A lot of confusion has arisen about the Theory of Constraints (TOC) and people publish the strangest things about it. Just this week, an entrepreneur in the USA is quoted as saying that his company “applies the theory of constraints to help identify the most pressing factors that stand in the way of achieving a […]
Create Stability and Predictability in Your Organization by Understanding Variation – A Systemic Approach Part 6
In step Two of the Decalogue, we mapped out our system using Deployment Flowcharts to map the major processes. Now that we are in a situation where we can “see” our organization as a system made up of processes, we have to understand how variation affects our organization. Step Three of the Decalogue management method […]
Leadership of a Sustainable Business – a Systems Science View
A leader is somebody who has a theory; somebody who “owns” a body of knowledge that backs his claims that they can accomplish a transformation within their span of control. That transformation must be one of system optimization as a prerequisite for innovation; one in which competition is replaced by cooperation, where performances are managed using appropriate statistical thinking and not assessed deterministically, […]
How to Accelerate a Reliable Supply Chain the Systems Science Way
No matter what a company does, it is inevitably part of a supply chain. It receives inputs and has to transform these inputs into something to pass on to a customer reliably. It’s an ongoing process, and like every process it can be improved. Today change is happening fast, threatening the survival of companies that can’t keep up. […]
Vital Insights from Managing Variation and Constraints – Out of the Crisis Series Part 3
Putting new knowledge to work: Managing Variation and Constraints Stamp out the fire and get nowhere. Stamp out the fires puts us back to where we were in the first place. Taking action on the basis of results without theory of knowledge, without theory of variation, without knowledge about a system. Anything goes wrong, do something about it, […]
How to Prevent Chaos in Any Project or Initiative
Projects, or any initiative we embark on, can easily get out of hand. They are subject to the chaos that can arise when human interactions are not governed by precise guidelines. Entropy exists and it affects behaviours as well everything else. When we use the Transition Tree Tool to break projects down into actions we […]
Out of the Crisis
This week, the Intelligent Management team is in Italy for week 4 of total lockdown. We hope that all our subscribers and readers and their families are safe and healthy and have the opportunity to practice the social and physical distancing that is gradually producing its first results in Italy. May we all emerge from […]
Achieving Predictability in Uncertain Times? Learn to Understand Variation
We live in such astonishingly uncertain times. So let’s do something that’s good for our mental and emotional health and lend some attention to an aspect of management that’s grounded in science and related to predictability. This is strongly connected with our previous post about Dr. W. Edwards Deming, the father of Quality and the […]
Optimize Performance and 1+1 Equals More Than 2
We posted an interview with W. Edwards Deming “”the man who transformed Japan into a formidable business competitor “on LinkedIn this week entitled “Management Today Does Not Know What its Job Is”. Part of the problem is that managers “don’t have the required knowledge or abilities.” Let’s look at some of the necessary knowledge that has […]
Three Steps to Optimal Performance in Any Organization
There are three steps that allow any organization to achieve optimal performance. Before we say what they are, let’s step back and understand one fundamental principle that affects how organizations get results. What happens when more than one person or more than one entity work together in the same direction? Is the result just the […]
