I'm currently packing my bags for London's XP DAY 2004. I'm really looking forward to the two days - especially TOM Gilb's session. I hope to see you there - if you'd like to catch up my mobile number is 07985-098281.
I'm running a session on Thursday morning titled: "An introduction to Goldratt's Theory of Constraints", in which I hope to whet people's appetites for TOC by demonstrating 3 powerful tools that can be used in product/software development environments.
My presentation is based around the conclusions made in the classic HBR article, Getting the Most Out of Your Product Development Process [also see this HBR on-point collection - good reading if you're into this sort of thing].
The authors studied several successful companies that had successfully adapted lean manufacturing techniques into their product development processes. They made three conclusions and I'll use a different TOC tool to demonstrate each of these conclusions.
The conclusions were:
- Conclusion 1. Investments to relieve bottlenecks yield disproportionately large time-to-market benefits
I'll demonstrate how to use TOC's 5 focusing steps (POOGI) to manage bottlenecks.
- Conclusion 2. Eliminating unnecessary variations in workloads and work processes eliminates distractions and delays, thereby freeing up the organisation to focus on the creative parts of the business
I use one of TOC's thinking tools - the Current Reality Tree - to demonstrate (a) how the waterfall SDLC creates a huge and unpredictable amount of rework and (b) which Critical Path project management techniques just can't handle. Iterative/Incremental processes eliminate this game playing and dysfunction and allow the organisation to focus on the value-adding, creative parts of their work.
- Conclusion 3. Projects get done faster if the organisation takes on fewer at a time
Tool: I'll demonstrate how multitasking dilutes the effort on each project and how, by eliminating multitasking, organisations can do more projects in less time and dramatically increase cash flow and profits.
See you there?
