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Summary: it's a really good example of structuring&managing work
Review: I think that all the chief executives , functional executives or profesionals need to read this book.Because with the ideas of this book you can have an improvement in cost , quality, and customers satisfaction.
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Summary: Reengineering the Corporation
Review: It's a great book and explain clearly what "reengineering" means. Examples in the book are great ways to help readers really understand the definition and what it takes to do it. It is very easy to read and concepts are not difficult to understand for someone whose 1st language isn't English.
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Summary: Book review
Review: James Champy and Michael Hammer published a key book in 1990. It is called Reengineering the Corporation. They define reengineering as "fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvement in critical measures of performance". Allowing for the excesses of words such as dramatic improvement and fundamental rethinking - everyone wants to sell a book and get some consulting revenue! - what Champy and Hammer are reminding us is that the human relations movement in management is only one part, and that scientific management still has a role. Frederick W. Taylor, credited as being the originator of scientific management, may be used as a bogey-man to scare children but there was and is sense in what he said. The same goes for Champy and Hammer.
Their view is that any organisation needs to review its processes - indeed the very way that it works - to ensure that what is does is necessary and central to its needs, skills and concerns. Process engineering has a long and respectable history. There are ways to do things that are more effective than others. Processes in organisations do become cumbersome over time and many existing processes in any organisation are probably unnecessary. A UK based organisation, known as B&Q, once had a room set aside next to the CEO's office in which worked the Cut the .... committee. Their job was to review every system, process, report and control in the company to ensure that it was really necessary and really did add value. Systems and processes are like cupboards, basements and lofts. They can contain all sorts of unnecessary junk and garbage and need regular review. (They do not often get it!)
However, Champy and Hammer want to go well beyond the analysis and improvement of business processes. They want organisations to take a completely fresh look at what they want to achieve and how they achieve it. They argue for a blank sheet of paper as the start point. Such an approach would call into question everything that the organisation does now. Despite their critics - and there are very many indeed - most organisations spend too much energy on operations not central to their core activities. Most organisations have too much overhead. Champy and Hammer's fresh look at least motivates an organisation to examine everything and to hold nothing as a given.
Their critics are from the human relations movement side of management thinking. Henry Mintzberg calls reengineering, "just the same old notion that new systems will do the job". The truth may be that the relevance of more or less ml_topi_mngt_hrmv human relations movement and of more or less scientific management is situational. Some companies are more systems than others. In some companies, constant and daily repetition of quality is vital and such companies are like systems. McDonalds is the classic case. Stuart-Kotze has argued that organisations and leadership can have three orientations - Inspiration, People empowerment and System (he calls them task, people and system) - and that the relevance of each depends upon the organisation's situation.
Perhaps the main problem with reengineering has been that it is seized upon by the numbers people and used as a justification for staff reduction. Perhaps also every new idea, or re-statement of an old one as in the case of reengineering, is that they are taken to be the whole truth instead of part of it. New ideas are sold by academics and consultants as the total answer. Reeingineering is one of a series of such total answers from organisation and methods to participative management, to human asset accountancy, to MbO (Management by Objectives), to empowerment and TQM (Total Quality Management), all of which are highly respectable contributions to the art of management but none of which is the only answer.
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Summary: THIS BOOK WILL CHANGE THE BUSINESS WORLD
Review: new thoughts, new ideas, which are cutting through the heart of any organization which hope to enter the new millenium. fantastic!
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Summary: Buzzwords Galore
Review: Read this if you are or want to be a middle manager who needs to know the words to understand the boss. It's also good if you can't get enough of your current middle managers voice but that's about it. Perhaps if I had read it 5 years ago, but now it's just annoying. I think a new process is in order.
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Summary: Still one of the best
Review: Six years after this book was published, its ideas seem as fresh as ever. I have spent a number of years in business making changes in my company or helping others, and it is difficult to argue with anything substantial in this book. It is too bad reengineering is now the faddish target of the naysayers. I have to admit that a lot of "guru" advice turns out to be wrong-headed, but you have to dig a lot of dirt to find a diamond, and this is one. People just want to label this as down-sizing. Hey, most companies that need to have their processes reengineered are over-staffed. At least this way, if reductions are necessary, there is rhyme and reason to where they occur. It isn't just another across-the-board slash that cuts meat as well as fat, and gives the remaining employees no additional support systems. And down-sizing misses the point. Even if companies are staffed properly, they need to focus on and organize around core processes to continue to be viable.
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Summary: It's worth the attention, but not in a way you'll hear about
Review: The very Bible of reengineering - perhaps the most heard attribute of the book I came upon. So, let's see the magic from inside. I'll be top manager in no time.
Situation changes dramatically after you finish the book in a hurry, seeking for golden formulas and almost alchimistic knowledge. Then you talk to some friends that have made previous attachments to the book and you find out that they also are a bit disappointed about it. So the ground is set for the second round.
The book itself is no revolution because all the things were known to almost everyone five years ago. But no one - and that is what this book has brought to life - thought about this postulates so differently. Why do you need a commercial specialist for field X in your company? Because it has always been here. OK. If the process should go that way, employ him in a different position. Have you gained anything? You have? Good. Now move on. When you come to the finish, everything may look much better, but also may not. That is the challenge of business.
All good things are relatively simple and so is that book. The topics related are vast. I don't know them so good to recommend anything further. But change of thoughts caused by this book would suffice for some time.
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Summary: REINVENTING REENGINEERING TO ATTAIN THE IDEAL
Review: These days, reengineering, best practices and continuous improvement are still popular business buzz words, and each one has a place in trying to improve activities. They are the equivalent of picking the low hanging fruit. A few companies can point to increased growth, profits and market share, but alas, many have little to show. Part of the reason is that by the time they achieve what they set out to do, others have surpassed them. These companies will need a cherry-picker to get to the top. I have come to believe that it is harder to improve slowly, or from the current process, to grow at 5 to 10 percent a year, than it is to find a totally new and different way to reach a geometric increase in whatever you do, and, it is usually less expensive. One of the best processes to reach a new plateau and then jump up again to the next is explained in THE 2,000 PERCENT SOLUTION. 1) Understand the importance of measuring 2) Measure everything that can be measured about your key activities to make sure you identify root causes of gaining or losing 3) Identify the future best practice for your industry 4) Go beyond today's best practices to implement the future best practices now 5) Figure out the ideal best practices (without resource, money, time or people constraints) and 6) Begin to approach that 7) Match the people, incentives and tasks, and 8) Repeat the process for even better ideas. You should read REENGINEERING THE CORPORATION to understand the popular ideas. Then you should read THE 2,000 PERCENT SOLUTION to multiply the benefits you thought possible. (Resolving and issue is a 100% solution. Achieving 20 times that benefit or getting there 20 times as fast, is 100X20, or 2000 percent.)
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Summary: Some great ideas, but not thoroughly thought-out
Review: This book has some great ideas, particularly the idea to take a fresh look at processes. For any established process, it's likely that enough has changed since the process was born that the process is no longer the best way to get from the beginning to the result. This book is well written and easy to read and the examples are especially useful in illustrating the major benefits of reengineering.Unfortunately, many of points are not as well-thought out. For example, the book advocates building teams around discrete processes but fails to realize that this just moves companies from horizontal silos to vertical silos. These vertical silos cause different but still serious problems. Also, the book mentions the critical role of Information Technology, but fails to realize that they can often lead reengineering efforts because if they have a solid knowledge of the business and new technologies they are in the best position to see the new possibilities. Another confusing area is that book indicates certain problems that should be overcome in an initial reengineering project such as functional departments and lack of understanding of reengineering continue to be problems for subsequent reengineerings. Many of the questions that are not answered in this book are answered in John Case's "Open-Book Management". Open-Book Management and Reengineering have many things in common including empowered workers, performance measured by results, and coaching managers, but Open-Book management does a much better job of explaining what really drives these changes and how they can best be aligned.
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Summary: Myth and Reality
Review: This book is about re-engineering that aims at changing organizations in a radical way in the expectation that organizations will gain important advantages in terms of quality, service, efficiency and speed. The assumption of re-engineering is that all organizations are organized according to the principles of functional structure and this structure is the main reason of all problems faced by organizations. In this context, re-engineering is presented as a remedy to all problems of firms thanks to its techniques. According to the authors, organizations must be structured by processes. Firs of all, the important processes must be understood and must be recreated in order to meet customers need and wants efficiently and effectively. Some problems are assumed common for all organizations and believed that all organizations face same kind of problems, accordingly package solutions are offered. I think that firstly, an organization should understand its problem and after produce the solutions to carry out its problem. Without understanding the problem and its real roots correctly, solutions offered can not be permanent and are subject to recurrence. In this book, Information technology is accepted as a "GOD" who can solve all problems. This great management tool ! is presented as an antithesis to Total Quality Management. TQM is denounced because of its Japan origin. At the same time, Re-engineering opposes to Adam Smith and his narrow "division of labor" concept. By using IT, organizations can demolish the negative impacts of strict division of labor according to the authors. Authors decry the routine work performed by employees because of its alienation effect and so develop an emotional sense but does not care the products of re-engineering projects such as unemployment - a great contradiction - . Basically, this book is based on the experiences of authors in organizations they served as advisors.If you look at recent articles of Hammer, you can easily see that Hammer works to put re-engineering into the conventional structure of organizations and meanwhile emphasizes the human side of organizations. If you would like to read this book, read it. But you must be the devils advocate in order not to be entrapped by rhetoric.
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