ResPublica Fellow John Seddon and Visiting Professor at Hull University Business School will give a public lecture on April 25th at the University of Hull.
Current
conventions in service design are just that – conventions. ‘It’s people
that make the difference’; ‘activity equals cost’; ‘internet and
telephone channels are cheaper that face-to-face service contact’;
‘economy comes from scale’; ‘inspection improves performance’. These are
just some of the widely-practised norms of service management, and all
of them are wrong. Or, to put it another way, they are actually causes
of sub-optimisation – they make service performance worse.
Unlearning
convention is best achieved normatively, by doing – and by studying the
organisation as a system. This is the first step in Seddon’s ‘Vanguard
Method’. The second step is to use what has been learned to redesign
service operations on the basis of what at first appear to be
counterintuitive truths: it’s the system, not the people; costs are in
flow, not transactions; economy comes from flow, not scale; and
prevention beats inspection.
John
will illustrate these ideas with case studies from both the private and
public sectors. All of the organisations discussed in the case studies
are setting economic benchmarks as well as, paradoxically, engaging
people and transforming morale.
Email
Susan.Humphrey@hull.ac.uk for more information.