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Tom earned a Ph.D. from Harvard University in organizational behavior and has taught at the Harvard Business School, the University of Chicago, Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, and the University of Texas at Austin. He has also directed research centers at McKinsey & Company, Ernst & Young, and CSC Index and teaches the Harvard Business School Executive Education course, Leveraging Knowledge in the 21st Century.
An agile and prolific thinker, Tom has written or co-authored ten best-selling business books and has been a creator and early author for several key business ideas including: knowledge management (four books, one the best-selling Working Knowledge); human approaches to information management (two books); business process reengineering (on which he wrote or co-authored the first article, the first book, and the first casebook); and realizing the value of enterprise systems. Tom's book, The Attention Economy, was named one of the ten best books of 2001 by Amazon.com and by Borders and was the winner of the Library Journal award for one of the best business books of 2002. What’s the Big Idea: Creating and Capitalizing on the Best Management Thinking, was published in May 2003 and has become a top 10 best-seller in several countries. Published by Harvard Business School Press in September 2005, Dr. Davenport’s latest effort Thinking for a Living: How to Get Better Performance and Results from Knowledge Workers, is already an Amazon bestseller. What’s next? Tom has conducted a major research study on “Competing on Analytics: How Fact-Based Decisions and Business Intelligence Drive Performance.” A much-anticipated related article was published in the January 2006 Harvard Business Review decision-making issue to be followed by a book later in the year.
Tom has written over 100 articles for such publications as Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, California Management Review, and the Financial Times, and is quoted frequently in The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Business Week, Fortune, Business 2.0, the Boston Globe, and Fast Company. Tom is also interviewed frequently by the broadcast media and especially enjoys appearing on NPR’s Marketplace. He was named one of 10 "Masters of the New Economy" by CIO, one of 25 "E-Business Gurus" by Darwin, and in October 2004 one of the most trusted consultants by Optimize Magazine. In June 2003 he was named one of the top 25 consultants in the world by Consulting Magazine.
With his vast storehouse of industry stories, research & data, and cutting edge ideas, Tom Davenport balances research-based business acumen with practical application. His areas of expertise include improving the productivity of knowledge workers, information and knowledge management, attention management, idea generation, innovation, competing on analytics, managing enterprise applications for business value, and business process reengineering.
Programs with brief descriptions:
- Competing on Analytics: How Fact-Based Decisions and Business Intelligence Drive Performance
Companies have long used business intelligence for specific applications, but these initiatives were too narrow to affect corporate performance. Now, leading firms are basing their competitive strategies on the sophisticated analysis of business data. Instead of a single application, they are building broad capabilities for enterprise-level business analytics and intelligence. Their capability goes well beyond data and technology to address the processes, skills and cultures of their organizations. These strategies are driven by senior executives who insist on fact-based decisions. Davenport will describe his recent research on firms that compete on the basis of their analytical prowess and will provide guidelines for adopting similar approaches. A much anticipated article on this topic is scheduled for publication in the January 2006 Harvard Business Review decision-making issue, to be followed by a Harvard Business School Press book later in the year.
- Thinking for a Living: Improving Knowledge Worker Productivity and Performance
Peter Drucker has argued often that improving knowledge worker productivity is the most important task of the century. Yet we have few measures or management interventions to make such improvement possible. Most organizations simply hire smart people, and leave them alone. In this discussion, Tom Davenport will present six interventions for improving knowledge worker productivity, each with a set of approaches, examples, and cautions. The interventions combine roles for technology, organizational culture and behavior, and the physical work environment as tools for enhancing performance. The recommendations Davenport makes are based on several research studies he has conducted on how companies have addressed knowledge work, both successfully and unsuccessfully. This presentation is based upon a related Harvard Business Review article and Tom’s latest book Thinking for a Living: How to Get Better Performance and Results from Knowledge Workers (HBS Press, September 2005)
- Attention Must Be Paid!
The scarcest resource in business today is not information or knowledge, but human attention. In this session, Tom Davenport will describe the key elements of attention management in business as laid out in his book The Attention Economy. He will address such issues as the measurement of attention, the lessons we can learn from “attention industries,” and the role of technology in managing attention. Some of the contexts into which attention management can be newly applied include strategy, globalization, and leadership, but Davenport will focus specifically on the attentional implications of information and knowledge management within organizations.
- Knowledge Management : Where It’s Going, Where It’s Been
Many companies have begun testing the waters in terms of knowledge management; some have even incorporated it into their business processes. During this conference, Tom Davenport will not only describe the KM concept and its evolution but will also focus on emerging trends. In addition, he will address the various aspects of knowledge management: processes, technologies, strategies and human resources, some exemplary practices, and pitfalls to be avoided. Finally, he will review select knowledge management concerns: how to draw and retain the attention of one’s personnel, how to integrate knowledge management in one’s daily work, and how to improve the productivity and efficiency of knowledge workers.
- Process Management: What’s Changing and What Isn’t
Process management is undergoing a resurgence in business at both strategic and technological levels. Yet it’s a very complex field in which even mastering all the fast-changing acronyms is difficult. In this presentation, Tom Davenport will clarify the landscape by describing both the hot topics and the timeless realities of process management. His overall perspective will focus on how organizations and individuals can develop deep, abiding capabilities in managing the process dimension of work. He will provide examples of organizations in which process management has become a critical element in the structure and DNA of the firm. Among the specific issues he will address are:
- Creating a “catholic” approach to process management
- The role of process outsourcing and offshoring
- Building a process management infrastructure
- Process management for knowledge-intensive processes
- The relationship between process management and other organizational initiatives.
- What Stays, What Goes: Sourcing Processes and Jobs in the Global Economy
Almost every business process and job can now be performed offshore. Research and company experiences, however, suggest that geographical proximity is still an important factor in the performance of some processes. In this presentation Tom Davenport will describe the decision rules and guidelines that a company can use in deciding what processes to take offshore, and how to best prepare for the offshoring of a process. He will also describe a new study of which jobs are most likely to move offshore, and how companies and individual workers can prepare for the shifts in the global knowledge economy.
- The Process of Outsourcing Processes
Virtually any activity that an organization outsources can be viewed and managed as a process. Yet most outsourcing projects violate virtually every principle of process management. In this presentation, Tom Davenport—who wrote the first article and book on business process reengineering more than a decade ago—will describe what it means to manage outsourcing initiatives in process terms. He will discuss process-oriented outsourcing from the standpoint of both domestic and offshore relationships. Davenport will also provide some of the few shining examples of process-oriented outsourcing and the companies that undertook them. He’ll also describe what process standards, which are emerging in many industries and business domains, will mean for the future of outsourcing and its providers.
- What’s the Big Idea? Creating and Capitalizing on the Best Management Thinking
This presentation, based on Davenport’s new book by the same name, describes an approach to business and management ideas that can revitalize organizations. Davenport, who himself has helped to create several important ideas including reengineering and knowledge management, describes why the adoption of new ideas matters to organizations. A key emphasis is placed on the most important role in organizations with respect to ideas: the “idea practitioner,” who selects the appropriate ideas for his or her organization, modifies them to fit, and shepherds them through implementation. The creators and communications channels for new ideas are also important components of this picture. Davenport’s message is that there are no faddish ideas, only faddish approaches to implementing ideas. He puts both the credit and the responsibility for managing new ideas on idea practitioners and leaders within organizations.
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