Taylor's Management Theory through Navrang Puzzle

To teach Taylor’s principles of Scientific Management, Dr. Mandi came up with this interesting new puzzle in which all students were challenged to arrange 27 cubes of 9 colours and make 1 big cube. The challenge was to have 9 different color cubes on each face.

Many students tried, performed well to an extent but the outcome was not satisfactory. There was no set process or procedure defined to arrange the cube. Every student had to spend a lot of time in thinking. It may not be a great hitch at individual level, but from an organization’s point of view it’s a disaster. If each individual worker/employee keep on spending so much of thinking time on the same job again and again it will never be productive. It calls for the need of standard operating procedure and deskilling of the process.

On the second phase of the puzzle, Dr. Mandi defined 9 simple steps to arrange the smaller cubes. The process was so simple and didn’t involve any mental work. Then students were invited once again to arrange the cubes and this time there was a drastic change in their productivity. Results were very conspicuous that process planning is the key to increase productivity. 

It’s a practical demonstration of Taylor’s principle of Scientific Management. Taylor said to improve the productivity Replace working by "rule of thumb," or simple habit and common sense, and instead use the scientific method to study work and determine the most efficient way to perform specific tasks.

Modern management theories do not undermine Taylor’s concepts .Taylor’s principles are basics of management. Modern management theories with focus on people are addition after applying Taylor’s principle. Only after mastering Taylors’s concepts should we move to next level of management theories