I only recently cam across TRIZ - a (Russia-originated) problem solving and creativity guide for 'the rest of us' - those who are not creative by nature.  Part of its 'secret' is that it is built 'on the shoulders of giants' - an analysis of past patents and patent applications from which it draws out

Every week there is commentary in  the US press about the productivity of football (NFL and/or college) teams or individual players. This is not productivity - it is about performance  ... but fails to use an output/input ratio ... the very essence of productivity. Player performance is important - but US sport (or sports reporters)

Do you want an innovative organisation - a creative workforce? If so, think about when you last had an original (or half original) thought. Not recently? Well, if you can't think originally, why and how do you expect your staff to do so? You need to be disciplined about thinking - and about adopting approaches

I have recently been writing assessments for students on productivity-related courses.  This is one of the more difficult exercises in academic life - and, of course, exceedingly important ...both for the quality of the qualification involved  -  and  for the future life of the students. One of the advantages is that it makes you think

Those of you who read last week's post will know I was in the USA on vacation.  I am now back in the UK and can reflect on the political differences. The USA was preparing for the mid-term elections and there was continual political advertising on the TV - most of which was completely negative,

I’m currently touring parts of the USA with my son, on vacation. We both like a mix of natural beauty, tradition and live music. Tradition anchors a country in its core vales, though the U.S  is having great difficulty at present at remembering and applying its own core values as carved on the Statue of

When I was growing up, there was a great controversy about whether fluoride should be added to drinking water to combat tooth decay in children.  In the end, science ’won’ and children’s teeth have been much healthier since. Now we have a need to combat another problem. Politicians have become very adept at ignoring science

If at the end of a typical working day (of, say, 8 hours) you had to go and start another job elsewhere, I would expect your performance on Job 2 to be limited and poor. Yet, in many organisations, we see people working well into the evening or taking work home with them - in

Parkinson’s Law famously stated that work expands to fill the time available. That is why we say “If you want something doing, give it to a busy person.” Non-busy people make themselves look busy by expanding the work to fill their available time. Busy people fit the work into their available resources, condensing the time

I was musing about robots recently - as one does ... and started thinking about the sociology of such devices. Humans in a work situation can be excellent performers as individuals but the real performance gains come when humans are organised into cooperative and collaborative teams. Will the same be true for robots? The answer