Flash Forward

There has probably never been a time when more effort was being expended to devise new management tools. The rich payoffs reaped by theorists such as James Champy and Michael Hammer, co-authors of the multimillion-dollar book, Reengineering the Corporation (HarperBusiness) and co-parents of the reengineering movement, have inspired other consultants and academics to take a shot at starting the next management craze.

No one knows whether any of these currently hot management trends will be tomorrow's next Total Quality Management or reengineering movement. But one thing's for sure: By this time next year, there will have been many lessons learned and plenty of new and improved management ideas from which to choose.

This article was originally published in the January 1999 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: Flash Forward.