9 colours of management !!!!

Objective: learn the importance of process management by using a Navrang cube puzzle and critical examination of Taylor’s scientific management theory.

Taylor's four principles are as follows:

1.      Replace working by "rule of thumb," or simple habit and common sense, and instead use the scientific method to study work and determine the most efficient way to perform specific tasks.

2.      Rather than simply assign workers to just any job, match workers to their jobs based on capability and motivation, and train them to work at maximum efficiency.

3.      Monitor worker performance, and provide instructions and supervision to ensure that they're using the most efficient ways of working.

4.      Allocate the work between managers and workers so that the managers spend their time planning and training, allowing the workers to perform their tasks efficiently.

Navrang cube puzzle

It’s a practical demonstration of Taylor’s principle of Scientific Management. To check the gravity of Taylor’s argument, Dr. Mandi came up with this interesting new puzzle in which all students were challenged to arrange 27 cubes of 9 colours and make 1 big cube. The catch lied in the fact that each face should contain all the 9 colours.

Many students tried, performed well to an extent but the outcome was not satisfactory. There was no set process or procedure defined to arrange the cube. Every student had to spend a lot of time in thinking. It may not be a great hitch at individual level, but from an organization’s point of view it’s a disaster. If each individual worker/employee keep on spending so much of thinking time on the same job again and again it will never be productive. It calls for the need of standard operating procedure and deskilling of the process.

On the second phase of the puzzle, Dr. Mandi defined 9 simple steps to arrange the smaller cubes. The process was so simple and didn’t involve any mental work. Then students were invited once again to arrange the cubes and this time there was a drastic change in their productivity. Results were very conspicuous that process planning is the key to increase productivity. This is exactly the same that Taylor claimed. Dr. Mandi was again able to prove his point in his own way.