Deming, and plan-do-study-act
The improvement loop, and knowing which kind of variation you are looking at.
W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crisis
1982
W. Edwards Deming, The New Economics
1993
Shewhart's cycle, refined by Deming, who insisted on study rather than check: form a theory, run it, learn from the gap, act. Underneath sits his more important distinction between common-cause variation, which is the system, and special-cause variation, which is an event. Treating one as the other makes things worse, reliably.
Deming also argued that performance appraisal and management by numbers destroy the thing they measure, which is why he appears in the Incentives cell as well. Handelsbanken is the clearest working answer to that objection.
How does tacit judgment become reusable, and who owns the loop that has to close?
What would you show an auditor, and can the system produce it without being asked?
What are people paid for once output is no longer the scarce thing?