All in theory of constraints
Joe Dager's Business901 podcast this week has an interesting interview on Creating Flow with Don Reinertsen. While I enjoyed the entire podcast, the thing that piqued my interest in particular was around using these ideas in managing flow. Real execution advice.
Another book in my long backlog was Ray Immelman's "Great Boss Dead Boss." I finally picked up a copy and thoroughly enjoyed it. As with many good books, the ideas have me looking at the world in a slightly different way.
I was sent a complimentary copy of The Imperfect Leader because I've been reading and reviewing a number of other business novels. As you might guess from the title, this one focuses on leadership.
I've been meaning to read Bill Dettmer's The Logical Thinking Processes for a while. It covers the "thinking processes" as defined by the Theory of Constraints community. And these are a larger structure of tools used to help describe and define Change programs. In the TOC community, change is defined by What to Change, What to Change To, and How to Cause the Change.
Kevin Kelly at The Technium talks about The Shirky Principle, which is "Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution." This reminds me of the 5th Theory of Constraints Focusing Step: don't let inertia become your constraint.
Pointers to a couple case studies on process improvement from MIT and focusing on a division of Ford Motor Complany.
James Robertson's "Knowledge managers: stuck in the shadow of immortal figures" has inspired some interesting discussion, both on his blog and in at least one email discussion list.
My review of Chip and Dan Heath's new book, Switch. It has been making the rounds of my networks, and now it sits next to me with lots of dog-eared paged and underlinings. And special thanks to Tammy Green for adding another point of view to my thoughts here.
Visible buffers give management a way to manage the system. And they also give the project participants a way to guage
"Super Size Productivity Now: 3% Automation, 97% Leadership" by Kathleen Brush talks about how organizations can create more real productivity - and it's nearly all down to leadership.
My review of Simplifying Innovation by Michael A Dalton, a business novel that shows how Constraints Management principles can be applied to new product development and other areas that require a lot of innovation.
You have to be careful with "culture" discussions because they can lead you down some strange paths. Ana Neves has an interesting discussion around knowledge management, and I see them applying to just about anything that wants a specific culture as part of the strategy.
Velocity is a business novel from the Theory of Constraints community with co-author Jeff Cox coming at TOC again after his work with The Goal years ago. This one introduces combined improvement efforts that are designed to set direction AND give you speed: Velocity.
I picked up Eli Goldratt's latest business novel, Isn't It Obvious, and absolutely flew through the book. The title of the book is one of Goldratt's favorite ideas: that the best theories are always seen (in hindsight) as obvious solutions.