Do you know where the constraint is?
It’s not a question many ask. But my dad (Merv Symes) made a career of asking this at two levels.
1. Where is the business constraint? You might have 100 issues in the business but what is the one part of the business, that if it was working better, would make everything else better?
2. Once you know the Business constraint, do you know the constraint in the process?
In all the years of helping organizations improve, innovate, and grow – the business constraint was usually clear – do I need more Revenue (Marketing & Sales) or more GM/revenue dollar (Productivity from Produce and Deliver).
The way to unlock the value in the process – I’ve never once been right. In fact, I’ve stopped guessing. Knowing the best process and being able to integrate it to create value in your unique environment is why the Lean Six Sigma Toolkit is so valuable. it makes the invisible visible/
My dad gave me a copy of The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt when I was a teenager. Because it was a story about taking kids on a camping trip (where he unlocked the secret to turning the mill around), I could digest it. And the lesson never left.
If you don’t clearly know the business constraint that requires your attention.
And you don’t know the process constraint that will unlock the value.
What you end up with is a series of busy hardworking people putting well-intentioned effort into a set of inputs that are usually making the business worse, not better.
Before you get “busy”, make sure you’re working on the constraint – at the Business level and the process level.
Everything else is noise. It’s loud, but it won’t have the impact you’re seeking.
“Know the constraint before you put the effort in.”
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