Next week I start to deliver lectures in relation to a Degree course titled “Operations Management”, at the Eastern Institute of Technology. This course focuses on principles/ theories as to how to achieve efficient and effective operational environments – particularly production environments.
I will be opening this course by discussing how “people” come first in operations management – particularly where communicating the outcome of decisions stemming from data analysis is concerned. Too many times I have seen the irresponsible use of data in attempts made to “control” the behaviour of others…always resulting in resentment between the informer and the person who is on the receiving end of being told messages such as “your performance remains well below the ideal KPI benchmark in relation to your role”. Destructive…destructive…destructive.
If open, honest and communicable functional relationships are to be achieved in the workplace then decision-makers need to become mature and sensitive in their thinking around “how” they use data – and how they “communicate” decisions relating to their data analyses to those people who are affected by their determinations.
The below PowerPoint presentation (saved as a pdf) associated with this blog reveals the ethos that I hold dear to me where operations management is concerned.
Click here: Humanities Approach to Operations Management