| Article ID: | iaor20042400 |
| Country: | United States |
| Volume: | 33 |
| Issue: | 5 |
| Start Page Number: | 78 |
| End Page Number: | 82 |
| Publication Date: | Sep 2003 |
| Journal: | Interfaces |
| Authors: | Ackoff Russell L. |
| Keywords: | planning, service, government |
People meet many (if not most) proposed changes of systems with answers to the question, ‘What's wrong with the suggestion?’ This focus prevents the implementation of many potentially innovative changes. An alternative question is preferable: ‘How can we improve the proposed changes?’ The answers can lead to the design of an improvement in a system's behavior, for example, improvements to the public school system resulting from the proposed school vouchers and changes to the national health-care system.