Tag Archives: systems

Predictability and Uncertainty

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“I understand how we calculate profit, but what does that have to do with my organizational chart?” Derrick asked.

“You design a predictable profit into your price, but what is it that keeps your profit predictable when you actually deliver your product or service?” I replied.

Derrick was thinking. “It becomes predictable when we are able to do the same thing over and over, the same way, with the same methods, in the same amount of time, with the same amount of scrap.”

“And how do you make all that happen over and over?”

“Well, we have designed a system and we train everyone to work the system.”

“And so, if something is happening with the predictability of your profit, what’s wrong, where do you look?” I continued.

“Something has to be wrong with the system,” Derrick nodded.

“So, where do you look?” I insisted.

“We should try to find out what’s wrong with the system.”

“Remember, I said that your problem is seldom a what, almost always a who?”

Derrick grinned. “So, that’s why you want to look at the org chart.”

Detail Thinking at Stratum IV

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From the Ask Tom mailbag –

Question:
At what Strata levels do details disappear, if they do?

Response:
Strata levels, as elements of Elliott Jaques model, create a visual representation of the Level of Work. Your question appears to ask about the behavioral traits of person, completing a task assignment, specifically curious about attention-to-detail as the task is completed.

Strata levels are descriptive about specific behaviors only as they relate to effectiveness in the completion of task assignments. Details never disappear. Even in longer Time Span task assignments, the devil is always in the details.

This is still an interesting question and may lend insight in describing the Level of Work in each Stratum. My answers, in the form of questions?

Level of Work – Stratum I
What details exist that will impact decision making on the pace and quality of the work?

Level of Work – Stratum II
What details exist that will impact decision making on the coordination of multiple elements, materials, equipment, people in the completion of the work, on time, within spec?

Level of Work – Stratum III
What details exist that will impact decision making in the creation of a system, so that tasks assignments are completed with predictable, consistent results, every time?

Level of Work – Stratum IV
What details exist that will impact decision making in the integration of multiple systems and sub-systems?

You see, there was an exercise described by Peter Senge in the Fifth Discipline (Stratum IV-systems thinking) called the Beer Game. The set-up of the game creates a brewery (system), two-step distribution (system) and a retail store (system). Because these systems in the simulation were not integrated, the end result typically produces the construction of an entire second brewery system. The detail, the retail store put beer on sale for one week during the simulation. The construction of the second brewery occurs NOT from market demand, but from a series of backorders put through the system in a non-integrated attempt to cover the sell-out of beer during a one-week retail sale period.

Yes, the devil is in the details, even at Stratum IV.