Discredited Business or Entrepreneurial Theories, Models, Frameworks, or Methods?
Many people (managers and entrepreneurs) who have browsed through a business magazine (Business Week, Forbes, Fortune, or Harvard Business Review), thumbed through a text book or who have sat in on at least one MBA strategy class will have a laundry list of management theories, models ( variations of the classic 2x2 matrix), frameworks and methods. All of these "tools" look fine in theory and on paper, but in practice, things oftem prove different. Your colleagues don't cooperate. Key information is missing or the uncertainty is too high.
What's been your experience with various management or entrepreneurship tools?
Which one don't work for you as well in the field (in practice) as they say they should in the textbook? Which ones did you improvise on, rework or invent your own from scratch??
A recent example --Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point model and the concept of the "Influencer"
"Tipping-point skeptic says that super-Influencers are overrated"
Clive Thompson has a long feature in Fast Company about Duncan Watts, a researcher who disputes Malcolm Gladwell's vaunted "Tipping Point" model of how social ideas spread in society. His experiments and computer models suggest that the spread of ideas is a lot less linear than good ideas in the hands of influential people"
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/01/28/tippingpoint-skeptic.html
Which tools/models are discredited in your eyes based on practice? What have you substituted in its place or how have you imrovised?
Walter Derzko
Smart Economy
1-416-533-9667
wderzko ( at) pathcom (dot) com
Clarification added February 2, 2008:
Here's another discredited (needs revising) method-The venerable Business Case Study
The Case Against Case Studies
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_05/b4069066093267.htm?chan=bschools_bschool+index+page_top+stories
Answers (2)
Andy I
End-to-End IT Service Management
Best Answers in: Computer Networking (2), Telecommunications (2), Certification and Licenses (1), Viral Marketing (1), Social Enterpreneurship (1), Software Development (1), Using LinkedIn (1)
My experience comes mostly with ITIL and a little bit with Six Sigma. I have had some formal management training and most models and frameworks suffer from the same risks I will detail here.
I love ITIL and regularly encourage IT professionals to earn the foundation certification. It is a great framework and should be considered when looking to improve any IT organization. Personal experience has left me a little sour on Six Sigma, but it also has its place.
Where these initiatives go wrong is when they distract an organization from its core business/functions. You do not implement ITIL for the sake of ITIL or Six Sigma for the sake of Six Sigma. However, this is exactly what you will see in many organizations. Initiatives are undertaken and staff is hired not to use the framework to improve the business, but to help the business achieve a higher level of framework/model maturity.
If you are in business to make widgets and you implement Six Sigma, your focus should remain on widgets and not achieving the next level of Six Sigma-ness. If you are an IT organization, ITIL is a tool to help you improve your ability to provide critical services to the organization. ITIL is not a goal.
Links:
James C
Quality Programs Manager at GE Power & Water
Best Answers in: Customer Relationship Management (1), Sales Techniques (1)
I'm actually seeing a resurgence in some very old-school style thinking. I hear a lot more about Lean and Deming's 14 points these days in the context of quality and process/performance improvement. I'm using a lot of Deming's thinking these days as I go about my work as a Lean Six Sigma practitioner.
One that I continue to marvel at is the Net Promoter Score concept - in my last firm, we tried working with this on our customer survey, but it didn't really take hold with the management team, so we dropped it. Ditto for the Balanced Scorecard.
Don't tell Harvard that case study is discredited - they pull down huge dollars selling their cases to other b-schools...
