Jason Jennings' book Less is More: The main idea: focus. Focus on one thing - one thing for the long term, not one thing this quarter. And that one thing is the big idea of the organization - why is the organization on the planet? That big idea sets the direction and the yardstick by which everything is measured.
A theme has emerged for me at TOCICO 2014 across many of the talks and discussion this year. We generate big changes in implementing Theory of Constraints in organizations. And those big changes by their very nature create conflicts. How should we respond to these conflicts?
As usual, I'm exhausted after four days of listening and thinking and talking about the Theory of Constraints. Today was loaded with shorter sessions and more interesting conversations.
I attended a number of talks on CCPM today at TOCICO, as that is work I am doing these days. And these weren't even all the material that was available on CCPM. There were also some great hallway conversations.
The TOCICO conference has shifted from longer talks and workshops to 30-minute updates and case studies. This gives me the excuse to summarize in one post, rather than a post for each session.
Rob Newbold of ProChain held a session, diving into one of the big themes of his book, The Project Manifesto. It was good listening to him talk about it, as I picked up some things I hadn't appreciated from reading the book alone.
The second day of the TOCICO conference opened with a great keynote from Kristen Cox on "Better, Faster, Cheaper State Government." What a great way to open the day - TOC and systematic thinking really can come to an environment like state government. And there are lessons for other implementations.
Jelena Fedurko presented an interesting way to help resolve organizational conflicts - conflicts between the desired actions of two parts of the organization, where each believes the other's actions will severely damage a common goal.
Avraham Mordoch presented the next iteration on his CCPM Maturity Model that I reported on from last year's conference.
Eli Schragenheim's workshop covered the history of TOC with a focus on the many paradigm shifts that Goldratt went through in development of TOC and related thinking.
The "four concepts of flow" come from a 2008 article that Eli Goldratt wrote that describe the innovations from Henry Ford and Taiichi Ohno that have inspired him to create Theory of Constraints.
How does Theory of Constraints apply to the healthcare situation? Very well. Alex Knight presented his long running work in healthcare as the opening keynote at the TOCICO 2014 conference.
Collaboration is important to buisness, but it isn't the only thing. And it can't be forced by merely rearranging the deck chairs. Peter Vander Auwera gives me incentive to think about these things.
Interesting video from Mary Poppendieck on The Tyranny of "The Plan". It's full of good anecdotes and a couple of great examples of how planning could really work, instead of they way it usually (doesn't) work today.
"With everything you do you should train yourself to question your repeated behaviors." Is one version of the summary of this book.
Rob Newbold's latest book takes the reader further down into how to run projects (with CCPM). This book will be something to talk about with my colleagues and friends who are running these kinds of projects.
Blue Ocean Strategy is a ten-year-old book that is still relevant today. How do you craft a business strategy that moves you to a new mode of operation - away from the competition and setting your own destiny? I also see a lot of Viable Vision in this book.
A great discussion of systems thinking by Fred Kofman, which ties into much of what the folks in the Theory of Constraints camp talk about. In the first minute, he says several times some version of, "To optimize the overall system, you must sub-optimize the subsystems."
I read the 20-year-old Raving Fans recently. It has some great ideas that help people think about how to grow and develop your business. The key is to turn your customers into raving fans.