(RFS) Taylorism

Frederick Winslow Taylor invented the scientific management of production. He would do elaborate studies on efficiency wherein some people credit him with inventing the science of ergonomics. among other things that he champions (rewarding good workers, appropriate technology and what not) Taylor championed the pursuit of "the one right way to do things." He would define a specific process and then beat the hell out of it (scientifically) until he arrived at a system for the optimisation of that process.

Although principals such as these are taught everywhere in business and management school. "trim the inefficient" "find a better way to do things" I believe that this scientific approach or the ID equivalent (faux ethnographic study) frequently becomes overlooked and unexamined.

We must not succumb to modes of thought that reflect "I have the user in my head" types of mentality and we should continuously re evaluate the circumstances that we have designed for. It is impossible to design for the constraints of the world at once, the best we can do is furiously iterate solutions to maximise productivity, resourcefulness, the entire tripple bottom line, as well as more etherial or DADA ideas such as fun, or whimsical expression.

I believe these ideas also reference Christine Fredericks "Labor Saving Kitchen" of 1919 in which she defined a process:

In the goal of concentrating the working process to optimise productivity: Research, Distil, Rearrange

that sought to maximise "the homemakers investment of time, energy and money"

I wonder, do these ideals always need to be defined? Perhaps there is room for an exercise or a critique that finds the absolute wrong way to do things as a means of finding an alternate "right way" to do things.