About the Author

Peter Middleton is Senior Lecturer at Queen's University Belfast and an acknowledged specialist in service and software quality. Winner of the North American Shingo Prize for Applied Research Excellence in 2007, he has worked with organisations like Hewlett-Packard, Northrop Grumman, Software Productivity Consortium, IBM, Tata Information Systems and the Delta Institute, Copenhagen. John Seddon trained as an occupational psychologist and is known around the world for his pioneering work on change in public and private sector organisations. He translated and adapted the Toyota Production System (TPS) for use by service organisations. He is also known as an informed and controversial critic of management fads and much of the theory that has underpinned public sector reform. He is a leading advocate of Systems Thinking in business and the public sector and a widely published author who lectures at seminars, conferences and universities around the world. He is Managing Director of Vanguard Ltd, a consultancy specialising in organisational change, and a Visiting Professor at Cardiff and Derby Universities.