Rodent Regatta

Today I received a piece of mail requesting my participation in an RTE conference. RTE apparently stands for ”real time enterprise.” What this appears to mean is that businesses should pursue systems, information and customer-supplier relationships that are based upon real-time data rather than ”old” data.

Fortunately, I won’t attend. Too many fads have come and gone or been tried and abandoned in businesses. The most disappointing thing about many of these initiatives is how worthwhile the results have been in the companies that have properly implemented them. In other words, every improvement initiative isn’t bad in and of itself. Rather, poor implementation usually is at the root of the problems.

I’m sure using real time information is great. Deming called it managing with facts. I’m also sure that real time information to the exclusion of customer focus or employee involvement or teams or quality or metrics or any of the rest will fail.

Eileen Shapiro wrote an excellent book called Fad Surfing in the Boardroom that explains why so many of these efforts come apart and actually do harm to the participating company. Here’s a quick review.