Idealized Design
By Russell L. Ackoff, Jason Magidson and Herbert J. Addison
Wharton School Publishing
ISBN: 0131963635
Rating – 5 stars
June 23, 2006
Dispel Tomorrow’s Crisis Today
Every organization faces interacting threats and
opportunities. It is, perhaps, simplistic to argue the ideal solution to these
problems is to imagine the ideal solution and then work backwards to today.
The authors refer to this six-step process as “idealized
design.”
·Idealization
Formulate the problem. Understand your organization’s Achilles heel by
preparing a systems analysis, an obstruction analysis, describe your
organization’s future without change and then project a scenario if nothing
is done.
Ends Planning. This is the heart of the process. Once you understand
where you are and where you want to be, identify the gaps.
·Realization
Means Planning
Resource Planning
Design of Implementation
Design of controls.
The authors include a chapter for government and another on
the health-care challenge. They offer humane, effective and intriguing
solutions to what often appears to be intractable problems.
“Nothing is more damaging to a new truth than an old
error,” wrote Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, the German cultural figure. For many
of us, it is easier said than changed. Idealized design offers a powerful tool
for revolutionary thinking. Adding its tenets into our individual and
organization thinking will help us adapt to today’s environment of rapid change.
