MNGMNT

I've been busy discussing critical thinking for the last few days (which is why I am posting on a Sunday rather than getting a post in on Friday). The university that I teach at is pushing critical thinking and had devoted a day-long session to the topic a couple of days ago. I whole-heartedly agree with promoting critical thinking but I think that we are missing half of the picture by concentrating solely on this one aspect of thinking.

It is true that students (and most people) could benefit by being more critical in their thinking but this is only useful for something that is already out there. Critical thinking does not create new thought; it only allows you to judge the validity and merit of existing thoughts. Essentially, the skills used in critical thinking are essentially anti-innovative.

What is needed is "design thinking" which is the process of creating ideas. Stanford Institute of Design has the best definition of design thinking and my favorite business school has pioneered the field of "business design." In my opinion, I think that our universities do a fine job of being critical but few schools emphasize being innovative. Both types of thinking are needed and that is why I often teach students both design thinking and critical thinking so that they can become "whole thinkers."

Shaun Goldfinch has a great article in the September/October 2007 Public Administration Review - "Pessimism, Computer Failure, and Information Systems Development in the Public Sector." Starting off with the well-known facts that a "majority of information systems (IS) developments are unsuccessful" and that "[t]he larger development, the more likely it will be unsuccessful", Goldfinch traces these problems to four "optimisms":
1) Idolization - technological infatuation that makes managers believe that computers will solve all problems.
2) Technophilia - the myth (perpetuated by IT folks) that all you need is the latest and greatest technology.
3) Lomanism - named after Willie Loman (from the character in Death of a Salesman), this is where consultants and vendors oversell the benefits of technology.
4) Managerial Faddism - this should be familiar to anyone who has seen their organization jump on the latest management "theory" bandwagon.

Based on this, Goldfinch argues that a pessimistic (actually it should be more skeptical) attitude should be part of the IT management process. Toward this, he suggests the following set of suggestions:
1) Can the problem be solved without investment in further IS development? Upgrade a system or use existing functionality in a new way. Even if it is open-source, determine the hidden costs of training and integration.
2) If the decision is that further IS development is needed, then look for the solution with the least cost, least disruption, and least risk.
3) Can the organization get by with the current system until a better, stable system is developed a few years from now? Are expectations set too high?
4) Remember that the promised benefits will be less than what is stated while possible problems will be worse than expected.

This kind of attitude may not win you friends at the beginning of the project but you will avoid the usual "death march project" that are the majority of IT projects.

The cover story of SEED is an article that every current Presidential candidate should read. After seven years of the most anti-science administration, the United States is in danger of becoming a has-been leader in technology and science. This sounds ridiculous now but consider that China, India, and even the Arab nations are investing billions into building up their scientific "infrastructure" while the US has committed only barely adequate funding for science research.

This is ironic given that the 50th anniversary of Sputnik was yesterday. As Charles Krauthammer writes, Sputnik was a shock to the U.S.' smug complacency of technological superiority but it was also a boon for our nation as we poured millions into education and research. We are still living off the fruits of those investments. But, where are the new investments that will sustain our nation into the next century?

And its not just the hard sciences that we need to concentrate on. America also needs to innovate in management science. Remember the impact that the 1980 broadcast of If Japan can ... Why can't we had on American management? After having ignored his ideas on quality in the US, he helped the Japanese rebuild their post-WWII industries into a major competitive threat in the late 70's. Project management training is booming in China while Six Sigma is gaining incredible popularity in India. These may have been American innovations but they are no longer confined to our borders.

I can go on with a whole list of indicators that demonstrate America's declining lead in science but the point is clear: The U.S. needs to invest in science and technology to the levels that it did when Sputnik first flew into orbit. Because I don't believe we could recover from the 21st Century version of China's, India's or another country's "Sputnik."

Ten years after Dettmer’s influential Goldratt’s Theory of Constraints: A Systems Approach to Continuous Improvement, he’s updated his classic text on the Theory of Constraints (TOC). But, as he writes, comparing this update to his first book is like calling “a 2006 Ford automobile ‘Model T, second edition.’ (Preface) “ Dettmer argues that the Logical Thinking Process (LTP) has become more than a TOC tool and is now “the most powerful [logical analysis] methodology created” (Preface).

I agree with Dettmer and I especially like his modifications to the LTP. The first major change is that the process of creating trees has become much faster by the innovation of putting the Intermediate Objectives Map at the beginning of the process. According to Dettmer this “shaves days off completion of the rest of the process, and the results are much more robust.”

The second major change is a closer integration between the Current Reality Tree and the Evaporating Cloud other than the “3-UDE Cloud” approach of other practitioners. I was not that familiar with the “3-UDE Cloud” approach but I did find Dettmer’s arguments against it persuasive. If there are any “3-UDE” folks out there, I would like to hear your perspective.

The third major change is, to me, the most radical. After noticing the difficulties students have had with building Prerequisite Trees and Transition Trees, Dettmer has dispensed with the Transition Tree in favor of a more detailed Prerequisite Tree. The advantages of this are that it is faster to build the Prerequisite Tree (without losing the robustness of the solution) and a project activity network diagram can be built directly from the Prerequisite Tree thus closer tying together the LTP and Critical Chain Project Management.

The last chapter deals with implementing organizational change. As Dettmer observes, the LTP is good at mapping out the required organizational change but TOC doesn’t provide much in the way of implementing that change. In my personal opinion, I think he unfairly dismisses the “Layers of Resistance” as a tool for affecting organizational change but he does provide a good start toward thinking about the motivational aspects of organizational change. I would have liked to see more of a connection between Boyd’s OODA Loop but this may be because Dettmer is challenging the TOC community to develop a TOC-based theory for motivating organizational change.

This is great book by a leading TOC thinker and is well worth studying. I skimmed it this weekend but I am rereading it again (albeit at a slower pace) as well as trying out the new approaches to developing the LTP trees and clouds (thanks to the free software included with the book). You could see some of the evolution in thought here with Dettmer’s Constraint Management system (which also left out the Transition Tree and elevated the Intermediate Objectives Map to the beginning of the process. It will be interesting to see how the LTP will grow in the next ten years.

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