Curious Cat Management Improvement Library - Dictionary

Red Bead Experiment - learning tool made famous by Dr. W. Edwards Deming in his 4 day seminars. The tool helps illustrate that managers can often tamper rather than manage when they act without understanding the systems they manage. The tool can be used to help managers see that they may make silly demands of the people in their organizations. This has often helped open managers minds to why they should learn about the Deming's management theories.
See the online resources below for a great deal of valuable information.

A DVD of Dr. Deming performing the red bead experiment along with an analysis of what managers can learn from the experiment is available from the W. Edwads Deming Institute. A Video of Dr. Deming running the Red Bead Experiment is also available from ManagementWisdom.com (tape 7).

• Variation including special cause, common cause and structural.
• Tampering
• Control Chart

• Red Bead Experiment summary by James R. Martin.
• Lessons Learned from the Red Bead Experiment (in Word format) by Steven S. Prevette.
• A Script for Dr. Deming's Red Bead Experiment by Steven S Prevette, Steven M Byers and Thomas Trible.
• Buy the hardware needed for the Red Bead experiment - this site also has several articles and links on the experiment.
• Understanding Variation   by Tom Nolan and Lloyd Provost,   May 1990  
  An excellent article to increase your understanding of variation and the impact of that knowledge on management improvement.