ABSTRACT
Our own attitude is that we are chartered with discovering the best way of doing everything and that we must regard every process employed in the business today as purely experimental.
Henry Ford
If you are sitting in a vertically-structured organization with functions operating in silos, but are serious about becoming process-focused to drive down cost while improving the ability to deliver customer value, then an end-to-end redesign is required. Experimentation must become the modus operandi, the driving force in redesigning the operation system underlying your business model. This means the design and deployment of a series of experiments that allow the organization to learn and adapt its way through a succession of target conditions, always moving toward a future condition as envisioned in the big picture developed in the treasure hunt. In the Purpose-Measure-Action Model, action is the experiments that give the enterprise access to a whole new world of continuous performance improvement that is waiting to be uncovered. Treasure hunting and experimentation are the foundation of a legitimate continuous process improvement methodology that, done right, will be “baked” into the enterprise. Continuous performance improvement is an extremely valuable and a massive cross-organization asset.
