Book cover: Tame your Work Flow

Tame your Work Flow

This week we begin our journey through Tame your Work Flow by Steve Tendon and Daniel Doiron. The book is subtitled: How Dr. Goldratt of “The Goal” would apply the Theory of Constraints to rethink knowledge-work management. The title and subtitle provide a hint to the number of ideas and concepts that we will touch on as we re-read the 357 pages that include a section about the organization of the book, an introduction, a prologue, 21 chapters, and an epilogue. The chapters and epilogue are arranged in seven parts. The term girthy jumps to mind, however as Daniel Vacanti points out in his portion of the forward, the visualizations ensure understanding. A few more admissions and logistics before we get started:

  1. I am using the electronic version of the first edition.
  2. I read parts of the book several times before publication.
  3. I have interviewed Steve multiple times and Daniel covering the topics in this book and Steve’s previous book on TameFlow.   
  4. My goal is to cover the material in 21 weeks (including missed weeks).
  5. I assume that if I get something wrong Steve and Daniel will set things to right.

Forewards by Eli Schragenheim and Daniel S. Vacanti

Mr. Schragenheim, in his forward, points out that every organization has to manage the flow of value and the flow of initiatives. The flow of value we might consider as value chains that connect all the parts of the organization required to deliver value, while the flow of initiatives reflects the efforts made to improve the flow of value. The idea that the majority of an organization’s effort needs to be focused on delivering value and continuous improvement isn’t lost on me. This tiny foreword suggests a powerful filter for deciding which initiatives an organization should fund. Mr. Schragenheim links the ideas in the book to the need to maximize the flow of value. Note: This foreshadows concepts like flow efficiency discussed later in the book.

The second forward is by Daniel S.Vacanti (I have interviewed Daniel also and have been influenced by his ideas on throughput accounting and metrics). In Daniel’s portion of the introduction, he points out that the book provides the impetus to identify high-value improvement opportunities. 

My re-read will focus on identifying the big ideas of operation flow and constraints management in knowledge work environments and how they can be leveraged for continuous improvement.  

Next week I start Chapter 1, so buy a copy of Tame your Work Flow to support the authors and blog!