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20 January 2017, Jelena Fedurko

In the Facebook discussion of my recent blog post If an Injection is a solution you knew BEFORE you built the Cloud, why did you need the Cloud? I wrote a phrase that clearly stated that there is a difference between an Obstacle and an UDE. The phrase read “… are obstacles for the implementation, rather than system UDEs.” Thereafter, I was asked what is the difference between an Obstacle and an UDE.

I think that the confusion between the two may be caused by the fact that from the point of view of the global meaning, an UDE is, of course, an obstacle to achieving the desired performance level of the system.

However, when we speak about the difference between an Obstacle and an UDE as TOC Thinking Processes elements, there are four aspects to it.

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20 July 2017, Jelena Fedurko-Cohen

Here are my thoughts after the recent late evening discussion, during the Berlin TOCICO Conference, regarding the future of CCPM.

The summary of the meeting was recorded by Oded and presented in our Facebook group TOC Practitioners Worldwide:

Twenty seven members joined the meeting. The title for the session was – The future of CCPM, as this was assumed from the discussion in our Facebook group that there is further interest in discussing and better understanding where is CCPM heading towards. 
Talking about the future implies that something is wrong with the current situation or there is a treat that must be addressed. 
However, at the meeting it became apparent that the majority of the members do not think that there is something wrong with the existing knowledge and product. Even though at is current offering is may not be enough for all the environments that members operate in and as such they need some further specific development.
The majority of the concerns expressed were regarding how to sell it? What value to offer? How to handle Agile? What to do with the diminishing perceived value that a project manager is bringing to their organizations?

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01 September 2017, Jelena Fedurko-Cohen 

The role and objective of a rule – any rule – is to restrict. A RULE prescribes the RIGHT way – in order to restrict one from taking wrong ways.

Restricting comes only from the need to prevent a potential negative outcome of doing things ANY OTHER way than the way prescribed from the rule. Please note that in this case the negative outcome is KNOWN. An effort to prevent a known negative outcome cannot possible be stupid, and cannot be looked at as ‘stupid’. From the point of view of preventing a known negative outcome, a rule is smart and responsible.

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07 October 2017, Jelena Fedurko-Cohen 

This post reflects my thinking about the recent discussion on Linkedin and TOC Practitioners Worldwide about a suggested new type of constraint – “Human constraint”.  The new term was suggested by Angela Montgomery who published a post on TOC Learning and TOC4U titled: ‘The Human Constraint – What Is It?’

Angela wrote: “Ultimately, the human constraint, what prevents us from moving forward, is our ability to challenge and transform our thinking. We believe there is a structured, systemic and systematic way ahead”.

I will leave aside the convenience of calling what one thinks they have a solution to as a “constraint”.

I was wondering: HOW – what is the SPECIFIC MECHANISM – of DETECTING that AN INDIVIDUAL ABILITY to challenge and transform one’s thinking is the CONSTRAINT of that person?

Who can judge that? Based on what?

When we say that the company has a CAPACITY constraint for these and these products and a MARKET constraint for other products – there is a CLEAR mechanism to detect that.

To understand whether the system has a Capacity constraint or a Market constraint we compare the existing capacity and the amount of orders to fill in this capacity within a bucket of time. If the demand on capacity exceeds the existent capacity (not averaged, but real, per product) – we conclude that the system has the capacity constraint for those products. If the capacity exceeds the amount of orders – we conclude that the system has the market constraint for those products. The same system can alternate between capacity and market constraint for the same products depending on seasonality, etc.

Please note that the CONCLUSION of where the constraint is – in Capacity or in the Market – is made (and is MEANT to be made) by THE PEOPLE IN THE SYSTEM, NOT by an external consultant.

Let’s return to the suggested ‘Human Constraint’ – the ABILITY to challenge and transform one’s thinking.

What is going to be compared with what to make the CONCLUSION that MY CONSTRAINT is MY ABILITY TO CHALLENGE AND TRANSFORM MY THINKING?

Who will be making this conclusion? A consultant? HOW DOES A CONSULTANT KNOW THAT MY ABILITY TO CHALLENGE MY THINKING CONSTRAINTS ME? Constraints me as compared to what? To the CONSULTANT’S DESIRE OF WHAT I MUST THINK AND DO?

If MY constraint is MY ABILITY to challenge MY THINKING – then by definition I CANNOT THINK THAT I NEED TO CHANGE MY THINKING. So – I cannot come to the conclusion that it is MY CONSTRAINT. Then it is someone EXTERNAL who will announce that THIS is my constraint. And this someone will tell me how to exploit that little that I have. And will tell me how I must subordinate EVERYTHING ELSE TO WHAT THE CONSULTANT SAYS. Interesting…

If the CEOs or other decision makers in THEIR SYSTEMS reject what the consultants tell them to do – the CEOs are RIGHT!!

It is THEIR systems, it is to THEM – and NOT to the consultants! – that the owners of the systems gave the right, the authority and the RESPONSIBILITY to manage the systems on the owners’ behalf!

The CEOs resist ONLY when what the consultant offers is NOT PROFESSIONAL ENOUGH for THIS SYSTEM.

If the CEO does NOT AGREE to the problem, or direction of the solution, of the benefits, or that the negative outcomes will not appear, or that the solution is doable – the CEO IS RIGHT!

This only means that what the consultant offers DOES NOT MAKE SENSE TO THE PERSON WHO HAS BEEN JUSTIFIABLY TRUSTED TO MANAGE THE SYSTEM!

This is NOT the system of a consultant. By resisting, the CEOs PROTECT THEIR SYSTEMS FROM BEING DAMAGED.

And we did see the cases when consultants badly damage the systems.

And the last comment – quite often TOC consultants use Clouds to demonstrate to the stubborn CEOs how right the consultants are and how constrained in thinking the CEOs are. There is no wonder that the CEOs are not impressed – in most cases the logical connections demonstrated in such clouds do not stand a routine logical check.

Published by Jelena Fedurko-Cohen, 07 October 2017

Published by Jelena Fedurko-Cohen, 6 March 2018

There are several typical situations in which people wrongly perceive that they should use the Cloud.

1. Confusing a regular assessment process with the dilemma AFTER the assessment, thus wanting to use the Inner Dilemma (Conflict) Cloud

The Inner Dilemma (Conflict) Cloud is to be used NOT for the situations when we are presented with two (several) options to assess, but for the situation when AFTER assessing the options we are swinging between them unable to choose.

In other words, the Inner Dilemma (Conflict) Cloud is NOT for the situations when we know we have to / would like to do something, and having two options, we naturally ask the question, “Should I go for Option 1 or Option 2?”

The Inner Dilemma (Conflict) Cloud is for the situations:

• When we KEEP ON asking ourselves “Should I go for Option 1 or Option 2? Or Option 1? Or option 2? Or Option 1? Or Option 2?, etc”.

Keeping on asking the question “Should I go for Option 1? or Option 2? Or Option 1? Or Option 2?” happens when after assessing both options we see that they are sort of ‘equal’: one has strong positives on some critical criteria that we have set for choosing, while the other one has not less strong positives on other critical criteria.

• Or when AFTER assessing the available options, we KNOW WHICH option we should take (according to the criteria for decision-making that we used) but we are reluctant to take this option and keep on considering the other option.

Another typical mistake:

2. Interpreting ANY regular alternating behaviour in a system as a signal for using the Cloud

The fact that the conflict boxes D and D’ in the UDE Cloud present regular alternating behaviour  – sometimes  we do this, but other times we behave in an opposite way (e.g. ‘buy more inventory vs buy less inventory’ or ‘take expensive corrective actions vs. stick to the plan/budget’, etc .) – often lead people to want to treat ANY alternating behaviour as a case for a Cloud. This is not correct.

When approaching traffic lights drivers some times keep on driving, other times they stop. It is an alternating behaviour, however it has nothing to do with the Cloud. Driver’s behaviour in BOTH cases is regulated by THE SAME procedure that explicitly covers cases in which situation which behaviour is prescribed.  The procedure is clear, prescriptive, does not leave room for ‘my personal perception/interpretation’ and MUST be followed. Moreover, the BOTH behaviours are there to meet THE SAME NEED (not to endanger other traffic participants).

The UDE Cloud is for the situations when we do something UNTIL WE CANNOT DO THAT ANY MORE and we swing to the opposing behaviour.

This is in order to protect TWO important needs of the system presented in B and C of the UDE Cloud. We do D in order to protect B and keep on doing D UNTIL we cannot do it any more because we start explicitly hurting C. So we swing to D’ to start protecting C and keep on doing D’ UNTIL we cannot do it any more because B starts suffering really bad. This goes on and on.

 

Published by Jelena Fedurko-Cohen, 6 March 2018