MeasurementBlog

For those of you who do not know Dilbert, you have been missing some of the wittiest and most humorous satire about American organization work life and technology ever published. It is the creation of Scott Adams, a talented observer and cartoonist.

His website is an easy one to remember: Dilbert.com. Plus he has a regular blog that echoes many of his observations at dilbert.com/blog/ that you can visit by CLICKING HERE.

It is loved by most hard-working nerds and underlings who work in large organizations, especially those who work for poor and or uncaring bosses. Many have survived such experiences, but few forget them.

It is a part-time model for symptoms of idiocy in corporate life in far too many organizations in the USA, and doubtless elsewhere now with Globalization. Too many people identify regularly with certain Dilbert themes and situations! Adams has a limitless wealth of situations available!

Scott Adams has written (The Dilbert Philosophy) that he gets many emails and letters describing work experiences that seem almost too bizarre to believe.

We have put a link to his daily revelations on the right side of the page: CLICK HERE TO VISIT IT.

Scott Adams’ concept for Dilbert is based on the premise that we are all idiots at some time, but that organizations, particularly corporations, are prone to promoting unqualified people into the ranks of management, simply because they can’t do anything else well.

The problem then gets compounded by “idiots” being in charge and doing idiotic things, like having unrealistic expectations of their underlings, treating them very poorly (disrespect is too weak a term) and making earth-shatteringly stupid decisions.

Of course, the idiots in charge do not know when the underlings are doing things well or poorly. And since many bosses are incapable of understanding technology, the underlings get revenge at every opportunity.

It is so close to some reality that it is scary at times; almost prophetic. (The cartoon above illustrates a situation very close to one I experienced while working for a Fortune 100 firm, for example! It was not chosen at random)

Deming, on the other hand is a real person, Dr. W. Edwards Deming, who passed on a few years ago. However the strength of his ideas was so pursuasive, that they are being carried on by several groups that strongly believe in them.

Deming was among the leaders in creating a philosophy of management based on reason and rationality. It stemmed from his work with the Japanese after World War II and subsequent work with organizations and corporations in the USA.

So, Dilbert is my model for irrational management, especially in relation to measurement. While the extreme opposite, Deming, is the rational, studied and realistic model for exceptional management and measurement. In fact, rational management is based on measurement of the things that matter, at least that’s what I believe.

I’ll do a separate little story later on Deming and the Deming-like methods that go by many other names these days. Some of the other terms related to his philosophies you have probably heard, like: Quality Assurance, Statistical Process Control, Six-Sigma, SPQ, and in the case of measurement devices, Measurement Device Control.

Deming actually is one of the few that went far beyond the mechanics of statistics and process control, he also addressed the human conditions involved in management of an enterprise.

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