The Knowledge Work Factory Turning The Productivity Paradox Into Value For Your Business

Unlock your company’s true potential by eliminating knowledge work waste that’s hiding in plain sight. Back in 1987, Nobel laureate Robert Solow quipped, “You can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics.” This costly condition soon became known as the “productivity paradox.” Why does it persist today? Why do knowledge workers spend a third of their days on needless correction, avoidable work and overservice, despite existing office technology that could help, even automate, their actions? And why does nobody notice? The answers—and solutions—are in this book. The Knowledge Work Factory uncovers the well-intentioned waste that hides in plain sight within virtually every organization. It reveals the ingrained perceptual biases that trick our brains into accepting the status quo and missing breakthrough opportunities. It draws stunning parallels to industrial production, which cracked this very code over 100 years ago. Most importantly, it gives you an easy-to-follow, one-stop guide to boost efficiency, productivity, and morale among the very knowledge workers who struggle under the burden of the productivity paradox. Discover your organization’s true, untapped capacity. Maximize the productivity of every single knowledge worker. Uncover “better-than-best practices.” Reap benefits that drop straight to the bottom line. The power is in your hands—with The Knowledge Work Factory.

This book shows how to lead knowledge workers, manage knowledge work and build a hyper-productive knowledge work organization, by taming and managing the four flows of organizational performance (psychology, information, work and finance) to produce spectacular operational and financial throughput results. TameFlow is adaptable to nearly every industry, and can be applied to any knowledge work domain or organization that generates business value through knowledge. The TameFlow approach is explained within the context of knowledge work performed in a software development organization. The authors illustrate its application to Scrum and Kanban and demonstrate how constraints management (TOC) can improve them in powerful ways, bringing more predictability of behavior of the system as a whole, as well as to the individuals involved. Both Scrum and Kanban can be extended with features of the TOC, and help create a hyper-productive organization. --

By some estimates, knowledge workers outnumber all other workers in North America alone by a four to one margin. Knowledge work and knowledge workers vary with each profession, depending on the industry - from software developers to engineers, architects to pharmaceutical researchers, and so forth. They are usually responsible for exploring and creating ideas, new products, new designs or perhaps new models for doing business to help their organization achieve or maintain a competitive advantage. As much of this type of work is intangible, productivity is a mystery to most business executives, managers and team leaders. This unique reference shows how to lead knowledge workers, manage knowledge work and build a hyper-productive knowledge work organization, by taming and managing the four flows of organizational performance (psychology, information, work and finance) to produce spectacular operational and financial throughput results. Inspired by his experience and knowledge gained at Borland International, where a hyper-productive level of performance was achieved resulting in the most productive software project ever documented, author Steve Tendon devised TameFlow. TameFlow is an approach that can be superimposed on any preexisting process, method, and practice to enable performance improvement by several orders of magnitude and a state of hyper-productivity. It is adaptable to nearly every industry, and can be applied to any knowledge work domain or organization that generates business value through knowledge. TameFlow blends and merges different ideas from a variety of schools of thought. It is founded in pattern theory and organizational performance patterns which are used to analyze and decompose processes, methodologies, and management practices into constituent parts to observe productivity patterns, and then they are recombined in new configurations to enable hyper-productive levels of performance. In this volume of The TameFlow Hyper-Productivity Series, the TameFlow approach is explained within the context of knowledge work performed in a software development organization. Mr. Tendon teams up with author, Wolfram Müller, a thought-leader and expert in Critical Chain and Advanced Agile Project Management to illustrate its application to Scrum, the most widely used Agile software project management framework, and to Kanban, a method used for knowledge work with an emphasis on just-in-time delivery and change management. Key Features ...

A timely investigation of the potential economic effects, both realized and unrealized, of artificial intelligence within the United States healthcare system. In sweeping conversations about the impact of artificial intelligence on many sectors of the economy, healthcare has received relatively little attention. Yet it seems unlikely that an industry that represents nearly one-fifth of the economy could escape the efficiency and cost-driven disruptions of AI. The Economics of Artificial Intelligence: Health Care Challenges brings together contributions from health economists, physicians, philosophers, and scholars in law, public health, and machine learning to identify the primary barriers to entry of AI in the healthcare sector. Across original papers and in wide-ranging responses, the contributors analyze barriers of four types: incentives, management, data availability, and regulation. They also suggest that AI has the potential to improve outcomes and lower costs. Understanding both the benefits of and barriers to AI adoption is essential for designing policies that will affect the evolution of the healthcare system.

Time management has been redefined for the twenty-first century. Learn how to increase your productivity by mastering five choices that will leave you feeling confident, energized, and productive.

Mokyr provides a long term perspective on the economic impact of technological change, surveying developments in production technologies between 500 BC and 1914.