replying to Ben Compton Thu, 01 Aug 1996
>We're using a manufacturing model of business, and performance/quality
>metrics to run a continually changing, knowledge-based business. It
>doesn't work well.
>
>Any comments, suggestions, ideas, or references?
Sorry not many right now:
Except to say that the same thing is happening in the UK public sector
with quality initiatives like EFQM and 'Investors in People', so it's a
wider phenemenon.
And it sounds to me like a more appropriate model of your organisation
might be a complex adaptive system as in complexity theory... so the
question might become 'how does a complex adaptive system [like an
ecosystem or a species] ensure quality?'
>Those interested in the work I do in solving this problem, let me know. .
>.I'd be glad to keep you posted.
please do . I strongly suspect many of us will be interested.
--from Arthur Battram, organiser of 'Tools for Learning', assisting local authorities to apply complexity concepts to learning apb@cityplex.demon.co.uk "complexity is in here... and simplicity is out there...if we want it to be..."
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>