From the Author
High Performance Operations is meant for executives with the big-picture in mind who are fully aware of how well their operations are (or aren't, as the case may be) working. In particular, it's for executives in businesses whose operations are impacted by compliance of one form or another. Most importantly, it's for executives who are willing and ready to step-up out in-front of the crowd and make changes in how their operations function to improve overall performance. Excuse-makers and victims need not bother.
Carrying-out the recommendations in the book requires the decision-making authority to allow change to happen. In many cases, changes are needed in ways of working that have been static for years. What's prevented the business world from making changes of this sort has often been the sting of many failed prior attempts at instituting the alternate approaches. High Performance Operations eliminates this risk by providing a thoroughly-devised and operationally-proven approach that prior attempts seemed to lack.
There are several areas in the book that, admittedly, warrant far more material and discussion than I've included. Not because I intend to drag-out the discussion into more books, but more so because these areas fall into a few general areas. Areas already covered in good detail by other work, or areas far beyond the scope of a business operation. An example of the latter is the deeper socio-political underpinnings of issues such as taxes, wages, and privacy. I could also have spent an enormous amount of time on similar topics -- and come to no conclusion -- where the issue addressed is infinitely telescopic such as what constitutes "bureaucracy" for one person is "work flow" for another.
Overall, my desire is to provoke more critical systems-thinking about the entire operation -- what goes on *between* the top line and bottom line so that if even a fraction of the executives who read High Performance Operations can implement these ideas, they will have improved the lives and livelihoods of that many more people and all their customers.
From the Back Cover
"Hillel Glazer has deftly synthesized all that he's learned from flying, building planes, engineering complex systems, and years of consulting to help organizations to be lean and focused on performance. I believe Hillel is a clear-eyed radical who loves what he wants to reform. You can sense his exasperation at all that is wasteful and wrong in organizations, even as he patiently helps us to find a profitable way through it." --Eileen C. Forrester, author of
CMMI for Services, Carnegie Mellon University
"Hillel Glazer sets about busting the myth that regulated industries and high performance operations are mutually exclusive. As a tax payer, I personally hope this book is widely read and its ideas rapidly adopted!" --David J. Anderson, author of
Kanban: Successful Evolutionary Change for your Technology Business "This is one book I've definitely been waiting for! Hillel Glazer shares the results of his reflections on dozens of improvement journeys, identifying what separates the operationally excellent organization from the wannabes. This book can help make your CMMI or ISO-based improvement program result in superior performance and 'compliance for free!'" --Michael D. Konrad, PhD, Chief Architect, Capability Maturity Model Integration, Carnegie Mellon University
"Hillel Glazer's easy-to-read book emphasizes systems thinking in improving performance--critical key to success in our increasingly complex and challenging business environment." --Paul D. Nielsen, Director and CEO, Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University
"By applying key systems engineering principles to process development, High Performance Operations
takes a pragmatic systems approach to doing business in today's compliance-heavy environment. Hillel Glazer provides a refreshingly different take on the path to business excellence." --Richard Turner, Distinguished Service Professor, Stevens Institute of Technology, and coauthor of
Balancing Agility and Discipline and
CMMI Survival Guide Most regulated businesses struggle to pursue both compliance and operational excellence. But these goals aren't--or shouldn't be--separate. This book shows how to harmonize them in a high performance operation, where compliance becomes a by-product of excellence, not a costly tradeoff against it.
Hillel Glazer helps you gain a far deeper understanding of the complicated and complex adaptive system you're currently running--and then reassemble its components and services for optimal performance. Drawing on powerful insights from systems engineering, he shows how to strengthen what's working, stop doing what doesn't work, and create a systemic, lean, optimized management solution for your entire operation.
Glazer's Process Solutioneering® methodology has delivered exceptional value to enterprises in industries ranging from manufacturing to healthcare, finance to transportation, aerospace to e-commerce, and IT to public safety services. If you want the same results,
High Performance Operations shows you how to get them.
* Custom-tailor unified systems that achieve compliance and excellence.
Create elegant, robust, long-term solutions to address both competing interests * Refocus on purposes and outcomes, not just practices
Get beyond "creating artifacts" to deeper, more lasting success * Successfully synthesize your operation's three primary components
Master and optimize business cycles, work effort cycles, and process cycles
