xiv Reengineering is clearly an idea whose time has come... It is very, very difficult to do... Reengineering
is... the complete reinvention of how work is done and of all the attendant aspects of an organization
p.3-4 The purpose of this book is to help you succeed at reengineering... Reengineering: The Official
Definition
The fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to bring
about dramatic improvements in performance.
...Reengineering is not about improving what already exists. Rather, it is about throwing it away
and starting over; beginning with the proverbial clean slate and reinventing how you do your work.
p.5 The starting point for organization success is well-designed processes.
p.25 Reengineering requires radical, breakthrough ideas about process design. Reengineering leaders
must encourage people to pursue stretch goals and to think out of the box; to this end, leadership must reward
creative thinking and be willing to consider any new idea.
p.38 The decision to reengineer is often the result of an epiphany, a fundamental insight
on the leader's part that the old ways will no longer do and something dramatic must be done.
p.56-57 The content of reengineering work can be expressed as follows:
Understanding the old process and customer requirements, so as to recognize the
weaknesses of the existing process and the performance demanded of the new one.
Inventing a new process design that shatters long-held assumptions.
Constructing the new process, including fleshing out the full details of its operation,
developing its implications for all aspects of the organization, training people, building requisite information systems,
and so on.
Selling the new way of working and living to the organization as a whole.
By the context of reengineering effort, we mean the environment in which this work will be done.
Reengineering as a rule is conducted in conditions of:
Uncertainty. When reengineering begins, we know little other than that the process is inadequate
and that we need something far better. This uncertainty is not eliminated quickly, but only gradually, over the lifetime
of the project.
Experimentation. Reengineering is an iterative experience. It is impossible to
design a new way of working on paper; it must be tried in reality. And this inevitably means that mistakes will be made.
Pressure... Since reengineering must proceed at a headlong pace, reengineers always operate under
conditions of great urgency and intensity.
p.58-60 Reengineering is conducted in a state of uncertainty and ambiguity, but moves quickly nonetheless...
An operative definition of a good candidate for a reengineer is someone who will be capable and comfortable working
in the reengineering context and style... how do we go about identifying people with these characteristics? ...For
openers, it's not hard to find someone with good design skills whose thinking style is centered on processes. You
just need to find an engineer. Reengineering is, in fact, a branch of engineering; its domain is organizations and
work rather than structures or electronic devices. At a fundamental level, all engineers - electrical, mechanical,
civil, software, industrial - have much in common. Their thinking styles can be readily adapted from one domain to another.
An engineer's natural inclination is toward design, toward synthesis and invention rather than analysis. Scientists may be
concerned with understanding what is; engineers are focused on what can be made. All engineers know how
to cope with complexity. Engineers do not have the luxury of simplifying the world, of carving out a narrow corner in which
to operate. Their creations must operate in the real world, with all its complexity and multidimensionality. Engineers are
holistic problem solvers. Moreover, process is what reengineers live and breath. The terminology may vary from field to field
(some use the term "system", for example), but big-picture thinking is intrinsic to all engineering disciplines.
p.103 Creativity is daunting. It requires the ability to see what isn't there yet, to perceive the invisible,
to produce what never existed before. This is not what is taught in business schools.
Neither is our Rule of Whacko. We often describe the demands of reengineering by invoking this
rule. It reads: Any valuable new process design will at first appear to be whacko. That is, if someone
approaches you with a proposal for a new process design that strikes you as interesting and plausible, our advice is: Throw
it away. That the notion appeals to you means that it fits your preexisting models of how the process should work -
that it is only a modest variation on the existing theme and not a radical innovation at all. If, on the other hand,
you initially feel a new idea is ridiculous, absurd, and out of the question, our advice is: Look at it again, for
it holds at least the potential of being important. That it appears whacko means that it departs sharply from the existing
process, and so at least satisfies the criterion of being radical.
Naturally, not every whacko idea is a good one.
p.104-105 Several techniques can help break this deadlock of creativity... One of them is called
breaking assumptions.
Remember that the definition of reengineering contained the phrase "fundamental rethinking."
One route to discovering new process designs is by surfacing and questioning the underpinnings of the old process, the reasons
why it was designed to work the way it did. When these are exposed to the light of day, it often becomes crystal clear why
the old design is no longer the right one, and what the centerpiece of a superior one would be.
In general, reengineering is called for when an old process no longer produces adequate results
and a new one must be created.
p.107 Reengineering means identifying these underlying assumptions, questioning them, and discarding
them. This is the act of destruction that has to precede creation.
p.117 What is so difficult and painful about reengineering? At first, it would seem that the most daunting
part would be creating a radical, out-of-the-box model for a new process. But as we have seen in chapter 7, it isn't especially
arduous to come up with breakthrough process ideas; even if it were, that would not seem to warrant the emotion-laden terms
we have quoted. So what's the real problem here?
The answer is, in short, is living through change: getting people to let go of their old ways
and embrace new ones. We have said it before, but it bears repeating: Reengineering changes all aspects of a business.
p.157 As one CEO has put it, "If everything isn't changing, it's not reengineering." ... values really lie
at the heart of any successful attempt to reengineer.
p.158 Only a deep-seated belief in the right values can generate the passion and commitment that a reengineered
process requires... A hallmark of reengineering is that it creates processes with far greater flexibility than those
they replace.
p.274, 289 One of the great misconceptions about reengineering is that it applies only to businesses, and
large businesses at that. As we hope you've gathered by, reengineering is not primarily about profit and loss, the stock price,
or any of the other appurtenances of modern capitalism. It is about work. Reengineering is concerned with
the redesign of work so that it can be performed in a far superior way. Therefore, reengineering is relevant for any organization
in which work takes place: large or small, manufacturing or service, profit or nonprofit, private or public sector...
Reengineering works wherever work is done.
p.279 What's striking about Brettler's appreciation of reengineering is that he actually applied it, paying
strict adherence to its principles. First, he was committed to breakthrough improvement... Second, Brettler was willing to
start with a clean sheet of paper. Rather than incrementally improving the course, he decided to set it aside and start afresh.
He began by asking the same fundamental question... What is my true objective and what is my real end product?
In doing this, he was applying the reengineering principle of focusing on outcomes rather than tasks.
