Rule of Thumb is basically empirical and drawn from experience and practical knowledge of the field. It is like inttuition. Soemtimes it works and sometimes it does not. There is no scientific bassis to it but yet it work in some situations.  Therefore I would not it is "always harmful for an orgnisation. However, it should be used sparingly or sued as a starting point for ecciting futher ideas and investigation.

Dear @Mizanur, Taylor is often called "The Father of Scientific Management." His approach is also often referred to, as Taylor's Principles, or Taylorism. Link follows!

" The inefficient rule-of-thumb methods, which are still almost universal in all trades, and in practicing which our workmen waste a large part of their effort." is one of three principles of Scientific management that he had introduced!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Principles_of_Scientific_Management

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thumb

Rule of thumb is practiced before the advent of widespread use of scientific principles. Sometimes it may work, but in a majority of cases it is not likely. It is better to follow scientific principles for the good of the organization.

http://www.socialens.com/blog/2009/11/12/remixing-rule-of-thumb-and-scientific-management/

http://www.skymark.com/resources/leaders/taylor.asp

Like many things there are positives and negatives associated with the rule of thumb approach. Having said that there is no doubt that heuristic knowledge remains a valuable and realtively untapped resource in many organizations. But how should this be optimally managed is probably the bigger question?

This article titled 'Rethinking the Decision Factory' published via HBR may be of interest-

http://pelletierconsulting.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/R1310E-PDF-ENG.pdf

First. They develop a science for each element of a man’s work, which replaces the old rule-of” thumb method.

Second. They scientifically select and then train, teach, and develop the workman, whereas in the past he chose his own work and trained himself as best he could.

Third. They heartily cooperate with the men so as to insure all of the work being done in accordance with the principles of the science which has been developed.

Fourth. There is an almost equal division of the work and the responsibility between the management and the workmen. The management take over all work for which they are better fitted than the workmen, while in the past almost all of the work and the greater part of the responsibility were thrown upon the men.

It is this combination of the initiative of the workmen, coupled with the new types of work done by the management, that makes scientific management so much more efficient than the old plan.

Principles of Scientific Management, Frederick Winslow Taylor (1911),

https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/taylor/principles/ch02.htm

See the following academic paper about Rule of thumb by 

Jonathan Roughgardena, Department of Biological Sciences and Department of Geophysics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305 in Behavioral and Brain Sciences:

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=7250324&fileId=S0140525X00065584

Dear @Kamal, it is not far from the definition in scientific management! In web page that You have attached, it is written "A means of estimation made according to a rough and ready practical rule, not based on science or exact measurement." That is, actually a provisional definition of Rule of Thumb!

I was not aware of the origin of "Rule of Thumb"!!!!!!!! It is a good link, thanks!

Dear Mizanur,

The Rule of thumb is used in many occasions. It has its advatages and disadvatages.

It is quite simple really:

1. If you do not know what you are doing - rule of thumb will most likely give you a better result than otherwise. If nothing else many of the bigger mistakes are often avoided. At best this helps the organization to continue on the path of mediocrity. For amateurs to avoid disasters it may be a way forward. Not so much for a specialist business. but more for activities which are outside your area of competence.

2. If you are stuck with *rule of thumb* in your organization you will find it difficult to innovate and develop, you will also find it difficult to sustain even the most basic level of mediocrity within your area of *expertise*. To support an ongoing development of mediocrity within your business environment - and so at least be able to compete with *brut force* approach (productivity) with your competitors the scientific method may be a suitable strategy. The idea of identifying industry best practices and to copy them locally often fits well within this strategy. The result tends to become excellence in industrial mediocrity.

3. If you truly do business in a very competitive business space, you may need to draw on *all* competencies within your business and company - and so will have to engage the full *knowledge base* available within your organization. This means that the scientific management approach will become a hindrance. As any organized activity becomes more and more dependent on its employees as *knowledge workers* by definition they cannot be managed scientifically as they are the ones who have the most *relevant* and contextually *valid* knowledge about their particular work situation. And so their activities could not possibly be *scientifically managed* by anyone else. The reason being that those who are not involved in the daily operations in context could in complex organizational problem spaces also not *predict* or *understand* that particular context. As a result management could not make decisions on future actions which they do not understand and cannot predict. Even if some of them might be within their personal area of competence - which is usually not the case anyway (the reason why there is a knowledge worker employed for the job in the first place). For excellence, there is no substitute for contextually based expert judgement - and the expert needs to be the one doing the actual job.

There is this perennial question, "Is management a science or an art?" In fact, records show that there as many successful managers who did not take up management, as there are successful managers who took up management as a course. Perhaps it is because those successful mangers who finished BSBA or MBA or DBA were able to use scientific management in their careers, and those successful ones who did not finish management course, were able to apply the "Rule of Thumb" to their advantage.

It is quick "Guesstimate" method, many a time (ironically) business decisions are also taken while closure of a business deal.

In foundry, when we conduct Industrial Engineering studies, we see such deviation....

which are all generalizations made from "averaging of payments over 6 months etc.

Dear Mr Mizanur:

                              Remember  F. Taylor lived a time when science and the scientific method was "the" solution for all the problems in mankind. History shows that it was not true. Work is not scientific, is human. So, to pretend that measuring work just as Taylor said is "the way" is wrong. I would say Taylor methods are just one way of analyzing work, an important one and also a way that helps measure it, something very important from a  managerial point of view. 

                               In short, rule of thumb in work is useful as in life, because work is a part of human life. Have in mind what Taylor said about how to measure work, but don´t take everything he said as good, because he was wrong in many aspects. He was a genius for his time, not now.

Regards

Gustavo Concari

Yes, largely so. If an organization practices Taylorism, this means that there is command and control style management followed  in that organization. It may deliver results in the short run only. Sustainable results can be expected only  by practicing  a style of management that cares, is empowering, involves people, is empathetic, and practices positivity. This has been empirically established by research in this field. 

Taylorism was authoritarian and unfair towards labor. Rule of thumb is an approximation based on experience and is more of a guess work without any scientific basis. Hence, is not always correct. Organizational decision making is not      '  rule of thumb ‘ , but the result of systematic process of understanding and analysis of the situation. Any organization works mainly on binary system: technical and human where both are in cohesion . ' Rule of thumb '  is unilateral and does not take into consideration the social system of the organization. ‘ Rule of thumb ‘ may be used in a situation where any decision is better than no decision.

While Taylorism could be seen as a *very* special case of authoritarian behavouir - it was based upon the idea of *meritocracy*. While authoritarian attitude and practice does not require meritocracy to be in place. So to say that Taylorism *was* (is?) authoritarian *is* highly questionable. Furthermore to state that Taylorism was unfair towards labour - is to put personal values in place as objectively and generally true. It is not necessarily the case that *implementation* of Taylorism always was unfair from all stakeholders points of view - including those labelled as *labor*. Also to suggest that *organizational decision making is not rule of thumb - but the result of systematic process of understanding and analysis of the situation - would be (from my perspective) another over-generalization which might not be true in the so called real world organizational practice. We could ask ourselves - what is meant with *organizational decision making as the result of systematic process of understanding and analysis of the situation? Who is it that is making any understanding in what way and of what? How about *human beings* within an organizational problem space and situation? So how exactly are there human beings making decisions? Even the so called *scientific approach* is an example that could be described as *rule of thumb* today. And that is one of many reasons for why there has been so much critique of *positivist* approaches for many, many years now...

I agree @ Huajiang Ouyang & Ljubomir Jacić 

Rules of thumb tend to be useful temporarily, until a thorough analysis is carried out and some specific actions are devised.

A serious analysis should begin with a complete casuses-consequences examination, as the basis for a sound diagnostic. This, of course, is not always feasible when proper knowledge and experience are not available.