Knowledge Jolt with Jack

This website covers knowledge management, personal effectiveness, theory of constraints, amongst other topics. Opinions expressed here are strictly those of the owner, Jack Vinson, and those of the commenters.

All in continuous improvement

Jul 3
Jul 3 Beyond the Phoenix Project

book review, continuous improvement, theory of constraints

Gene Kim and John Willis recorded a set of conversations called Beyond the Phoenix Project to talk about the DevOps movement since the publication of The Phoenix Project. (It’s available as an audio and a transcription.) I very much appreciate that the thinking behind DevOps has been geared around learning and applying concepts and ideas from all of these areas. I'm sure there are cargo-cultists who simply try to mimic what they see other people doing, but the people who are developing and growing in DevOps are clearly those who are looking at the giants that have come before them, climbing up on their shoulders, doing something new that is relevant to their current view of the world, and then sharing that back with the community to test and refine and develop further. I got a strong sense of excitement and desire to learn from this.

Jun 15
Jun 15 Rule over your Bottlenecks

book review, theory of constraints, continuous improvement

Clarke Ching has created a new book to try to help people understand what is blocking their work (or life?). The Bottleneck Rules: How to Get More Done (When Working Harder isn't Working) is a quick read and got me thinking more about how I talk about this topic with people.

May 7
May 7 Combining the Change Matrix and the Layers of Resistance

theory of constraints, continuous improvement

The Theory of Constraints community has a number of useful tools to help people think through change: the Layers of Resistance and the Change Matrix. Lars Axelsen posted a nice article combining these two ways of thinking, Change must address reservations!

Apr 27
Apr 27 Synchronizing on practice and how to get out of bad habits

continuous improvement

I always love it when I read one thing that relates to something else I've just read and conversations I've been having with people. Thinking and routine must work together for any kind of growth to happen - the daily practice only changes on reflection, rather than in rote execution.

Apr 25
Apr 25 High WIP - break out the whip

continuous improvement, theory of constraints, project management

Too high work-in-process (WIP) is dangerous for all sorts of reasons in almost any organization. It slows everything down like the molasses in winter. But simply saying “cut WIP” without understanding why it remains so high is a recipe for disaster. Let’s think about this a little.

Apr 3
Apr 3 Making Work Visible by Dominica DeGrandis

book review, continuous improvement

My review of Making Work Visible by Dominica DeGrandis. This is another entry in the books about Kanban and the value behind making work visible. In DeGrandis formulation, the focus is on removing the five "time thieves" she identifies early on.

Apr 3
Apr 3 Is VUCA in the eye of the beholder

business, continuous improvement

I first heard the term VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) five years ago when I started working with a client that epitomizes this view of the world. It's one of those terms that, once explained, seem to describe the world perfectly.But isn't this just a way of looking at the world?

Mar 13
Mar 13 Effectiveness and efficiency

continuous improvement, personal effectiveness, theory of constraints

The goal isn't efficiency. The goal is getting the right things done.

Mar 2
Mar 2 Buffers in short

theory of constraints, continuous improvement, event report

Eli Schragenheim did a nice TOC ICO webinar the other day on the topic of buffers, "Time Buffers, Stock Buffers and Buffer Management – The Key Insights and Their Universal Use."

Feb 5
Feb 5 Do you know it when you see it?

continuous improvement

When bringing a new way of doing things to organizations, we often get enamored with the physical or technical changes that support the new way of working. Surely if we have this THING, then we must be doing THAT.

But does this really mean that we have changed?

Nov 28
Nov 28 The Incredible Transformation of Gregory Todd

continuous improvement, book review

"The Incredible Transformation of Gregory Todd" by AJ Sheppard is an interesting take on the business novel with the guru character played by a young upstart, rather than a grizzled veteran or external consultant. There are a lot of good nuggets, but I missed an overall picture of how the transformation was accomplished.

Oct 30
Oct 30 Why efficiency

personal effectiveness, theory of constraints, continuous improvement, business

The Ministry of Ideas podcast has a recent episode of the idea of "(In)Efficiency." It was also excerpted in yesterday's Boston Globe, "Long Before Uber, Efficiency Was Divine." It was informative, but there is a big element that is missing for me: why is the concept so strongly embedded in the way we think - so much that it actually damages individuals and organizations.

May 22
May 22 The truth about ... flow

continuous improvement, theory of constraints

A quick post about flow and the challenge of bringing this idea into organizations - it challenges deeply-held beliefs.

May 15
May 15 Drawing your way to understanding

continuous improvement

A client sent a link to Tom Wujec's TED Scotland 2013 talk, Got a Wicked Problem? First, tell me how you make toast. His idea is to use drawing and visualization to help people bring clarity to their problems. And I pick up on the idea of allowing ourselves to iterate around the visualization as being important to understanding the deeper system.

Apr 26
Apr 26 Physics behind new product development

theory of constraints, continuous improvement, book review, project management, product management

I came across "Guest Blog: Finding Science and Success with Lean Principles in R&D" by Norbert Majerus of Goodyear on the Factory Physics website, and it describes the Factory Physics ideas as applied in new product development, and I thought it was a pretty good summary. This is also a lot of what we do with Theory of Constraints concepts applied in product development (and project management) arenas too.

Apr 19
Apr 19 More five whys - Cult of root cause

continuous improvement

An old post from Donald Reinertsen on "The Cult of the Root Cause" got me thinking about our use of logic and over-reliance on tools. He describes over-reliance on the Five Whys without applying some common sense. And I add some of my own thoughts on top.

Apr 10
Apr 10 The Five Whys - explained

theory of constraints, continuous improvement

The Manager Tools podcast has a recent entry on The Five Whys which come out of the suite of tools from Toyota / Lean / Toyota Production System. It's a great root cause analysis tool, but the way the Manager Tools team describe it struck a chord with me.

Mar 9
Mar 9 Everyone is a Change Agent

book review, continuous improvement, business

April K. Mills' "Everyone is a Change Agent: A Guide to the Change Agent Essentials" is a distillation of several change management approaches into clear and enjoyable approach to change.

Mar 8
Mar 8 You get what you ask for

business, continuous improvement

If you look for something, you will likely find it. If people know you are monitoring or looking for something, they will make an effort to supply that thing. And on the other side, if you don't ask for that thing / report / result, you won't get it.

Dec 20
Dec 20 Quality, Involvement, Flow

theory of constraints, continuous improvement, book review, project management

Quality, Involvement, Flow: The Systemic Organization by Domenico Lepore, Angela Montgomery and Giovanni Siepe. It's a good read for people interested in management and creating ever-flourishing organizations.