One of the foundations of Dr. Deming’s teaching is the understanding of variation. There is variation in everything. You don’t think so? Deming said, “You cannot describe for me being exactly on time.” Silly you say. Try it. Any two people’s idea of meeting at noon could vary by at least 20 minutes, one-third hour. For me meeting at noon means arriving at 11:45 am, no later. You may show up at 12:10 and consider yourself on time. That there is variation in everything is one principle. Another is the idea that there are different kinds of variation. If you don’t learn anything else here, learn this. There are two kinds of variation, common cause and special cause. Common cause variation is inherit in the system you are using, an example being tardiness at work brought about by an alarm clock that loses 15 minutes a day. Special cause variation is unique to the situation and acts upon your system, an example being tardiness at work caused by stopping to help a stranded motorist. So now that you have an education, let’s take a test. Look at the picture. 
Answer this. Are we seeing common cause or special cause variation? The last person, probably a man, used the last piece of toilet paper and left the empty roll. Did he, I am almost certain it was a man, think, oh oh, out of toilet paper, someone better get in here and replace it, or did he look at his watch and think, oh my, look at the time, I better get back to work, or as I believe, did he just not think at all. Here is why I think it was the later. You could not know this, but in this company restroom the spare rolls are just three feet from where the person is sitting and in plain view, so this is not a good excuse, but what about time. I have replaced these rolls many times and timed it at 17 seconds. We could still use the “not enough time” defense were it not for texting. Texting? Yup, texting. This employee receives 20-30 texts a day and always finds the time to return them, so the time excuse has to be removed from consideration.
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