Abstract :
Continuing the series of articles on the Systems Approach to Management using minor characters from Shakespeare´s plays, the author turns to Shakespeare´s biggest star and his most complex character Hamlet to look at variation, and its understanding. Previous articles have explained how a manager can use a flowchart to help understand a process, and how necessary it is to measure the process so that he knows whether he is actually improving its performance. But what if seemingly sensible changes achieve no improvement, or even make things worse! The cause of such problems is nearly always a lack of understanding of the causes of variation. The author applies the principles of mathematical science to see what can be learned about Hamlet, and what can be learned about variation for which two causes are found. The first cause is intrinsic to the process-the common cause, and the second is external to the process-the special cause.
