Book summary · Quality and Six Sigma · Intermediate
Out of the Crisis: summary and review
By W. Edwards Deming. First published 1986.
The short answer
Out of the Crisis is Deming's argument that most quality and productivity problems belong to management, because they come from the system managers design, not from workers. It sets out his fourteen points for management, the diseases that block them and the statistical thinking underneath both. It is long, repetitive and written for 1980s American executives, so it pays off for plant leaders who read selectively. Read it for the reasoning behind quotas, inspection and fear. Skip it if you want a method or a toolkit.
Read it if
- You set or inherit daily output targets and want the full case against managing by number alone.
- You keep hearing "Deming said" in your plant and want the source.
- You coach supervisors and need arguments about variation and blame.
Skip it if
- You need a procedure. The book argues for a change in management thinking and gives few steps to follow.
- You want a tight read. Catalogue records give roughly 450 to 520 pages, and reviewers describe a disorganized structure.
When it pays off: After a few improvement cycles, once you have seen targets, audits or rankings drive behavior nobody intended. Without floor experience the points stay abstract.
The core ideas, in plain language
- 1
Most problems belong to the system
The fourteen points are obligations of management: constancy of purpose, ending dependence on inspection, ending price-only supplier choice, training, leadership. Deming's position is that inspecting defects out does not create quality, because the process made them.
- 2
Two kinds of variation, and tampering
Common causes sit inside the system, special causes come from outside it. A control chart shows that a special cause exists but does not find it. Adjusting a stable process in response to ordinary fluctuation is tampering and tends to raise variability.
- 3
Quotas without a method
Deming called for eliminating work quotas and management by objective and substituting leadership. His alternative is to learn what the process can do and improve the process, instead of setting numbers and asking people to hit them.
- 4
Fear and ranking people
His list of seven deadly diseases includes performance evaluations, short-term profit focus and managers who keep moving jobs. Drive out fear is one of the fourteen points and, per Chapman, speaks to the flaws of merit ratings.
- 5
Operational definitions
A concept such as clean or defective means nothing until a procedure is agreed for measuring it. His sweater-blend example shows how a spec can be met while its intent is missed.
- 6
Improvement is a cycle everyone joins
Point fourteen puts everyone to work on the transformation using the Shewhart cycle, a plan, do, study, act loop that later became PDSA and PDCA.
How to use it on Monday morning
- 1
Chart one number your supervisors answer for
Pick daily output, scrap or downtime. Plot the last 20 to 30 days as a line chart with the average marked. Ask for causes only on days far from the rest, and tell supervisors ordinary ups and downs will not be questioned.
- 2
Write one operational definition
Choose a defect that causes arguments between shifts or with QA. Write what is inspected, where, with what gauge and the pass or fail rule. Have two inspectors judge the same ten parts separately. Disagreements show where the definition is vague.
- 3
Audit every posted target
List each target, quota and slogan on the floor boards. Beside each, write the method the operator has to reach it. Targets with no method go back to their owner, not to the operator.
- 4
Check for tampering on one machine
Pick a machine operators adjust after each off-target part. For a week, log adjustments beside the measurements, then check with the process engineer whether adjustments followed a real shift or added scatter.
What to be careful about
Hard to read
Michel Baudin calls the points an odd mixture of actionable items and generalities, and notes the book is not organized around them. A reviewer on milindspandit.org describes circular cross-references, names dropped mid-argument and obscuring sarcasm.
Dated, and sometimes wrong
Baudin's 2012 reread finds Deming often prophetic but occasionally off, citing his reading of the AT&T breakup. The book targets 1980s American management, and Deming later framed his thinking as a four-part System of Profound Knowledge that the points alone do not convey.
The quota point is contested
John Dyer, writing in IndustryWeek, notes that surveyed executives rank the point on eliminating quotas and management by objective at the bottom for importance and for ability to implement. Customers and cost still require dates and volumes, so do not remove targets on Monday.
Argument, not evidence
Deming reasons from examples and statistical logic. No controlled study of the fourteen points as a package turned up in the sources reviewed for this page, so treat them as hypotheses to test in your plant.
Out of the Crisis compared with The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education
Deming's later book (1993) lays out his four-part System of Profound Knowledge, the parts of which Wikipedia lists. Pick Out of the Crisis for the fourteen points, the diseases and the 1980s industrial case. Pick The New Economics for the later framework. Neither full text was read for this page.
What to read next
- Understanding Variation (Donald J. Wheeler)Turns Deming's variation argument into charts a supervisor can build and read.
- The Toyota Way (Jeffrey Liker)Baudin points to Liker's 14 principles, one chapter each, as the structure Deming's book lacks.
Same topic (quality and six sigma): Zero Quality Control, Understanding Variation, The Six Sigma Way, Lean Six Sigma.
Tools and templates on LeanSuite that go with it
- PDCA templateOne improvement cycle on a page, matching Deming's point fourteen.Open
- Control chart templateA subgroup average and range chart with limits and a reaction log, for separating special from common causes.Open
- Gage R&R study sheetTests whether two inspectors agree on the same parts, the check behind an operational definition.Open
Book details
| Title | Out of the Crisis |
|---|---|
| Author | W. Edwards Deming |
| First published | 1986. First published under this title in 1986 by the MIT Center for Advanced Engineering Study. Wikipedia and one catalogue record place an earlier edition in 1982 under the title Quality, Productivity, and Competitive Position. |
| Edition shown | Reissue, paperback (earlier MIT Press paperback: ISBN 9780262541152, 2000), The MIT Press, 2018 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0262535946 |
Details checked against public records on 7 October 2026. Other editions have other ISBNs. We carry no affiliate links.
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