Theory of Constraints Handbook - James Cox Iii [89]
Five Focusing Steps
TOC practitioners often want to know how the TOC Five Focusing Steps (5FS)—Identify, Exploit, Subordinate, Elevate, Go back to step 1—relate to CORE.20 The reinforcing loop in the 5FS process demonstrates the potential for constraints to move over time and the importance of dealing with those changes. It is a crucial loop; I have seen numerous examples of TOC production implementations that stagnated due to people’s unwillingness to reidentify constraints and change behaviors as the constraints changed.
This points us to an important connection with CORE. The concept of subordination permeates the entire 5FS process. It means that everyone pitches in, working together synchronously to make sure that the focus remains on the constraints. In a sense, the 5FS are a guide showing what the people in the organization should subordinate to, namely the organization’s goal and constraints. They can produce short-term benefits very quickly. CORE shows how to achieve that subordination, thus addressing the Uptake Problem—helping to cement the long-term benefits that come with ongoing improvement.
If people don’t learn how to subordinate properly, an implementation of the 5FS may result in initial benefits, but the initiative probably won’t last. I call this the “silver bullet” effect21: we are so tempted by the “silver bullet” of immediate benefits that we don’t pay attention to negative branches shown in Fig. 5-3. You need CORE to make the changes stick.
Implementation Planning
Thus far, I have described CORE and given simple examples of its application. However, a Critical Chain implementation is complex. It includes installation, training, business process changes, and new flows of information. It should result in significant changes to how people do their work, changes that must be synchronized across potentially dozens of functions and thousands of people. Much can and does go wrong. Ultimately, we want people to adapt our Critical Chain methodology to their environment in such a way that it becomes part of the organization’s DNA.
Planning with the Cycle of Results
In order to use CORE to analyze an implementation plan, just follow the cycle. A number of questions will be immediately obvious, for example:
What is driving urgency to change? Who experiences it? Who needs to experience it?
Is there a vision that unifies the urgency experienced by the different players?
Have expectations been set? For whom? Who will set their own expectations, and what is the impact of that?
Has the planning accomplished buy-in?
Who is truly committed? In other words, whom can you trust to take the lead?
Where do you expect value to be created?
What measurements will be used to validate that value was created?
How is that value going to be used, both to (re) shape expectations and to adapt the implementation plan?
If we apply this approach to the steps in Table 5-1, we may discover a number of missing elements, without which we will not get the CORE achievements (the rounded boxes). Adding these elements allows us to hope that we will overcome the root causes shown in Table 5-3 so that the implementation plan will sustain itself long-term. Here are a few things to consider when applying CORE to Table 5-1.
Urgency
A basic process for a group to raise performance to a new level was laid out many years ago by the pioneering social psychologist Kurt Lewin: unfreeze the present level, move to the new level, and freeze at the new level.22 Unfreezing can most easily happen through a sense of urgency, which is why urgency is so crucial.23
Do we truly understand the level of urgency that different people are experiencing? Is it adequate to “unfreeze” people’s behaviors? We may have a great Critical Chain champion in an organization, but if she is the only one with a sense of urgency then she will have a difficult struggle. I have seen many champions