Friday, April 19, 2013

Focus and Leverage Part 201

In this very short posting we will look at how to select and break a conflict articulated one of the conflicts in the Conflict Resolution Diagram.  For reference, let’s first refer back to the completed Conflict Resolution Diagram presented in our last posting. In looking at the completed CRD there appears to be an advantage to breaking the conflict on the B to D arrow.  By breaking this arrow we would hope to achieve the objective, maintain both requirements, and implement a production schedule based on the “pull’ system.  If we could break this conflict, breaking the D to E conflict becomes much easier.
 

This conflict selection process is something as simple as:
 
BREAK THE CONFLICT AT THE B to D ARROW - PICK ONE!
 
1.  Production synchronized to maximize throughput.
 
2.  Company policy changed to a throughput/profit measure.
 
3.  Bonuses are determined based on throughput.
 
4.  Change the cost measure to throughput.

We have surfaced several injections, each with the probability of resolving the conflict by breaking any of the arrows.  By choosing to break the conflict at B à D we have 4 reasonable injections on this arrow, and each appears sufficient to break the arrow and resolve the conflict.  The choice now becomes which injection do we want to use?  Having this choice is an enormous benefit of the CRD.  In the original conflict it appeared as if there was no way out of the conflict!  Now, we have four (4) possible answers to choose from.  Each injection is not equal.  Each could cost money and/or time to implement with no guarantee that the results will reap the benefits that are desired.  What we need is a way to test the injection(s) and make sure it provides the end result that we want.  That is the purpose of the Future Reality Tree (FRT).  The FRT can be used to test injections and make sure the desired results are achieved and to help ensure that the negative side effects that might arise are identified in advance and taken care of.  In the next segment we will discuss how to create the FRT and what it will do for us.
 
Bob Sproull

 

No comments: