In post-WWII Japan, it was an American, W. Edwards Deming, who championed the simple but powerful notion that if you can’t measure it you can’t manage it and Japan’s economic recovery was born. For Deming, variations and defects were not inherently bad. On the contrary, while they were to be avoided they were also useful clues when they happened and it is often the smallest anomalies – if and when you can see them – that point you directly to the largest sources of your probl