That the management system he developed, "Achieving Operational Excellence" (AOEx), employs visual devices – graphs, charts and illustrations – is by no means a coincidence, said Edmund Marshall.
"We are all visual now," he said. "The TV, the Internet – we take it for granted that things are going to be visual."
AOEx was developed for use by non-profits, and introduced at the Executive Service Corps of New England’s (ESC) first Rhode Island conference on Jan. 24. This spring, participants will be able to resume learning to apply AOEx to their specific organizations through ESC consultancies and workshops.
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Before volunteering as a consultant with ESC 10 years ago, Marshall had a long career as an engineer, serving as president of Pratt & Whitney Aircraft and group vice president of Textron. Marshall was also a member of the team that developed the life support systems for the lunar landings when he worked for United Technologies.
Marshall developed his latest project, AOEx, while doing consultancies. He saw that many of the non-profits he worked with lacked the organizational structure to implement his management suggestions. Implementing the system, he said, provides an organization structure and, ultimately, "that prevents problems."
The AOEx program was inspired by a comprehensive survey of Rhode Island non-profits published in December 1999 and funded by the Rhode Island Foundation, in which organizations were asked to rate several aspects of their operational effectiveness. The results showed that while most non-profits are working hard to fulfill their missions, there exist many internal issues that impede the organizations’ ability to best serve their clients.
There are six focus points of the AOEx system – purpose, plan, resources, performance, measurement and report – which non-profits can learn to apply to their organizations through one-day workshops. At the basis of the AOEx management system is turning concepts into graphics in each of these steps, and using the graphics to plan, measure and complete goals.
"You just need that feel of what real time looks like," Marshall said. "You have to see those relationships."
He said visuals such as bar graphs comparing plan and performance provide "a way to see what your goal looks like when it is achieved."
The conference, attended by 85 representatives from 65 area non-profits, was a collaborative effort of the Rhode Island Human Resource Investment Council (HRIC), the United Way of Southeastern New England and the ESC.
That the HRIC helps train Rhode Island’s workforce and the ESC aims to help workers become more efficient makes the two organizations natural partners, according to ESC’s Rhode Island Program Director, Carl S. Sivo.
"This is the mission of the Executive Service Corps," he said. "And we decided that a conference would be a good way to kick it off."
