I have my theories on why W. Edwards Deming is not a household name in 'all' business circles. Many view him as the 'quality' guy who had an impact on Japanese manufacturing after the Second World War.

That view is limiting as Deming's management mindset was complete with four central tenets:

1. Pragmatism
2. The Law of Variation
3. Human psychology
4. Systems Thinking

I used to recommend Mary Walton's book to start learning about Deming. That book gave way to a new title by Edward Martin Baker. After meeting and interviewing Gene Kim a few months ago, I have a favorite book on Deming by John Willis. The title is Deming's Journey to Profound Knowledge.

John was one of the earliest cloud evangelists and is considered one of the founders of the DevOps movement. John is the author of 7 IBM Redbooks. He is also the co-author of the “DevOps Handbook” and “Beyond the Phoenix Project,” along with author Gene Kim.

During this conversation, we discuss Deming's influences and how he became such a complete thinker about helping others improve.