Thomas H. Davenport

James March, a Stanford-based social scientist... is much more a gurus’ guru than a guru to the general public. He finished second on the gurus’ gurus list and 48th on the original list.

— Thomas H. Davenport

Attention is focused mental engagement on a particular item of information. Items come into our awareness, we attend to a particular item, and then we decide whether to act.

— Thomas H. Davenport

In definitional terms, a process is simply a structured, measured set of activities designed to produce a specific output for a particular customer or market. It implies a strong emphasis on how work is done within an organization, in contrast to a product focus’s emphasis on what. A process is thus a specific ordering of work activities across time and space, with a beginning and an end, and clearly defined inputs and outputs: a structure for action.

— Thomas H. Davenport

Knowledge workers have high degrees of expertise, education, or experience, and the primary purpose of their jobs involves the creation, distribution or application of knowledge.

— Thomas H. Davenport

Ultimately, knowledge worker performance comes down to the behaviors of individual knowledge workers.

— Thomas H. Davenport

Companies should have well-defined procedures for dealing with the planned departure of a valued knowledge worker... Unfortunately, the evidence suggests that most firms are moving in the wrong direction on recruitment and retention issues.

— Thomas H. Davenport

Peter Drucker wasn’t exaggerating when he noted that the fate of advanced economies depends on making knowledge workers more productive. There is no business or economic issue that is more important to our long-term competitiveness and standard of living.

— Thomas H. Davenport

Business process reengineering encompasses the envisioning of new work strategies, the actual process design activity, and the implementation of the change in all its complex technological, human, and organizational dimensions

— Thomas H. Davenport