Deming's Journey to Profound Knowledge

Meaningful biography of Deming

As someone who didn't even hear of Deming before the author gave a presentation that led me to buy this book, I enjoyed it. It doesn't have a lot of details about Profound Knowledge itself but there was enough there for me to make sense of how Deming shaped the software engineering world. The last chapter, especially, covers the 14 principles of management and how they apply to IT operations.

If there's something I didn't like about this book, other than the fact that it doesn't go in depth into Profound Knowledge, is that there was a section of the book where the author felt like he had to defend Deming's place in history. It might be important but I couldn't relate to it at all as I had little background. Moreover, constant references to things that would make Deming frown or proud felt a little patronizing.

All in all, I like the book and I would recommend it to anyone in IT operations and software engineering.