (our aims) as right as possible within the context of our worldly circumstances. So SM and PDSA are altogether different enterprises.
In SM we construct an edifice that sets the boundary conditions under which we can operate–the scientific laws of nature dispassionately observed and verified.
In PDSA we start with our passionate aims and intentions—the RIGHT things that need doing—and proceed to construct methods for pursuing our aims by systematically evaluating and improving our designs to enhance their efficacy in terms of our aims. It can be argued that SM is actually PDSA performed by practitioners cloaked the guise of objectivity. Their aims are there but hidden from others, and often from themselves in the form of unexamined assumptions about what is useful and what is right. Recommended reading: The Truth Wears Off“.
In summary, SM sees us as observers outside the process while PDSA puts us squarely in the middle of the WHOLE thing. Which method is more useful? Is it the one that constrains us based on our imperfect and fallible ability to dispassionately decode the world’s true nature? Or is it the one that frees us to construct and improve useful workable methods that serve our long term aims?
“It’s fear of the unknown. The unknown is what it is. And to be frightened of it is what sends everybody scurrying around chasing dreams, illusions, wars, peace, love, hate, all that—-it’s all illusion. Unknown is what it is. Accept that it’s unknown and it’s plain sailing. Everything is unknown—-then you’re ahead of the game. That’s what it is. Right?”
It don’t mean thing if it ain’t got that swing
Some interesting commentary ensued on the subject of the narrative act and the role of rhythm, resulting in my writing the following short essay that I think succinctly captures my take on the nature of human consciousness and a philosophy that flows from that understanding. Continue reading →