Among the demi-gods of manufacturing none are more revered than Dr. Edward Deming. Because his prescriptions have worked so well in the domain of manufacturing, they are viewed as universal truths. Deming was indeed brilliant, and his ideas were perfectly optimized for manufacturing. However, it is precisely this perfect optimization that makes many of his sacred truths surprisingly toxic in product development. Is preventing problems always better than correcting them? Should we really try to eliminate as much variability as possible? Does responding to normal variation make performance worse? In this presentation, Don Reinertsen will discuss the limitations of Deming’s ideas, how to go beyond them.