The broom and nonroutine processes: a metaphor for understanding variability in organizations

✍ Scribed by Paul Lillrank

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2002
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 75 KB
• Volume: 9
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1092-4604
• DOI: 10.1002/kpm.145

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Organizations are challenged to be simultaneously creative and predictable, flexible and efficient. These results are achieved by standard, routine and nonroutine elements requiring different kinds of management approaches. These types are often overlapping and difficult to articulate. This paper proposes a metaphor: the Broom, that can help explore the nature and dynamics of processes with a variable level of repetition and predictability. The hard, stick‐end of the Broom illustrates repetitive processes that can be standardized, the opposite end nonroutines and chaos. The middle part represents routines, processes that are repeated in similar, but not identical ways. A task, process or organization can be positioned at the Broom depending on the level of repetition and predictability found in assessed input conditions, the mixture of tacit and explicit knowledge in the process algorithm linking assessment to action, and the degree to which targets are known and evaluated. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.