Critical Chain - Eliyahu M. Goldratt [45]
Presenting a problem as a conflict between two necessary conditions makes a lot of sense. But I was almost programmed to proceed to find a compromise. In academia we don't call it compromise, we call it optimize. Three-quarters of my articles are optimization models of some kind. You can imagine how difficult it was for me to accept that a much better solution, or even solutions, emerge by refusing to attempt to find a compromise, and instead concentrating on exposing the underlying assumptions.
The cause and effect thinking processes of TOC, one of which is the current-reality-tree, forced me to go through another paradigm shift. But after that experience with Don I was not about to continue fiddling with symptoms.
I had spent ten days interviewing everybody, just to reach the decisive conclusion that this operation would never be profitable, unless steel prices went up substantially. Along comes Don, and in one month, yes, one month, he made them profitable. A month later he dealt with the next constraint, their marketing policies. And today this same company has the same people, no worker was laid-off, no manager was replaced. And has the same equipment, not one piece of equipment was bought. This same steel company is now a gold mine.
Well, that's my story. And the time is up. So, if you have any questions . . .
They held him there for another hour.
Chapter 13
Most of the class is already sitting down, but to my surprise, there is almost nothing on my desk. I'm aggravated. These people are supposed to be serious. I gave them a homework assignment, they argued to get more time, I gave them two more weeks... and now only one report is submitted?
Something is wrong. Before I get all over them, I'd better find out why.
"The subject for today," I say in a calm voice, "is the magnitude of the safety people put into every step of a project. You were supposed to interview people and find out how much safety they add. And then you were supposed to submit your findings. Today."
They look at each other. They look at their desks. They look out the window. Nobody looks at me.
"It was impossible to find anything," Ted snaps.
"How come?" I'm genuinely surprised.
"Because people don't like to talk about the safety they put in."
"Did you push?"
"You bet I did," he says bitterly. "That was my mistake. All it did was irritate some foremen." Without a smile he adds, "And believe me, those people you don't want to irritate."
"Anybody else have better luck?"
Nobody answers.
"Charlie, did you find out anything?"
Smiling, Charlie replies, "I didn't get any threats, if that's what you mean, but I didn't get any real answers, either. People don't remember, or don't want to remember. In any event, nobody admits to putting safety in their time estimates. When I mentioned safety of two hundred percent, they laughed in my face."
"Of course they would," I say. "You two went about it all wrong. What was your mistake?"
"If I knew, I wouldn't have made it." Ted doesn't take criticism well.
And he is right. When I gave the assignment, I should have been more specific.
"There is no point asking people how much safety they put in because people believe that they give realistic estimations," I explain. "The problem is in what they call realistic. Remember Mark's reaction before we explained the probability distribution? Remember his astonishment when he realized how big the difference is between the median and eighty percent point?"
"So how were we supposed to do it?" Ted is very snappy. Probably his questions to the foremen stirred up a hornet's nest, and he still stings.
"You should have asked people for their opinion about the chance of finishing a task in the time they estimated," I answer.
"That's all?"
"Yes. We can do the translation. We know that an evaluation of eighty percent chance means about two hundred percent safety. Sometimes more. Remember what we said about the shape of the probability distribution: the higher the