[rstuart4133]

I identify as software engineer that works with software, processes and a little bit of machines and maths, but have also run a few business in partnership with others.

Years ago in an effort at self improvement I did a postgrad course on software quality. Studying what Deming has to say was a big part of it. Turns out it is not so easy to apply it to engineering (as opposed to manufacturing what the engineers designed), and the ham fisted approaches the postgrad course was promoting at the time (like CMM) didn't look promising, and with the benefit of 20 years hindsight now look farcical.

Nonetheless, his dogma of extracting statistically valid measures of processes, propagating those through the organisation so harvesting everyone's ideas on how to improve them struck a deep cord, and it's something that I've tried to apply ever since. I've been exposed to other MBA related ideas, but that is the only one that ever made sense to me.

It's a pity it's so damned hard to apply to software engineering. It has one one notable effect - I'm now seen by my co-workers as near obsessive about collecting and monitoring failure rates - whether they be bugs or things like people reporting software being difficult to use.