Richard (Dick) Hamming is one of the great minds of the 20th century. Below is an attempt to capture that wisdom in one shareable place. Here you will find a short introduction to Dick Hamming, featured work, three exercises/lessons from him (and ways to apply them), as well as a selection of quotes.

Russell “Russ” Ackoff was one of the great minds of the 20th century. He was a longtime resident of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and is widely recognized as one of the world’s leading authorities on Systems Thinking. For more than 20 years he was a professor of Systems Science at the Wharton School of business, and he was a lifelong friend of both Peter Drucker and W. E. Deming. His leadership theory defined a nascent branch of industrial engineering. He went on to write 30 other books, becoming one of the most influential management thinkers of our time.

This lecture was originally delivered to graduate students at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, on March 28, 1995. The lecture was an introduction to a capstone course taught by Dr. Richard Hamming called “The Art of Doing Science and Engineering.”