Operations Management Foundations: Improve business outcomes

My mentor once said that the biggest constraint that any organization has is “Management Attention.” He also said that, no matter how difficult or complex the problem may seem, if the leaders of the organization were able to put their heads together and think clearly, they could solve any problem they were facing. I truly believe that.

What poisons organizations today is a lack of focus, specifically from the leadership team. Trying to improve everything everywhere is a sure way to fail. Or worse, playing whack-a-mole and only addressing the latest issue that is on everyone’s mind.

Leaders need a process to answer the question: “Out of all the things that we could be doing, what should we be doing to improve our company?” - What they need is a systematic, scientific approach to help leaders focus on the most important area of their business. Applying the concepts of the Theory of Constraints (TOC) has been the most effective way I have seen for leaders to do such thing.

In this course, you will learn how identify what needs to be changed in your organization in order to increase throughput, and also learn what should you do instead. This course helps you answer the three most important questions any manager faces:

- What to change?

- What to change to?

- How to cause the change?

What is the aim of this course?

My goal with this course is to help you look at your organization through a different lens. If every decision you make is through the eyes of the “Throughput World,” as I call it, then you are better positioned to challenge the areas of the organization that matter, leave the ones that don’t alone, and create a process of ongoing improvement so that you are always one step ahead.

By focusing on how things flow in your organization you can find the key leverage points that will really make a difference, instead of trying to improve a little bit everywhere, hoping that at the end it will make things better.

How is the course organized?

The course is divided into the find the following sections:

· Introduction. We begin with a little intro to the course

· The right Mindset First things first. I discuss the mindset that you need to have if you want to quickly improve your operations. It is easy to become overwhelmed and believe that complex environments need complex solutions. If you can swift through the noise, you can identify what needs to change in order to quickly improve the organization

· Why focus on Flow I discuss here the business case as to why it is better to focus on flow than anything else. The giants of industry have been focusing on flow and seeing results that others want to copy, so why not do the same for your organization. You will learn from Henry Ford, Taiichi Ohno and the Toyota Production System, or lean.

· Barriers to Flow I will share the typical barriers to flow, how to recognize them, understand how much they affect the way things run in the operation.

· Improving Flow Once I share the principles of flow, there are many ways to practically implement it. In this section I share some ideas and concepts you can use to improve your operation.

· Wrapping it all up In this section I go over a couple of examples on how to apply the principles of flow, and leave you with some final thoughts for you to take it with you as you begin your journey to transforming your operations.

At the end of this course, you will be able to…

· Know where to focus in your organization

· Understand where should your effort and resources be spent for the best outcome

· Have the right mindset and lens to which approach your operation

Who should take this course?

· Professionals interested in making better decisions

· Management Consultants

· Business Analysts

· Small and medium business owners

· Startups founders

· Operational Leaders