The Principles of Scientific Management
Frederick Winslow Taylor · 1911
4.7 · 7 ratings
About the book
The pamphlet that invented management as a discipline: measure the work, standardise the method, pay for output — demonstrated on pig iron, shovels and bricklayers. Loved, hated, and underneath every process document written since.
Try the short course
Part 1 · What bosses and workers both want. The first six slides, free.
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Picture a forest being cut down, or topsoil washing out to sea. You can see that loss, photograph it, get angry about it.
Now picture a man at a workbench making the same clumsy, wasted movement over and over, all day. Taylor's introduction starts exactly here: the ill-directed movements of men "leave nothing visible or tangible behind them." Noticing that loss "calls for an act of memory, an effort of the imagination," so nobody holds meetings about it.
He was sure this was the larger, invisible waste, greater every day than the vanishing forests and coal. The whole book is an attempt to make it visible. And the first thing he has to settle is who would actually gain if it stopped.
Inside the course
12 parts- What employers and workmen both actually wantFree above
- Soldiering: why men work slow on purpose
- The old plan: initiative and incentive
- The four duties of scientific management
Questions
Is The Principles of Scientific Management free to read in Astra Trainer?
Yes. The full book opens free in the app’s reader, in English, Portuguese, and Russian.
What is the short course?
12 short parts that walk through the book’s key ideas in slides, each with a quick quiz. The first six slides are free to try on this page.
Where do I get the app?
Astra Trainer is free on the App Store and Google Play. The Principles of Scientific Management is waiting in the app’s library.
