Why are organizations still plagued with all the drawbacks of silos? Because they still adopt a worldview that is out of synch with our times. In order to navigate complexity, organizations must shift from the obsolete, Newtonian worldview of individual, separate and hierarchical parts. What is the direction they need to adopt? Working towards a […]
Creating, Operating and Getting Results with an Enterprise as a Sustainable System
In this post we look at how we can create a sustainable system, how we can operate as a sustainable system, and the results this will help us achieve. What would happen if everyone came to work and just did their own thing? Even with the best of intentions, this would not be a great […]
The Theory of Constraints for IT and DevOps (or How to Train Your Phoenix)
Intelligent Management Inc. was invited by the IT department of a large insurance company to teach them about the Theory of Constraints for IT. They had read a book called ‘The Phoenix Project’ that points to the Theory of Constraints as a solution for radically improving software development and delivery. In this post we look […]
Seeing the Big Picture of Management with the Theory of Constraints
Due to the global success of Dr. Goldratt’s first business novel ‘The Goal’ most people mistakenly think of TOC as just a technique for manufacturing. While TOC does produces fast and radical improvements in manufacturing processes, it is in fact a whole system philosophy and method. The thinking that underlies this theory stems from a worldview […]
A Project-Based Organization to Radically Improve Performance
Competencies not power, common goal instead of function/silo results, these are the elements of an organization built on projects. We all know that what matters is the global (overall) bottom line of any organization. And yet, when we measure performance, we connect it with functional, i.e. silo results. How do we come out of this seemingly irreconcilable conflict? We […]
Network Thinking: Changing How We see the World
Adopting a network perspective changes how we see the world and our place in it. In this post we look at how that applies to organizations and their design. Revolutions in thought have been part of our human development, from Copernicus’ unveiling how the sun does not revolve around the earth to Darwin’s theory of evolution, […]
Systemic Organization Management for the Age of Complexity
As this post is being written in Italy where we first set up our firm and where we are visiting for projects, it’s not surprising that we often think about how we first started in the mid 1990s in Milan. Back then, we worked with organizations to transfer Deming’s principles about Quality. It quickly became clear […]
Building and Operating an Organization as a Sustainable System
In this post we look at how we can build a sustainable system, how we can operate as a sustainable system, and the results this will help us achieve. What would happen if everyone came to work and just did their own thing? Even with the best of intentions, this would not be a great way to get results. That’s why […]
Network of Teams – A Cognitive Ordeal?
Last month we published ‘Team of Teams – a Systems View‘ that garnered quite a bit of attention. The subject of teams is a hot one. Articles on the matter abound, like this one from Deloitte, ‘ Organizational Design – The Rise of Teams’ According to Deloitte, “Businesses are reinventing themselves to operate as networks of […]
Freedom from the Trap of Silos through a Network of Projects
Many organizations still have traditional hierarchies and silo their people into functions. But the complexity of today’s reality needs something different. With the exponential growth of interconnections and interdependencies, a traditional organizational design can undermine productivity and sustainable growth. Here we summarize the organizational design we propose, based on two decades of international work, specifically applied to […]
