Field studies
Where a thesis meets an operator.
Theses applied inside real organizations, for two to four quarters, with the outcome reported against a written baseline. This is where a position earns or loses confidence. Organizations are described, not named, until they consent to attribution.
Moving people, not skills
Manufacturing · 9,000 people · 6 plantsA training budget was rising every year while output per trained worker fell. Was the skill the problem, or where it was being used?Pricing the exception
Financial services · 6,500 people · contact operationsAgents handle 70 percent of contacts. The people handling the remaining 30 percent are paid on a scale designed for the first 70. What happens to retention and quality when pay follows the exception?Planning by workflow
B2B software · 1,200 peopleHeadcount planning ran on job titles while the work ran on cross-functional workflows nobody owned. Would planning around workflows change where the escalations went?Capacity before deployment
Health system · 22,000 peopleAn agent rollout for scheduling had stalled at two units after a year. Was the constraint engineering, or the management capacity to absorb the change?Decision rights, redrawn
Logistics · 4,000 people · 14 hubsA national parcel operator had automated dispatch and still missed cut-offs. The constraint was not throughput. Six roles could halt a route and none could restart one.How a study is run
- A problem, not a brief
Studies start with an operator's question and a thesis in the library that speaks to it. If no thesis does, it is not a field study; it is a signal.
- A written baseline
Before anything changes, the sponsor and the institute write down what will be measured and what it looks like today. The baseline is published with the result.
- The smallest intervention
We change the fewest things that could falsify the thesis. Usually that is a rule, a decision right, or a plan, not a tool.
- Two to four quarters
Long enough to see an effect against seasonality, short enough that the organization is still the same organization.
- A limitations note
Every result ships with what it cannot establish. No control group is a limitation, not a footnote.
- A verdict on the thesis
Strengthened, narrowed, weakened, or in progress. The verdict is recorded on the thesis page, whichever way it went.