2020 Re-read Saturday, Tame you Work Flow Week 9: Chapter 9 – Constraints in the Work Flow and in the Work Process

Tame your Work Flow

Today we transition to Part 4: Maximizing Business Value in Knowledge-Work in Steve Tendon and Daniel Doiron’s  Tame your Work Flow. We are currently 40% through the book according to the Kindle App on my laptop.  (Side note: I would like to talk with anyone in the audience that uses a Kindle to read non-fiction books that they will later use for reference; I am working on a buying decision).

Chapter 9, Constraints in the Work Flow and in the Work Process, makes the transition away from the manufacturing world—where lean and Kanban have been prevalent approaches—and slams us into the topsy turvy world of knowledge work.  Steve and Daniel invoke two acronyms to help characterize the world most of us find ourselves in.  The first is VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity) and the second is PEST. PEST stands for:

 

Re-read Saturday, Tame you Work Flow Week 8: Chapter 7 + 8 – Accounting F(r)iction and Show Me the Money

Tame your Work Flow

This week we tackle Chapters 7 and 8 of Tame your Work Flow. These two chapters represent and story-based case study (as noted in the past, I am not fond of business novels) that takes the readers through the use of throughput management boards and how to identify the constraint by adding average flow time to each column. The authors again make the point that decision making without regard to the constraint yields erratic results. Most of the readers of this blog will have fallen into the trap (once) of making what appears to be the right process change only to find that the change is effective as advertised because we were not affecting the constraint. Remember Goldratt’s Five Focusing factors: 

 

Re-read Saturday, Tame you Work Flow Week 6: Chapter 5 – Where to Focus Improvement Efforts

Tame your Work Flow

This week we begin Part 2 of  Daniel Doiron and Steve Tendon’s Tame your Work Flow. Part 2 transitions us from improving wait time and flow efficiency and begins a deep dive into the Theory of Constraints (ToC). The authors use the metaphor of an Archimedean lever to point out that in order to make major changes you need a fixed point or fulcrum and a big lever. In process improvement, the constraint is that point where a lever can be inserted to make change happen. The problem in knowledge work is that it is hard to identify the constraint. 

 

Re-read Saturday, Tame you Work Flow Week 5: Chapter 4: Utility of Flawed Mental Models

Tame your Work Flow

This week we tackle Chapter 4 of Tame your Work Flow,  The chapter is titled “Utility of Flawed Mental Models.” The goal of the chapter is to make sure we understand why reducing wait time makes sense and why that reduction has an impact on delivery.  

The premise of the chapter is set up with the statement:

 

Re-read Saturday, Tame you Work Flow Week 4: Chapter 3 – Flow Efficiency, Little’s Law and Economic Impact

Tame your Work Flow

Self-knowledge is valuable to keep yourself reigned in, I really think Little’s Law is important. This week I needed to make sure I did not go overboard in discussing the ramifications of the theorem (I will include links at the end of this week’s re-read for those who want to go into depth). Chapter 3 of Tame your Work Flow is incredibly important for understanding the overall book. In your re-read spend the time needed understanding how the themes noted in the chapter title Flow Efficiency, Little’s Law and Economic Impact inter-relate.

 

Re-read Saturday, Tame you Work Flow Week 3: Chapter 2—Postpone Commitment and Limit Work in Process

Tame your Work Flow

Re-read Saturday, Tame you Work Flow Week 3:  Chapter 2—Postpone Commitment and Limit Work in Process

Today we tackle Chapter 2 in our re-read of Tame your Work Flow by Steve Tendon and Daniel Doiron. The chapter is titled Postpone Commitment and Limit Work in Process. Last we mentioned multitasking, this week we make a full assault on the topic.

 

Re-read Saturday, Tame you Work Flow Week 2: Prologue

Tame your Work Flow

Today we begin in our re-read of Tame your Work Flow by Steve Tendon and Daniel Doiron in earnest with the Prologue.  The prologue introduces concepts and provides a bridge for readers to this book from the Goal by Eli Goldratt and Steve Tendon, and Wolfram Müller’s book Hyper-Productive Knowledge Work Performance, The TameFlow Approach and Its Application to Scrum and Kanban. 

 

Re-read Saturday, Tame you Work Flow Week 1: Logistics and Front Matter

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:

 

A Review of “Tame Your Work Flow”

My bar for reviewing and recommending any book is brutally high.  I judge non-fiction books based on whether I can apply the ideas and concepts in real-life situations I face in my practice.  While I read a large number of books, very few make it to the blog or podcast (I do have a list though). Tame Your Work Flow hurdles the bar I have set up.  The book is very useful. What do I mean by useful? In this case, just this week I have used ideas from my notes I took while reading the book to help craft experiments to improve the flow of work for a client.  Two of the multiple powerful takeaways I have absorbed from Tame You Work Flow are: