iteration in activities (Leonard-barton)

Dorothy Leonard-Barton, Wellsprings of Knowledge : building and sustaining the sources of innovation, 1995

pp.263—264
Iteration in activities

The fourth characteristic is an appreciation for the iterative, return-loop nature of all activities.  Whether the activity be problem solving, experimenting, importing knowledge from outside, or transferring knowledge, managers in the companies that successfully develop core capabilities know that they can never walk away from that activity with the assumption that it is now perfected.  Managers in some companies seem to have the attitude about their job attributed to God by 18th-century Deists——that the world was set in motion and then abandoned to itself.  Yet developing core capabilities is more like growing a garden than like building a brick wall.  Activities and projects need watering with fresh insights, fertilizing with resources, the sunlight of management attention——along with an evening respite from constant management oversight.  One cannot assume that a job done is a job finished.

    (Leonard-Barton, Dorothy, copyright © 1995, HD30.2.L46 1995, 658.4'038——dc20)
(Wellsprings of Knowledge : building and sustaining the sources of innovation / Dorothy Leonard-Barton, 1. information technology——management, 2. information resources management, 3. management information systems, pp.263—264)
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