Accelerating Returns and Paradigm Shifts

Bizmanualz Solutions

Part 4 of a four-Part Series

Part 1: Information Technology in Business
Part 2: Information Deployment
Part 3: Business Process Management
Part 4: Accelerating Returns and Paradigm Shifts

In our last article, we discussed Business Process Management. This week we will cover the concept of Accelerating Returns, more recently referred to as “ Moore’s Law,�? and the implications of technology on the future of business processes.

Moore’s Law

Moore’s Law

Gordon Moore, the co-founder of Intel, observed that chip (integrated circuit) complexity relative to minimum cost would double every 24 months. This implies that we will be using 100 GHz personal computers by 2015 (versus 4 GHz today). At this rate of advancement, sometime in the next 20 years we will approach the size of the atom as perhaps a fundamental barrier to future growth. Or will we?

Paradigms

Moore recently explained that the transistor may reach the limits of miniaturization at the atomic level. The belief that we cannot keep increasing the performance of computers because of a barrier like the atom is an example of a paradigm. Paradigms operate as filters of new information based on the rules of thought that a person has learned from schools, books, culture, religion, friends, work, etc. These thought patterns or rules block our ability to see new information, no matter how valid or accurate it may be. In other words, you don’t know what you don’t know and for most people one has to believe it to see it. But paradigms can change; and when they do they create a paradigm shift.

Paradigms Shifts

Thomas Kuhn began using the term paradigm shift in his 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. When you encounter something you do not understand what do you do? Do you ignore it or investigate the issue? If you throw out the anomaly then you are maintaining your old paradigm, perhaps noting the event as an error. But, what if the anomaly occurs again? Do you keep ignoring it again and again? In business this occurs quite frequently.

Let’s say a customer complains about a purchase. You might ignore the first complaint, after all, you think that no one has complained about that before. But another complaint comes in and then another. At some point you investigate the complaints. What if you find nothing wrong? You might say it is just user error and rationalize the fact that your engineers have studied the issue, your marketing people have done user studies and you know the product is right. Yet, another complaint comes in. Can so many users really be in error? So what is going on then?

Are you looking at the problem from your vendor point-of-view? What does the customer see that is different? Here, there are two different paradigms in conflict. As the vendor you see the designs, marketing, and company perspective all based on what you want to see. But the customer does not see the designs and interprets your marketing differently. From their perspective the product does not work. If you truly investigate the anomaly and try to understand what could cause the errors you will find yourself faced with a conflict.

Finally we shall place the Sun himself at the center of the Universe. All this is suggested by the systematic procession of events and the harmony of the whole Universe, if only we face the facts, as they say, `with both eyes open’.
Nicholaus Copernicus
Founder of the idea that Sun is at center, Earth orbits Sun

Your worldview may need to change in order to “see�? the customer’s problem. This introduces a crisis and now you are not sure which view is right. You are now in the middle of a paradigm shift. If your company refuses to shift to the new paradigm then you will see your business decline. If you make the shift then your business will continue to grow.

Accelerating Returns

Paradigms are critical for understanding how accelerating returns works. Moore thinks the atom will stop us from building more powerful transistors. But why are we constraining our thinking of a transistor to silicon? Could we build more powerful computers out of light and use optical transistors. Or perhaps another technology will come along and replace optics.

Accelerating returns states that knowledge increases exponentially, and so do the returns. So, we won’t experience 100 years of progress in the 21 st century, it will be more like 20,000 years of progress (at today’s rate). The more ideas we develop now, the more new ideas we will be able to develop in the future.

Future Business Processes

The future for business process looks bright. New more powerful technology will replace the old and knowledge will continue to increase. And with knowledge comes a reduction in waste and cost. Nowhere has this been more obvious than with computers. Computers, technology, and the Internet continue to drive down the cost of doing business, which in turn introduces new paradigms and, with it, new paradigm leaders.

Process will continue to improve as quality methods and tools propagate from company to company. Competition will continue to increase as those that have moved to a newer paradigm create new competitive advantages that the old paradigm companies fail to match.

Paradigms and accelerating returns suggest that nothing is impossible. If knowledge were linear then Moore might be right but it’s not. New technology comes along and solves problems we thought were impossible to solve. The impossible comes from a “can’t do�? paradigm. The possible comes from a new “can do�? paradigm you have not seen yet.

In the last 100 years, we have seen a man walk on the moon, polio get eradicated, and toys being made out of supercomputers. Decades ago it was thought that 10% waste was normal and zero defects was impossible. Today, 1% is waste is normal and process improvement tools like lean thinking or six sigma have shown that zero defects is possible. Does this mean that in the future there will be zero-defects for all? We now know that anything is possible if you change your paradigm.

To learn more about changing your paradigm and using process improvement programs for your organization, attend the next How to Align a System of People and Processes for Results class. If you are eager to learn more about creating more order out of the chaos you are feeling at work then the How to Create Well-Defined Processes class is right for you. ISO 9000 Quality Auditor classes are forming now for Internal Auditor or Lead Auditor.

Call for information on having your own private in-house classes today.

Sphere: Related Content