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Big Business Joins The Proverbial Quilting Circle

May 25, 2006 By David Burn

Ben McConnell made a post on his blog about Intuit rewarding failure as a mean of encouraging experimentation. Graham Hill responded, and thanks to his efforts we now have a new term to toss around.

Intuit’s approach is a brave example of what is known as “Patching”.
Patching breaks down the business into a quilt of smaller patches, each of which looks for improvements in its own area, and at the knock-on effects of improvements in neighbouring areas. As some of the areas find improvements that make the business more effective, neighbouring areas adjust to the changes. The next iteration of the business emerges improved and more effective through a process of many small, inter-linked improvements.
That doesn’t mean that a business needs hundreds of patches at the same time. Companies like HP, Compaq, Dell and British Petroleum have all used patching to tackle business problems like divisional realignment, product development and restructuring, often with a relatively few patches.
Take a look at Stuart Kaufmann’s McKinsey Quarterly article “Escaping the Red Queen Effect” and Kathleen Eisenhardt’s HBR article “Patching: Restitching Business Portfolios in Dynamic Markets” to learn more about how patching improves business performance.

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Filed Under: Management Theory

About David Burn

Co-founder and editor of Adpulp.com. David wrote his first ad for a political candidate when he was 17 years old. She won her race and he felt the seductive power of advertising for the first time. Today, David is a creative director in Austin, Texas.

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The Chronicle of Bright Ideas. Launched by David Burn and Shawn Hartley in 2004. Read, shared, and debated by a rogue group of ad pros ever since.

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