Thomas H. Davenport Quotes

Business process reengineering encompasses the envisioning of new work strategies, the actual process design activity, and the implementation of the change in all its complex technological, human, and organizational dimensions

the use of statistical process control tools to evaluate variation, correlate root cause, forecast capacity, and anticipate throughput barriers. By measuring incidence of preventable venous

Ultimately, knowledge worker performance comes down to the behaviors of individual knowledge workers.

Similarly, one of the most popular HR tools at GE Digital — an early adopter of AI for manufacturing applications — shows workers which jobs in the company are natural next steps from the ones they have now.12 Employees can look privately at the tool to see possible paths they can follow, skills they may need to acquire, or even positions that are open. This helps employees feel that they have more opportunities and that they have more control over their positions in the company.

James March, a Stanford-based social scientist... is much more a gurus’ guru than a guru to the general public. He finished second on the gurus’ gurus list and 48th on the original list.

Knowledge workers have high degrees of expertise, education, or experience, and the primary purpose of their jobs involves the creation, distribution or application of knowledge.

Another AI-oriented company that has established several ecosystems — also in partnership with Palantir, in which it has made a substantial investment — is SOMPO Holdings, a large insurance and elder care company based in Japan. SOMPO

Companies should have well-defined procedures for dealing with the planned departure of a valued knowledge worker... Unfortunately, the evidence suggests that most firms are moving in the wrong direction on recruitment and retention issues.

Attention is focused mental engagement on a particular item of business. Items come into our awareness, we attend to a particular item, and then we decide whether to act.

Defined simply, innovation is, of course, the introduction of something new. We presume that the purpose of introducing something new into a process is to bring about major, radical change. Process innovation combines a structure for doing work with an orientation to visible and dramatic results. It involves stepping back from a process to inquire into its overall business objective, and then effecting creative and radical change to realize order-of-magnitude improvements in the way that objective is accomplished.

It takes about twelve years for a pharmaceutical firm to research, develop, test, and launch a product. Several firms, including Pfizer, Novartis, and Celgene, are working with IBM Watson to try to identify and bring new drugs to market faster.

Since Rosenthal came up with the recommendation idea, Morgan Stanley has been working on a next-best-action (NBA) system to provide its advisors with financial insights to present to clients.

to frame the decision, asking questions about the data and the methodology, working to understand the results, and using them to improve outcomes for your organization.

Other firms are working on marketing applications of machine learning that increase customer engagement. Macy’s, for example, is working with both IBM’s Watson and Cognitive Scale, an Austin-based AI vendor, to improve personalization and engagement on its website and mobile app.

The businesses and organizations that succeed with AI will be those that invest steadily, rise above the hype, make a good match between their business problems and the capabilities of AI, and take the long view.