A Business Operating System (BOS) is a comprehensive framework that integrates the core processes, tools, principles, and methodologies necessary for an organization to plan, execute, monitor, and improve its operations. A “good” BOS boils down to three ideas: goals, metrics, and continuous improvement.
So what BOS should we / you use? Well, it’s a long story. We’ll skip Sumerians and record keeping, Renaissance and scientific method, Adam Smith and division of labor, industrial revolution and factories, and instead - jump right in with who I think are the Big Three (Deming, Ohno, and Wickman) to study.
- W. Edwards Deming (1940s - 1990s): Total Quality Management, quality through statistical control and systemic thinking
- Taiichi Ohno (1940s - 1980s): Toyota Production System, lean manufacturing through waste reduction, efficiency, and continuous improvement (kaizen)
- Gino Wickman (2000s - present): Entrepreneurial Operating System, organizational alignment and execution through structured processes and tools
Getting this list down to three was hard! While early pioneers of scientific management, like Frederick Taylor, are useful to read and understand, the ideas are really just foundational.
Then there are dozens of quasi-systems (Balanced Scorecard, Six Sigma) that are just riffs off TPS. I’m also excluding great “private label brands” of BOS like Danaher Business System or Amazon’s operating system because getting access to them is inconsistent and the operating systems are constantly updating.
Gino Wickman and EOS is the only publicly available BOS that incorporates every useful tool (OKRs, theory of constraints, etc) of the last century. EOS is the fastest, easiest, lowest cost operating system available on the market. If you study one BOS, pick this one, because it aggregates everything.