Name: Rosemary Chude-Sokei
Job Title: Performance Assessment & Reporting
Company: Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Industry: Healthcare
What would you say is your biggest challenge right now?
My biggest challenge right now is finding new, different and quicker ways of improving our performance. I work in a medical center where a significant proportion of employees and leaders have been there for 10, 15 and even 30 years. While this is great from a knowledge-based point of view, it also means that many processes have been done a certain way for a very long time. Change takes much longer and is often met with passivity or skepticism; unless a very urgent and compelling case for re-strategization exists.
Do you think this is something that TRIZ will help you with? Absolutely. TRIZ’s unique ability to systematically and in a stepwise and simple manner arrive at multiple “hmmmmm, that’s interesting…… hey wait a minute, what if we…..hold on…..Eureka!!!!!!!”
moments for technical and managerial challenges is one of the best things I’ve come across lately.
What inspired you to attend the Oxford TRIZ Live course?
I’d heard of Oxford TRIZ some years ago and wanted to attend the seminars in the UK, but couldn’t for various reasons. The ability to attend virtually was a great solution. I hope the courses continue.
Was there anything that particularly stood out for you on the course?
The daily assignments and workshops stood out the most for me. Also the quality of the videos. Why? I’ve attended far too many webinars and courses where I’ve not gotten my money's worth. With the Oxford TRIZ Live course I’m still referring to my notes and the resource materials long after the course has ended. The “business and people” sections in the Guide to Solving Contradictions” has helped me as a manager. I literally have that file on my phone, tablet and laptop. I can’t afford to be without it now. The ability to go back over the recorded sessions for a while after the course ended was also extremely helpful.
Have you, or do you have plans, to use what you have learnt in the near future?
I’m using what I’ve learnt right now!!!!! I used the “guide to solving
contradictions” in a managerial situation where we applied “prior counter action”. It completely turned the situation around. We had virtual high fives all day after the meeting. I also used the resource checklist to identify other previously unknown resources in our system that could potentially improve our workflows
Which tools do you think you will find most useful?
The Guide to Solving Contradictions, Thinking in Time and Scale, the Resource definition and Hidden Resource checklist and the resource map for the super/system and subsystem were the most useful.
What would you say to someone thinking about coming on the next live course?
Just do it, you’ll come away with a whole new level of thinking.
