Remembering Michael Hammer: Reengineering guru passes way

Dr Hammer was best known as a public speaker and co-author, with James Champy, of the 1993 book Reengineering the Corporation, which spent more than a year on The New York Times and other bestseller lists. He is also the author of The Reengineering Revolution (1995), Beyond Reengineering (1997), and The Agenda (2001).

Reengineering the Corporation significantly influenced the way many corporations have reorganized their workplaces by focusing on the expertise of their employees. Dr. Hammer wrote the book with James Champy; after it was published by Harper Business in 1993, it was on The New York Times nonfiction paperback best-seller list for 41 weeks. Its influence led to Dr. Hammers inclusion, in 1996, on Time magazines list of Americas 25 Most Influential People.
Reengineering the Corporation promoted the idea of reorganizing business departments by having the workers break down their activities into logical, bite-size pieces, then take a clean sheet approach to reassembling their work for greater efficiency and productivity.

Managers have to switch from supervisory roles to acting as facilitators, as enablers, and as people whose jobs are the development of people and their skills so that those people will be able to perform value-adding processes themselves, the book said. At the same time, it said, those empowered to make the changes at lower levels must know they have the support of top management, or change wont occur.

Dr. Hammer earned his bachelors degree in math in 1968, a masters degree in electrical engineering in 1970, and a doctorate in computer science in 1973, all at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After graduating, he taught computer science at M.I.T. In 1987, he became a management consultant, work that started his thinking and research for Reengineering the Corporation.