2011 Current Reality TreeExamination Of Current Situations

Theory Of ConstraintsTheory Of Constraints

The Author

• Consultant for Agile & Process Improvement

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Sebastian Schneider

Consultant for Agile & Process Improvement• Kugler Maag Cie GmbH• http://www.sebastian-schneider.eu• http://de.slideshare.net/schneseb• http://prezi.com/user/SebastianSchneider/• http://facebook.com/Sebastian.Schneider.eu• https://twitter.com/SeSchneider

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Necessary-Cause-Logic3

Cause A Effect BAssumption

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Battery is emptyThe engine doesn’t startAssumption: The engine does not start because the battery is empty

Nomenclature4

Cause

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Effect

IntermediateEffect

Predicted Effect5

Stove doesn’twork Stove doesn’twork Washing machinedoesn’t work

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No electricityNo electricity

Additional Cause6

Stove doesn’twork Stove doesn’twork

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No electricity No electricity No power cord

Insufficient Cause7

Stove doesn’twork Stove doesn’twork

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No electricity No electricity Electric system

How To Start?

• Define the system for observation

• List all negative symptoms that you observe (UDE)

• Check the tree

• Identify Root Causes

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• Identify Root Causes

• Rework the tree

• Identify “core causes”

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Define The System For Observation

• Define within your group the system you want to observe

• Examples– “Our sales area does not lead to any

sales”– “Our engineering department is not

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– “Our engineering department is not able to document the code”

• “is – is not”

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List all negative symptoms (UDE)

• Group work– Whiteboard– All team members– Brainstorming

• Tips– Write SMART if possible

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– Write SMART if possible• Specific, Measurable, Accepted,

Relevant, Time limited– Write active– Write in present

• Example:– “Currently we sell not the estimated

50.000 products per month”

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Find round about 3-7Undesirable Effectsfor your system

Check I

• UDE‘s– Are they sufficient?– Are they detailed enough?– Do they have all needed information?

• Example:– UDE: “We do not reach our desired

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– UDE: “We do not reach our desired recommendation rate of 70% per training”

– Ask if this is really the root cause, it might be that

• “The participants are not requested to rate the training”

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Check every UDE regarding granularity and root cause

Check II

• New intermediate effects– Look for new elements that are not

UDE’s but add additional useful information to the tree

– In general they are not “good” or “bad”

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• Example:– “The feedback form is available” is a

general statement– It does not state any problem but

helps to understand the logic

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Check if you need andfind intermediate effects

Root Causes

• Check if the root causes are really root causes and have no predecessor

• This causes are either out of your control(preconditions) or can be influenced by you

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Rework

• Do rework with all the stakeholder

• Generate common understanding and committing

• You can use the “5-Why-Method”

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• Check if all UDE’s are really UDE’s, that intermediate effects are really intermediate effects, …

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Core Driver

• Count in- and outputs

• Identify the core driver of your current reality tree

• The core driver are quite similar to the constraint in the ToC.

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constraint in the ToC.

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