Learn from other Disciplines

 Someone once told me if you want innovation in engineering, don’t ask an engineer.  They’ll give you accepted (and workable) engineering solutions but they won’t give you groundbreaking, innovative or creative solutions.

What you need is to ask a non-engineer to give you ideas for new ways of addressing your problem - and then ask an engineer how to make those ideas work.  Together they  might produce an innovative - but still workable - solution.

This ‘principle’ (of asking those outside of the current field of knowledge) can pay dividends in many situations.

Similarly, ideas which seem intuitive and obvious often limit your spread of thinking and your range of ideas.  They are obvious often because they are well-established and entirely logical.

So you have to force yourself out of the straitjacket of accepted wisdom and current technologies. 

Build a multi-disciplined team snd let them play ideas off against each other.  Encourage them to think freely and give them training in creative thinking techniques.

You have nothing to lose except your boundaries!

Why would we want artificial intelligence?

 Artificial Intelligence (AI) is touted as ‘the next big thing’ in productivity improvement - and there is little doubt that we will see lots of examples of AI taking over relatively menial, snd some more sophisticated, tasks over the next couple of decades.

However, many of us have already seen quite a few examples of non-intelligent devices claiming to act intelligently.   These could be regarded as experimental or prototype devices (though why they are released commercially is a question that needs to be asked).  

The mistakes made by AI devices, of course, reflect mistakes or omissions of those programming the ‘intelligence’ into the device - and those that have not been picked up in the testing process.  (We consumers are getting increasingly used to being the group that carries out user testing.)

Their other significant problem is that most AI devices try to replicate and replace existing devices.  

What we need is real, human intelligence and creativity, working on devices with improved functionality and design, building better products - rather than replicating current ones with their existing, inherent flaws.

(This is  rather like the early days  of automation when firms automated their existing, imperfect and inefficient  processes snd systems instead of perfecting,  or at least improving, the process before adding automation.)

Step up to the plate, you intelligent and creative humans.  We need you!

Are Some of Your Workers More Productive Than Others?

Most people assume that some people are more productive than others - and for some jobs, that is clearly true.  But for many people, their productivity is determined by ‘the system’, the technology and the productivity or performance of the people around them - at the previous workstation, for example.

So, should we worry about individual performance or concentrate our attention on that system.

Well, it’s not necessarily a simple question to answer.

The reason that in some jobs or roles, people are more productive is due to a number of possible factors - experience, skill, attitude, motivation, etc.  it would be foolish not to pay attention to skill levels - to make sure our employees (all our employees) have the tools, equipment and skills they need.

If they all have those factors provides, the ‘system’ is likely to be more effective.

So, work at the system level and the individual level to improve productivity.