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Final remarks on the series on Theory of Constraints

Frank, Joe, and I had fun blogging collaboratively on the Theory of Constraints this week. We hope you enjoyed it too. I want to underscore one point Frank made yesterday.

(M)y role in this series is to remind you that the reason we're doing the day-to-day work lies at the end of a string of days — at the end of probably more than one chain of tasks — and that while dealing with the current and immediate constraints, how we do so must take into consideration their import and impact on the larger constraints of the project as a whole.

We do projects to make good on a promise to a customer. The big promise at the end of it all. This is easy to see when a customer contracts for a new building. The customer is obvious, so are the conditions of satisfaction. But what about internal projects?

None of our advice on TOC matters when we act without a promise to a customer.

So often on internal projects someone has a good idea. S/he assembles a team. And they go to work. This doesn't mean it's a project. If you don't have a customer acting as the customer, then you don't have a promise, nor do you have a project. If you don't have explicit conditions of satisfaction for fulfilling the promise, then you don't have a promise, nor do you have a project.

We make all kinds of mischief (waste) in companies when we don't take care to be explicit about the customer and the conditions of satisfaction. So, as we leave the subject of the Theory of Constraints remember that none of what we discussed this week matters when we act without a promise to a customer.

Stop by and see what Frank Patrick and Joe Ely are up to.