Theory of Constraints Handbook - James Cox Iii [88]
Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control10
Learn-Commit-Do11
Layers of Resistance12
Observe-Orient-Decide-Act13
Ponzi schemes
The scientific method
TOC thinking process tools14
TOC strategy and tactics trees15
CORE and Sales
Change requires sales, whether that means selling yourself on changes you need to make or selling others on changes they need to make.16 When I talk about sales, I don’t mean the kinds of annoying tricks that are used by sales people to get you to part with your hardearned cash. Businesses that run on hard selling—pushing as hard as possible to get a sale—shouldn’t expect a lot of repeat business. Buying is unpleasant and expectations are often far from reality. Instead, I am talking about selling that creates a win-win relationship between buyer and seller, a relationship that continues into the future. If a buyer of change is involved in such a relationship, she will continue the change. If she is not, she won’t.
TABLE 5-4 Solution Selling Steps and CORE Elements
CORE contains many elements of such a win-win selling process. It is closely related to a process called Solution Selling (Eades, 2004). Some important steps of the Solution Selling process are compared with CORE in Table 5-4.17
There are a few interesting parallels and differences that you can see from Table 5-4. The Solution Selling concept of “pain” corresponds to the CORE concept of urgency. In a selling situation, urgency is most commonly caused by pain. Consequently, Solution Sellers spend a great deal of effort understanding and exposing their buyers’ pain.
In order to describe the solution as it relates to the pain or urgency, both processes require communicating a vision. The vision connects the urgency to expectations of a future in which the pain is relieved.
Solution Selling is primarily targeted at reaching an initial commitment, while CORE is primarily targeted at creating and leveraging ongoing success. Some of the resulting differences are apparent from Table 5-4. Solution Selling breaks the early stages, creating urgency and setting expectations, into more pieces. Those pieces are very important if you are driving toward an initial commitment, such as selling a senior manager on the idea of implementing Critical Chain in the first place. Very often, when selling efforts begin, people don’t understand their own urgency well; creating that realization requires work and effective tools. Urgency requires less emphasis if it is already well understood by the key players.
CORE, with its emphasis on ongoing success, places more weight on later steps like implementation and validation.
Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA)
Deming (1982) refers to the PDCA cycle as a helpful procedure to follow for improvement at any stage of production.18 This cycle includes four steps: Plan (establish objectives for changes); Do (implement the changes); Check (measure the results); and Act (analyze the results).
FIGURE 5-5 CORE and Plan-Do-Check-Act.
Figure 5-5 shows how the PDCA cycle overlays CORE. The PDCA steps are analogous to the CORE actions. Plan corresponds to planning and creating ownership; Do corresponds to implement; Check corresponds to measure results; and Act corresponds to communicate, re-evaluate, and reinforce.
PDCA includes none of the CORE achievements (the rounded boxes). For the original purposes of PDCA, such as driving ongoing quality improvements, those elements may not be important. However, we have found all of them to be very important when people need to make long-term, system-wide changes.
CORE contains an unstated connection with PDCA that is important to understand. Deming suggests starting slowly in the “Do” step. As knowledge is acquired, the changes can be made more pervasive. We recommend a similar process when implementing