A second set of observations from the TOCICO 2021 conference - quick thoughts on talks from Henry Camp, Philip Marris, Graham Scott, Boaz Ronen, and Rob Newbold.
A second set of observations from the TOCICO 2021 conference - quick thoughts on talks from Henry Camp, Philip Marris, Graham Scott, Boaz Ronen, and Rob Newbold.
Noise: A flaw in human judgement by Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony, and Cass Sunstein tells a damning story about how much variability there is in the assessments we make as experts in our field. They bring in examples ranging all around professional judgements - medicine, legal cases, laboratory assessments, hiring, forecasting, grading term papers, etc. etc. This noise has serious implications in all these arenas - false positive and false negatives cost time, money and lives. And while people often think that these variations might “balance out” the costs certainly do not.
The 2021 edition of the TOCICO (Theory of Constraints International Certification Organization) annual conference was held online last week. Here are some observations from the talks I was able to attend - I might have some more on reviewing archived videos.
A quick note of an article from Brad Cairns of the Center for Lean Learning, Where Lean Meets Theory of Constraints. In it he gives an overview of both Lean and TOC and how they can work together - something that isn’t always obvious to people deep in one approach or the other.
You get what you put into the world. I really like the zen feeling of this statement.
Dan Heath’s Upstream: The Quest to Solve Problems Before They Happen addresses a familiar challenge in our world: We seem to spend more time and effort fixing problems as they occur, rather than preventing them from occurring in the first place. The book travels familiar roads for people interested in “systems thinking” and it brings in some new-to-me examples. I like that the main focus of the book is on the challenges involved in moving upstream to resolve problems at their root.
Having just read on psychological safety, I see the topic more and more. Building a Culture of Learning at Work from Adam Grant (based on his new book) talks about this directly. Grant describes an interesting take on being public about mistakes a-la “Mean Tweets” from Jimmy Kimmel Live!
The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth by Amy C. Edmondson book has been out for a couple of years, and the idea of psychological safety has emerged as a critical element of enabling change and growth in organizations. I enjoyed Edmondson discussion of how psychological safety plays a key role in learning, innovation and growth - and lack of it plays a role in limiting these elements. She also provides a high level structure to create and grow psychological safety in an organization.
Johanna Rothman’s new trio of books on Modern Management Made Easy is a nice, open way to think about management starting with the inside and then your teams and then the full organization. And it’s loaded with references to other interesting readings, along with practical advice and experiences.
I was pleased to receive a review copy of Jonathan Smart’s (Better Value) Sooner Safer Happier, as it was on my list after the DevOps virtual conference this October. The biggest element that jumped out to me the idea of ways of working - the behaviors (and patterns behind those behaviors) that we see in organizations. And one of the big takeaways that this reinforces is the culture we have is exactly the culture we create by the way we decide to work and operate. Our ways of working are our decision. The patterns reinforce some behaviors and diminish other behaviors.
To enable your work to flow faster, find those places where work just sits and waits. Is there a large queue of work waiting for the next operation? Is there a queue waiting for someone’s approval? Is there a queue waiting for missing inputs? All of these are opportunities to remove queues, and move the whole project faster.
So you want to spend money, but it is difficult to figure out if its worth it. ` Or you’ve been tasked with calculating the Return on Investment (ROI) for a piece of equipment or undertaking a new initiative. Where to start? ROI = [△(Sales-TVC) - △Operating Expenses] / △Investment (△ is delta or “change in”)
The TOCICO hosted an online Critical Chain 2020 conference this week. As it seems most online conferences are running, the talks themselves were pre-recorded and the speakers were available in chat during their talk, and this conference had live Q&A immediately following each speaker. This made for fewer talks overall, but good opportunity to learn a bit more from the presenters and other attendees. Examples in the conference ranged across multiple industries (aerospace, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, etc) and application areas (manufacturing, product development, information technology, etc.)
I had the great pleasure of attending the 2020 DevOps Enterprise Summit - Las Vegas Virtual last week. I share many common interests with the DevOps community through my interest in flow and continuous improvement. There were topics throughout the three days (and extended beyond the conference time, as the videos were available to watch later) that could be applied anywhere, which is why I was participating. Looking through my notes, here are some items that sparked interest and joy for me.
This is a great reminder. Delegate (sometimes to the floor) when possible. For the rest of your work, focus on one thing at a time, and pause often to look for opportunities to improve.
The HBR Guide to Dealing with Conflict by Amy Gallo is a quick read, directly on topic. As I read the book, it became clear that my idea of “conflict” has been colored by my close work with Theory of Constraints and the way TOC thinking processes talk about conflict and conflict resolution. The conflicts in this guide are the interpersonal conflicts we run into all the time in business, be they created by disagreements on the what (task) or how (process) of work, or who is ultimately responsible (status) - which often devolve into relationship conflicts. The TOC perspective on conflict is more about understanding the system which creates the conflict, rather than resolving the personal challenges that result from the conflict. Both aspects are important to successful business.
A colleague has been reading and commenting about Leadership Is Language: The Hidden Power of What You Say--and What You Don't by L. David Marquet, and it seemed like a good pick to read and discuss.
The essential idea is right there in the subtitle - what you say matters. The book fleshes out that idea with some nice anecdotes and elements of the thinking behind the concepts. There are some good concepts in here for regular interactions with other people - whether you are a formal “leader” or otherwise working with people to get things done. (In other words, almost everyone.) That said, I am not totally convinced in some of the way Marquet brings the various elements together.
Knowledge work is challenging enough without throwing in difficult work environments. Consider the nature of the work you have with your colleagues. Is it known with clear handovers (have the handoffs been defined)? Or is there ambiguity and uncertainty that needs to be cleared up? Work in the right way for the scenario you have. And allow for both modes of work - collaborative and serial - in your day.
I finally took the time to read Donella Meadows’ Thinking in Systems: A Primer. It is obviously a primer on terms and concepts - not on the how to’s. There are great thoughts throughout the book on how to incorporate systems thinking and the value behind it. Even at the outset, Meadows says something to the effect that it is only useful to do this analysis if it will help solve real problems.