Project Management, as Taught by Eli Goldratt · Lesson 1 of 7
The same complaints, everywhere
Software, construction, aircraft, pharma: projects are as different as can be, yet their managers complain about the same seven things, and have for forty years. Goldratt's first question: is the cause uncertainty, or the way we manage projects?
Arcadia Engineering designs and builds special-purpose machines. Leo Mendes manages three projects at once.
Client: “Good, this is roughly what I had in mind. Now, can you make it compatible with our other software?”
Design manager: “Sorry, Leo. It’s an emergency elsewhere; I’m reassigning your engineer.”
Leo, to the purchasing desk: “What do you mean, the drawings aren’t approved yet?”
Another project manager: “I have first priority on the test rig. The director said so.”
That evening Leo opens the budget report. Over again. “Somehow,” he tells Ruth Adler, “we always consume more than we expected. But eventually we do get to the finish line.”
Can projects finish on time, in half the time?
Most projects don’t finish on time, or within budget, or with the content originally promised. Goldratt asked: could we finish projects on time, in half the time, without going over budget or cutting content? And if not, why not?
Ask project managers in any industry and the answers are remarkably similar:
- Original due dates are usually not met.
- There are too many changes.
- Too often, resources are not available when needed, even when promised.
- Necessary things aren’t available on time: information, specifications, materials, designs, authorisations.
- There are fights about priorities between projects.
- There are budget overruns.
- There is too much rework.
Pause and think: if you had asked a project manager forty years ago to describe their problems, would the list have been different?
- Completely different, since today’s projects are larger, faster and run with modern software
- Not really, which suggests the field hasn’t significantly progressed
Methods, software and certifications have multiplied, and the complaints are the same. Perhaps, Goldratt suggested, because we have tried to deal with the complaints directly, rather than with the deep cause behind them. Even though projects are diversified, the complaints are basically the same.
What is the major cause?
As in operations, there are two answers.
The first approach: uncertainty. Uncertainty in content, in processes, in skills. The implication: comprehensive efforts to reduce uncertainty everywhere, with no significant results in the short term. Every company that runs projects has made serious attempts to lower uncertainty, and still the complaints remain.
The second approach: the common practice of managing projects. The implication: courage and consensus to change the way projects are managed, and a real jump in performance in a very short time. It also shows where it matters to buffer against uncertainty.
Goldratt’s session set out to prove the second: the main cause is our mode of operation.
A TOC analysis starts with the UDEs
The seven complaints are undesirable effects (UDEs). A TOC analysis uses them to find the core problem: the one cause behind most of them. And it does so in a particular way. Whenever there is a continuous complaint, the corrective action is obvious, yet it hasn’t been taken, and probably won’t be. Why not? Because the corrective action has negative consequences of its own.
Whenever there is an undesirable effect, there is a conflict.
So TOC first builds the specific conflict behind several UDEs, then generalises them into the generic conflict: the core problem. That is the next lesson.
Your turn. Which of the seven complaints are common in your projects? Write them below, with one recent example of each. You’ll turn them into clouds in the next lesson.
Check your understanding
Answer all five. Get four right to complete the lesson.
1. Goldratt’s ambition for projects was to finish them…
- A little earlier
- On time, whatever the cost, by adding resources when they slip
- On time, in half the time, within budget and full content
- Within budget only
All three corners of the triangle.
2. That project complaints haven’t changed in forty years suggests…
- We dealt with symptoms rather than their deep cause
- Projects are impossible to manage reliably, whatever the method
- Software is the answer
- Nothing
The cause hasn’t been touched.
3. Treating uncertainty as the main cause implies…
- A jump in performance within weeks, once risks are logged
- Changing measurements
- Doing nothing
- Reducing uncertainty everywhere, with little short-term result
Goldratt argued the mode of operation is the main cause.
4. Behind every continuous complaint, TOC expects to find…
- A lazy person
- A conflict
- A missing tool
- A budget gap
The obvious correction has negative consequences of its own.
5. TOC finds the core problem by…
- Voting
- Benchmarking
- Building the conflicts behind several UDEs and generalising them
- Surveying clients and project managers about their main complaints
Specific clouds, then the generic one.