Interview with Dr Alan Barnard - Key metrics for performance and manta for results
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Rüdiger Wolf - 06 Nov, 2024
An interview of Dr Alan Barnard with Mukesh Gupta for his Podcast and Newsletter, “Thriving as a Leader”. The interview is an exploration of how the principles of the Theory of Constraints (originally created by Dr. Eliyahu Goldratt) can be used to not only drive significant business results but also to help us make high stake decisions as leaders.
Table of contents
Open Table of contents
Insights from interview with Dr Alan Barnard
Key metrics for a system are
Flow Time (hours/days etc.)
Total time that something spend in side a system, which consists of:
- Time in backlog
- Time in process (Touch time)
- Time in queue (Easiest to address, by reducing the number of work items in the system followed by improvements to strip out unnecessary delays in queues.)
Flow rate or Throughput (X per hour/day etc)
The constraint will provide the upper limit on the flow rate. The system throughput will always be under that limit. Why? Because we find that most organisations do not focus on the constraint and thus have the constraint doing work that others could or should be doing and we starve the constraint of ready work so that it is unable to work.
Why do good people make bad decisions?
Global optima rules are counter intuitive. The core problem in many organisations is that individuals get rewarded for local or individual performance.
You cannot make commitments without considering the queue and capacity of the constraint. Delivery estimates made without taking that into account are going to be difficult to keep. This requires dynamic decision making. The rules need to change depending on situation.
Note
How to people learn?
People learn from experiments not experience.
Mantra for personal and business - 5 F’s
- Flow
- Focus
- Finishing
- Fast Feedback
Credits
Photo by Chase Clark on Unsplash