This blog is currently addressing business processes, human workflows, etc. However, at the very bottom of this page appears my bibliography [partial] with prior articles on topics like cost benefit analysis, six sigma, service level agreements, etc
To reconcile these two, sometimes opposed approaches to system design, I recommend the following talk (in a one-hour video) by John Seddon, an occupational psychologist. Just click on the image below to watch his January 03, 2010 presentation.
In the course of his talk, Seddon refers to the 2008 Wiley book
Customer service, often a human task, they assert, is only needed when an organization does something wrong -- eliminating the need for service is the best way to satisfy customers. To be successful, organizations need to treat service as a data point of dysfunction and figure what they need to do to eliminate the demand.
You decide!
