Kepner-Tregoe
| 150px | |
| Private | |
| Industry | Management Consulting |
| Headquarters | Princeton, New Jersey, U.S. |
|
Area served
|
Worldwide |
|
Number of employees
|
180 (2008)[1] |
| Slogan | Rapid Results. Lasting Value |
| Website | kepner-tregoe |
Kepner-Tregoe, Inc. is a multinational [2] management consulting and training [3] services company headquartered in Princeton, New Jersey.
It provides consultation and training to companies in industries such as manufacturing, electronics, chemical, pharmaceuticals, and financial services.[4]
The company was founded in 1958 by former RAND Corporation researchers Dr. Charles Kepner and Dr. Benjamin Tregoe.[1] They are best known for their Rational Process technique, and together wrote the book "The Rational Manager"[5] published in 1965 and "The New Rational Manager" [6] published in 1981.
Contents
Offices
Currently, the firm runs 13 offices, serving 18 countries.
- Americas
- United States (Princeton), Canada (Toronto).
- Asia Pacific
- Australia (Sydney), Hong Kong, Japan (Tokyo), Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur), Singapore, Taiwan (Taipei).
- Europe
- Austria (Wiesbaden, GER), Belgium (Vufflens-le-Château, CH), France (Paris), Germany (Wiesbaden), England (Maidenhead), Luxembourg (Vufflens-le-Château, CH), Netherlands (Brummen), United Kingdom (Maidenhead), Switzerland (Vufflens-le-Château) .
Initial research
The RAND Corporation were attempting to improve the effectiveness of the Air Defence system in the US, and had developed a way of simulating various types of air threats, from high-level attacks to sneak attacks. Kepner and Tregoe were studying the Manual Air Defence System, and for 6 months watched how groups of people processed incoming information.
They noticed a difference among Commanding Officers in recognising a problem when it was occurring, and in the speed and nature of their responses. When Kepner and Tregoe left the RAND Corporation, they pursued the hypothesis that "some people were using a mental process that enabled them to be better than others at dealing with the information that was being presented" and "the more ability that a person had to articulate how they were making a decision the better they would be".
They observed meetings, interviewed managers and CEOs, and asked them to identify good and poor decision-makers, to see what the differences were. They found that observation was more revealing than interviews. They found no difference between those who had been identified as good and poor in terms of their ability to articulate how they were making decisions. They concluded that greater awareness of the decision-making process would let decision-makers improve their performance and improve the performance of others.
At the same time, they developed a simple, four-part business simulation, which they used at the Hughes Aircraft Fire Control Laboratories to track what people were doing and observe the sequence in a controlled environment. They found that there is a different sequence of information-gathering and responses to handle mishaps, compared with the process of reaching a sensible decision.[7]
Kepner-Tregoe and ITIL
The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) mentions Kepner-Tregoe as a part of the Problem Management component Article text.[8] and an externally recognised examination may be taken in the subject.[9]
Kepner-Tregoe analysis
Kepner-Tregoe analysis refers to a process of weighing alternatives in which a person lists and assigns a numerical weight to a series of values (noting that some may be absolute requirements), gives each alternative a numerical rating according to each value, and computes a numerical score for the alternative (as the dot product). The technique allows that an absurd result may indicate an error in the weight and the rating, to be solved by adjusting and iterating.[citation needed]
