Thomas O’Connor
Senior Consultant-1-
In Brief
- Principal of Wind Mountain Group
- Seven Years with Caesars Entertainment as Project Director and Director of Continuous Improvement
- Fifteen Years with HP in manufacturing, decision support systems, product development, and Lean Product Development
- Ten years in the nuclear industry focused on radiation safety
- BS, Computer Science, Oregon State University
- MA, Whole Systems Design, Antioch University Seattle
- Lean-Six Sigma Black Belt
- Certified Lean Product Development, University of Michigan
- PMI certified Agile Certified Practitioner and Project Management Professional (PMP)
Bio
I’m a process guy and specifically a disciple of Lean, Agile, and Empirical Process Control methods.
My thinking in these areas is based on my experiences in what is now a more than 40-year career in nuclear power, manufacturing, software development, project management and continuous improvement.
I started in the US Navy Nuclear Power program, as a submariner. I put myself through college by working in the commercial nuclear power industry; spent a few years as an engineer in the field of radiation safety-2-; then 15 years at Hewlett-Packard; seven years as a contractor to, and later an employee of Caesars Entertainment; and most recently, I had the honor of acting as assistant to the Superintendent of the Grand Canyon School District, in the Grand Canyon National Park.
I had many successes while in these roles, and unfortunately, a few failures. I’ve learned from both.
I was introduced to W. Edward Demming’s material in the Nuclear Industry, especially his concepts of root cause analysis, and his admonition that it is the “system which allowed an error.” As Demming said, “a bad system will defeat a good person every time.”
For two years in 2000 and 2001, I had the honor of being an engineer-on-loan from Hewlett-Packard to a local school district. My task was to develop collaborative school-community partnerships. That two-year assignment provided an outsider’s view from inside the system, and influenced my thinking about cultural contexts.
The distinguished organizational development scholar, Edgar Schein once got in my face and said, “There is no best practice!” I have come to understand the wisdom of those words, that as Schein continued, “all practice occurs within a context.” It is this need to understand the interaction of practice in the organizational context which forms the basis for my strong interest in the theory which underlies the practice.
Most change projects fail because they do not consider the cultural context of the organization or how proposed changes will interact with the adaptive function of the organization.
The theme that runs through my work is the importance of cultural context and intentionality of all practice.
When I’m not thinking about projects, processes or systems, I’m usually with my kids, skiing, camping or bicycling.
Notes:
- Senior Consultant, and at this moment in time, the only consultant for Wind Mountain Group. The home page for this site refers to “we,” not because I’m in the habit of referring to myself in the plural, but because the level of staffing varies depending on the type and scope of work we are engaged in. Recently this was two consultants, now it is one, in the future I’d like to see some growth. So I keep the “we.”
- Some people view the term Radiation Safety as an oxymoron. “There is no such thing as safe radiation,” they will say, often referring to any mention of radiation as “deadly radiation.” If this is true, then what should we make of automobiles which kill something greater than 40,000 people in the US annually? Maybe next time we jump in the car for a trip to the store, we should refer to it as the “Deadly Car?”
It all comes down to risk, and what one considers acceptable risk. While radiation is certainly a hazard to be considered when working in a nuclear plant, the reality is that falling down or off of ladders is the far greater risk. I think the problem with radiation is that, while we can envision someone falling down a ladder, it is hard to envision the danger posed by something invisible.