Systems Thinking: From Heresy to Practice: Public and Private Sector Studies 1st ed. 2011 Edition

JOHN SEDDON is a widely-published occupational psychologist and management thinker credited with translating the principles behind the legendary Toyota Production System for service organisations. John began his career researching the reasons for failures of major change programmes. This led him to W. Edwards Deming, who taught him the importance of understanding and managing organisations as systems and Taiichi Ohno who showed the practicality and power of doing so in manufacturing. Based on what he learned he developed his own methods for change, which he describes as a combination of systems thinking – how the work works – and intervention theory – how to change it. John is ManagingDirector of Vanguard, a systems thinking consultancy practice for service organisations, and a Visiting Professor at both the Lean Enterprise Research Centre, University of Cardiff
and the Derbyshire Business School, University of Derby, UK.

BRENDAN O’DONOVAN is Head of Research at Vanguard Consulting. He has recently completed an MSc in Operations Management at Cardiff Business School, UK. Having previously worked for a city council, Brendan has undertaken research projects for Cardiff University and recently co-authored a report for the Wales Audit Office on the subject of systems thinking in the Welsh public sector.