Management

Tampering vs. Improvement: How the Red Bead Experiment Shows the Difference

If you’ve ever watched managers scramble to “fix” problems by tweaking processes on the fly, you’ve witnessed a common misunderstanding in quality management: the difference between tampering and true improvement. Dr. W. Edwards Deming’s legendary Red Bead Experiment is still one of the clearest demonstrations of why this distinction is crucial—and why misunderstanding it can actually make things worse.