Session: Re-thinking IT

Thursday, 09:00 - 09:50
Track: Keynote

Pursuing an unquestioning belief in economy of scale, managers of service organisations have industrialised their operations. Front- and back-offices, glued together by IT systems are now the norm. But being normal is not the same as being right.
John Seddon will explain that economy of scale is a myth and will show how industrialised service organisations carry high costs and deliver poor quality service. John will reveal a series of counter-intuitive truths, for example that cost is in flow, not activity, hence ‘improvement’ projects to reduce activity costs, an obsession of modern managers, can actually drive costs up.
Building on the work of W. Edwards Deming (‘we invented management, we can re-invent it’) John has pioneered the development of a ‘systems’ approach to service organisation design. The systems approach exposes the wrong-headed nature of conventional management, it explains why so many IT projects fail and it helps us understand why so many service organisations have failed to improve performance with ‘lean’ and ‘six sigma’ tools and why such interventions often drive costs up. By contrast, the results achieved from the systems approach are astonishing – results that would never be considered achievable if put in a plan.
John will outline the counter-intuitive truths, describe the systems approach to organisational change and will argue for a different way to develop IT that costs less and delivers more. Prepare to be challenged, disturbed and inspired.