Theory of Constraints Handbook - James Cox Iii [83]
In order to make this discussion as concrete as possible, imagine you are employed by a large company, Widgets, Inc. (WI), as a project manager for new product development. WI designs and manufactures (of course) widgets—big ones, little ones, all kinds. I have included some narrative to describe the CRT logic as it applies to WI. I have added the associated box numbers from the CRT into the narrative in parentheses.
No Urgency to Change
Suppose, to start, that WI, as a whole, isn’t experiencing significant pain with its projects, meaning there is little urgency to change even to a promising technology (1). New products are coming out of the hopper, the system doesn’t look broken, so there is no urgency to fix it. Despite that, you as a project manager are interested in implementing Critical Chain scheduling because you recognize that it will have value for you (2). How are you likely to fare?
FIGURE 5-1 No urgency to change.
You may gather support from some like-minded individuals, but Critical Chain schedules will only meet with half-hearted interest (3); people have too many things to do that are more important. Needed resources and time will be scarce (4). Consequently, while you may use Critical Chain for your projects and people may or may not express interest, the momentum never builds (5). Of course, if basic components of your solution are deficient (6), your chances of building long-term momentum will be even worse.
Since Critical Chain (like other TOC applications) requires the synchronization of many people to be fully effective over the long-term, and since the momentum is not building, your implementation cannot take off. Not enough people are synchronized; the old DNA is not being replaced. Eventually, as enthusiasm wears off or people move on to other positions or companies, the old ways reassert themselves (7).6
There is also a loop that makes things worse. People have often seen initiatives fail; these failures tend to make people skeptical of new initiatives (8). Why bother rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic? These bad experiences, and stories of bad experiences, often cause people to take a wait-and-see attitude toward change (9). This attitude by itself reduces the momentum toward change (5).
There is one other problem that frequently exists and is made worse by a lack of urgency (1): key people—typically mid- and high-level managers—will not take ownership over the solution (10). Without their ownership, resources and time remain scarce (4). Note the twoway link between boxes 9 and 10. When key people do not take ownership, others will assume that it is all right to sit on the fence. The more people there are sitting on the fence, the more key people are likely to avoid taking ownership.
Throughout all this, people working inside WI will have real trouble understanding what happened. They may say things like:
Our culture wasn’t ready.
Our focus changed.
We never got the management support we needed.
We just couldn’t execute.
Their thinking is governed by the general skepticism of new initiatives (8).
The Silver Bullet
Moving on to Fig. 5-2, suppose that, due to an aggressive new competitor, senior management at WI starts to believe there is an urgent need to reduce cycle times without increasing costs (11). Senior leaders therefore put their weight behind a Critical Chain initiative to reduce cycle times (12). They also make sure to have in place all the basic components of a good solution (13).
FIGURE 5-2 The silver bullet.
TABLE 5-1 Generic Critical Chain Implementation Steps
Table 5-1 shows generic, high-level components of an implementation plan WI might use.
Each of these components is important and worthy of its own discussion. We have seen implementations in which a lack of any one of them