Faster, Cheaper, Better: The 9 Levers for Transforming How Work Gets Done

Based on more than a decade of research to understand the nuts and bolts of how work gets done at companies in every imaginable business—from oil refineries to software developers, factories, retailers, and hospitals—Faster Cheaper Better shows how to harness the amazing power of end-to-end process to become more profitable and competitive. Michael Hammer and Lisa Hershman provide the tools for focusing on work that creates real value for customers, including:

-How to get people to move from a "worm's-eye view" of their jobs to a "bird's-eye view"—to understand what the company really does and the role they have in achieving results.

-How to start measuring the factors that are most critical to the success of the business and identify the metrics that express them.

-How the new job of the process owner can tie together the separate silos that characterize the traditional organization to change the way work is done and how people relate to one another.

-How to create a cadre of professionals at every level—people who focus not just on limited tasks but the overall outcome, and ensure that the company gets and keeps happy customers.

Faster Cheaper Better provides the pragmatic program for change that will endure; change that enables you to prosper in good times and bad.

Michael Hammer was a bold and revolutionary thinker, and coauthor of Reengineering the Corporation, the most important business book of the 1990's. Named to Time magazine's first list of the twenty-five most influential Americans, the business world lost one of its rare geniuses when he passed away in September 2008. Dr. Hammer was also the author of The Agenda, as well as articles in Harvard Business Review, the Economist, and other publications.
Lisa Wilkes Hershman is the CEO of Hammer and Company, the global leader in business education process methods. Hershman previously served as corporate senior vice president of operational excellence at Avnet, Inc., where she was honored with the 2008 Avnet corporate Chairman's Award. Hershman, whose career experience includes GE Aerospace, is a contributing columnist for Business Week.