Theory of Constraints Handbook - James Cox Iii [325]
The process of each stakeholder group verbalizing, validating with the facilitator, presenting it to the whole group, and improving verbalization of their symptomatic and systemic conflicts based on feedback from others normally takes between a half and a full day (e.g., when there is a large number of stakeholders involved).
FIGURE 16-7 Systemic and symptomatic conflicts for city council and CBEs.
FIGURE 16-8 Systemic and symptomatic conflicts for contractors and residents.
The next step in the process is for the TOC expert facilitator to guide the identification of the core conflict for each stakeholder using the normal process of writing down all the Ds, D’s, Bs, Cs, and As and asking the participants to look for a generic pattern (i.e., “All the Ds can be summarized by Don’t invest/spend more”).
Tip: Starting with the Ds and D’s makes it a relatively simple process to verbalize and validate the rest of the core conflict for each stakeholder.
Normally, this convergence is quite simple (but not easy especially for novices) because typically the systematic conflict of one stakeholder is the same as the symptomatic conflict of the one they are blaming.
Figure 16-9 shows an example of what the four core conflicts for each of the four stakeholders are and how they are related.
Once completed, a representative of each stakeholder presents their core conflict to the group. During these presentations, we normally receive a remarkable level of consensus on the first verbalizations, which definitely elevates the credibility of the process in the eyes of the stakeholder participants as they could, from previous days, clearly identify with the core conflicts of each stakeholder. We did experience a few situations where stakeholders suggested better verbalizations, which were immediately accepted by all and incorporated into the final versions.
Step 3—Getting Agreement on What to Change to?
In the third step (normally the third day) of the analysis, the stakeholder groups work on their core conflicts, using the four methods (Barnard, 2003) to quickly identify and invalidate only the conflict assumptions (in contrast with the traditional approach that attempts to identify and invalidate all assumptions related to the conflict). Then stakeholders define possible breakthrough win-win solutions (injections that will invalidate the conflict assumptions and therefore break the core conflict). Figure 16-10 shows an example of one of the outcomes of applying Barnard’s four-method process for breaking conflicts to the service provider’s investment core conflict.
FIGURE 16-9 Four core conflicts identified for each of the four stakeholders.
The generic injections to break the four core conflicts, as identified with this method, provide the answer to the “to What to Change?” question for each stakeholder. The four generic injections for the four core conflicts are shown in Fig. 16-11.
Once the injections (which provide the direction of a win-win-win solution) and some of the potential “How to” (viable ways to make the injections actionable) and benefits (to validate if the injection will remove the original UDEs) have been identified by each stakeholder for their core conflict, representatives of each stakeholder again present their summary of “to What to Change” to the group. This can help with improving verbalization and suggestions of other ways to achieve the injections. This step is normally completed by the end of the third day or at the latest during the morning of the fourth day.
To prepare participants for the next step, the TOC expert facilitator then asks the group to contribute their “Yes, buts...”—the reasons normally given why something will not work or why it will be impossible to implement. Rather than discouraging such “negative views,” we encourage them as another way to contribute to ensuring the planned changes will work, will