All tagged toc
I am talking about Theory of Constraints Monday (22 January) evening through my association with Northwestern's Center for Learning and Organizational Change . This will be an introduction to the concept.
Do policies ever get in the way of improving a system? David Anderson writes about this in Superstition and Boiling Frogs.
Jim McGee tells us that "Deliverables [are] the fundamental secret to improving knowledge work." I see a connection to Theory of Constraints in Jim's thinking.
Clarke Ching has found an interesting (and long) report that uses Theory of Constraints to study the UK Network Rail's capacity.
Malcolm Ryder has a recent piece that looks at Change that provides some steps to consider on the way to creating change within the organization. As I read his article, I saw some parallels to the Theory of Constraints' five focusing steps.
Michael Schrage's "Making IT Work" editorial in the January 2006 CIO Magazine riffs off the results of the magazine's State of the CIO survey. "CIOs may think that backlogs are their biggest pain point. But the real cause of IT failure is mismanaged expectations."
David Anderson's "Drumming in the Dark" talks about what happens when the constraint isn't obvious. The answer is deceptively simple, and TOC provides guidance.
The December 2005 Business 2.0 has an article about Dell's newest manufacturing facility that may reflect theory of constraints principles: "Dude, You're Getting a Dell--Every Five Seconds."
I've mentioned Goldratt Consulting's Viable Vision a number of times, and a few people have asked for more details. The Viable Vision is a strategy for transforming a business so that within four years, its net profits are today's total sales.
Bill Brantly has been thinking about how KM, TOC and Strategy are all related. Now he is proposing a mash-up of all these in "Knowledge Management, Theory of Constraints, and Strategy."
Clarke Ching has found a great Theory of Constraints resource. And it has some guidance on The Haystack Syndrome.
This isn't really an All Request Day, like Dennis or Sherry do, but a commenter has asked for my impressions of the TOC training I took this summer.
I know I am a little late to the game, but I just finished the very enjoyable The Innovator's Solution by Clayton Christensen and Michael Raynor. I particularly liked the no-nonsense tone of the book. And I see some connection to theory of constraints, once again.
Bruce Hoppe finds an interesting set of discussions that suggest "conflict is good" in his "Conflict: something we can all agree on." I wonder if there is a connection with constraints in TOC.
"They Just Don't Get It! (Changing resistance into understanding)" by Leslie Yerkes and Randy Martin is a quick and entertaining read. It is written as a how-to manual, not unlike the top-seller "Who Moved My Cheese?"
Pop quiz: Do you want a bottleneck in your business? Why or why not?
Places to Intervene in a Systemm, a 1997 article by Donella Meadows has been reprinted in a software developer magazine. Meadows was an important player in the systems thinking world. She founded the Sustainability Institute, and she seems to have been at least peripherally involved with theory of constraints.
Johanna Rothman is reflecting on coaching in "When to Speak and When to Be Quiet." This is a big challenge for me: I love to provide the "answer" when a topic arises and I think I know something.
Dave Pollard has derived "Nine reasons we don't do what we should do," and I suspect there is an even deeper reason: motivation.
The tocleaders YahooGroup has had an interesting thread on a sticky problem in business: how can it be that a company with hard-working people ends up losing money?