Talk:Failure demand

Merge?

The Seddon article has issues, but this may be worth considering merging if the topic isn't notable independent of Seddon. Star Mississippi 14:07, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

John Seddon connection

According to approximately everyone, John Seddon coined the term "failure demand", but it is surprisingly hard to find something that is absolutely 100% uncontroversially a WP:RS asserting this point. @S0091 has reverted my inclusion of this claim in the article twice now, most recently in this edit.

Let me outline possible sources for this claim and reasons one might not be comfortable with them:

• The Vanguard Consulting website, https://beyondcommandandcontrol.com/failure-demand.
  Problem: this is Seddon's own company, making a claim that aggrandises Seddon. Maybe that's reason not to trust it.

• The books I Want You To Cheat and Freedom from Command and Control by Seddon. If I understand the Vanguard article (and other sources that mention these books) correctly, the first book introduces the term "demand we don't want" and the second book refers to the concept again and renames it to "failure demand".
  Problem: Same as above - and someone will need to get ahold of the books and verify they really say what sources claim they say.

• A bajillion articles written by Seddon, talks by Seddon, interviews of Seddon, etc (Examples: 1, 2, 3, 4)
  Problem: Same as above.

• Academic articles that cite "Seddon, 2003" for the concept and definition of Failure Demand. (Examples: 1, 2)
  Problem: These sources don't explicitly, unambiguously, say something like "John Seddon coined the term failure demand" in so many words. They merely very strongly imply this by citing him when introducing and defining the term, and (in one article) by referring to "Seddon’s earliest introduction to failure demand".

• A bajillion medium posts, personal blogs, social media posts, etc. by third parties (Examples: 1, 2, 3.)
  Problem: probably very hard to argue any of these are WP:RS given guidelines like WP:MEDIUM, WP:SPS, WP:SOCIALMEDIA. (Possibly one might be usable despite being self-published if its author is a known expert in the subject, but I have never heard of any of these people and have no idea who notable SMEs in the field are.)

• A bajillion articles on various random websites, corporate or government blogs, that aren't 100% obviously WP:SPSes. Maybe they have robust review and fact-checking going on behind the scenes. Examples: gov.uk, govmetric, Roboyo, Lean Agility
  Problem: It's difficult to evaluate whether these are really anything more than group blogs that fall under WP:SPS. (Also, a problem specific to the gov.uk source is that it cites an old version of this Wikipedia article in support of its claim.)

• This letter to the editor in the BMJ.
  Problem: Guidance at WP:NEWSOPED suggests that letters to the editor are generally not reliable sources for statements of fact. (It's not obvious to me how reasonable this is either in general or in its particular application to the BMJ; really it depends upon the level of discretion and fact-checking applied before editors publish such letters, and it seems plausible to me that a letter to the BMJ might go through more scrutiny before publication than a "reliable" mainstream media article. But I don't know enough about the BMJ's editorial processes to confidently argue this, and on its face the guideline simply seems to apply.)

I find this kind of infuriating; virtually every source that ever mentions failure demand trips over itself to attribute the term to Seddon, and yet I can't find any single source that is absolutely indisputably usable to cite that fact on Wikipedia.

My personal judgment is that the claim isn't sufficiently self-serving to override the presumption in WP:ABOUTSELF that we can treat Seddon's claims about himself as reliable, and also that the papers citing "Seddon's" definition of failure demand and referring to his "introduction" to the concept are effectively stating that he coined the term and can be cited for that. But @S0091 disagrees on both points, and I don't want to edit-war. So:

• @S0091, would you be any happier with any of the other sources I list above, despite them having their own problems?
• Can anyone come up with a better source to cite?
• If the answer to both of the above is "no", do other editors tend to agree with my judgment or @S0091's on whether the existing sources are sufficient to make the claim?

ExplodingCabbage (talk) 12:52, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

@ExplodingCabbage hmm...none of those are sufficient. Obviously social media is not RS and some are commercial sites offering products and services so not RS. Any claim like being the "first" or someone inventing something, etc. are WP:EXCEPTIONAL so can't use WP:SELFPUB or what he says. Have you checked the WP:Wikipedia Library? You should have access (accounts 6 months old and 500 edits get access). There several academic presses and ProQuest which has various types of sources. I'll take a peek too and see if I can find something. S0091 (talk) 15:37, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

As a side note, it's odd the article about him makes no mention of failure demand so if something is found, I suggest updating that article as well. S0091 (talk) 15:41, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

Found one so I restored it and updated the source. S0091 (talk) 16:13, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. The new source also looks fine to me - though I will note I'm not sure how it fixes your concern with the academic sources I cited previously, since it similarly doesn't seem to explicitly state that Seddon was the first person ever to use or define the term, only that he does use and define it, which the academic sources I cited before also established. ExplodingCabbage (talk) 16:54, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

Any claim like being the "first" or someone inventing something, etc. are WP:EXCEPTIONAL so can't use WP:SELFPUB - I continue to disagree and find the claim unexceptional, but that's okay - I have no problem with your alternative source, so it's just a philosophical disagreement at this point. ExplodingCabbage (talk) 16:55, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

@ExplodingCabbage the author of the piece attributes the terms "value demand" and "failure demand" in quotes explicitly to Seddon, then how goes on to talk about how Seddon defined the terms. It might be more safe to state he popularized the term, though. S0091 (talk) 17:16, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

I don't consider to be meaningfully different to the sentence One idea contained within the Vanguard Method is failure demand, defined as ‘demand caused by a failure to do something or do something right for the customer’ (Seddon, 2003, p26). from Walley paper on primary care you weren't happy with before - that one attributes the term (in italics this time, rather than quotes) to Vanguard, and quotes a definition attributed to Seddon. But whatever! We have reduced our practical disagreement to a philosophical one and that is what compromise is made of. ExplodingCabbage (talk) 18:31, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

It might be more safe to state he popularized the term Absent any sources actually disputing his claim to have coined it, or any evidence of it being used before the work in which he claims he coined it, I see no reason not to simply accept his claim. (We obviously shouldn't say he invented the concept of distinguishing failure demand from value demand, which no doubt vast numbers of people have independently thought of before him - but nobody is claiming that, only that he coined the phrase.) ExplodingCabbage (talk) 18:36, 9 May 2025 (UTC)