Productivity tools: “horses for courses”

With the rise of the generalist manager, and the demise of the productivity specialist, there has been a decline in the use of “standard” productivity tools and a move towards the application of “management systems”. This paper argues that the range of available productivity tools means that there is almost certainly a tool available for every productivity improvement situation. However, the paper points out that the deployment of such tools must be within a structured framework that manages the overall change process implicit in productivity improvement.