Howto Promote the Logical Thinking Process (LTP) using The Norovirus Approach - EN

Goal Systems International
“Contructing and Communicating Common Sense™”
One of the most difficult aspects of introducing new ideas, tools, or techniques in an established
organization is securing the willing acceptance of something new among the organization’s
members,both leadersandfollowers.The“not-invented-here” syndromecanbeapowerfulobstacle
to overcome. It’s well known that force-feeding doesn’t work. The only viable alternative is
attraction¯the idea that you can catch more flies with honey than with manure. And then you let the
caught flies “infect” others with their enthusiasm, similar to the way a norovirus outbreak spreads
from one passenger to another in the closed environment of a cruise ship¯but in a good way!. The
story that follows illustrates the effectiveness of this approach.
Ron Woehr is a project engineer in a large corporation on the U.S. east coast that designs and
manufactures high-tech heavy industrial equipment for users throughout North America. Their
output is several dozen units per year, and each one represents a complex project in itself. For more
than two years, Ron’s division has been using critical chain project management (CCPM) with
Concerto software to manage the production and installation of each product unit. For more than
two years, Ron had been pressing senior management for approval to be formally trained in the
Logical Thinking Process (LTP). He had become aware that CCPM was not realizing its full
capability, and he saw the LTP as the key to determining the reasons why. Ron finally received that
approval in August 2010. After completing the LTP course, he recounted this experience back at his
workplace.
“Hey! Take a look at this...”
Using the Thinking Process to Elicit Participation and Create Consensus
by Ron Woehr
O
ur top design manager is Alan Morrison. My boss is Barry West, who reports “dotted line”
to Alan but is really part of the Business Management organization. Barry approved my
Logical Thinking Process (LTP) training on the condition that I would train both of them
when I got back.
After Ireturned from the LTP training in August 2010, Iprinted the Current Reality Tree (CRT)
and Future Reality Tree (FRT), the ones I created in Port Angeles concerning our CCPM
implementation, on D-size paper¯22 inches by 34 inches. I taped them to the wall outside my
office, along with the Design Department’s Intermediate Objectives (IO) Map and the Evaporating
Cloud (EC) I had created (virtual drum vs. resource drum). I also posted a Prerequisite Tree (PRT)
detailing the implementation tasks for one of the injections from the EC. As I prepared for
Realization’s Project Flow Conference, I also prepared a number of CRTs and FRTs derived from
lessons-learned presentations delivered in previous conferences by Ajai Kapoor, Realization’s lead
CCPM expert. As I finished these trees, I posted them as well. The entire wall was lined with logic
trees printed in large-scale.
©2010 Ronald N. Woehr
Used with permission 1

I intended to stand at the wall with Barry and Alan and review the maps, but that never
happened. However, a large number of other people stopped by to look at them and asked a lot of
questions.
One day a woman I’d seen frequentlyaround the office, but whom I’d never met, walked by the
trees, heading for the restroom. She stopped at the wall and exclaimed, “That’s the Theory of
Constraints!”Well, Iwasshocked.So, naturally,thatstartedadiscussion. Apparentlytheirmanager,
Francine, had encountered the Theory of Constraints somewhere in her past and had brought it to
the attention of the group. Apparently she did so well enough that one of her employees knew the
logic trees were a Theory of Constraints tool.
The woman who stopped by works in a group consisting of a manager and three professionals.
They perform customer surveys, analyze and organize the results, and report areas needing
improvement to the relevant organizations within our company. Subsequently, they asked me to
conduct a three-hour training session for them.
Initially I was a bit flummoxed. I told them that since they don’t execute or manage projects,
don’t manufacture anything,aren’t part of the supplychain,don’t do accounting, and aren’t involved
in healthcare, then many of the well-developed Theory of Constraints solutions to generic industry
problems are not applicable. That leaves us with the principles and two sets of tools: the Thinking
Process and the Five Focusing Steps. Since the first of the five focusing steps is to identify the
constraint, I felt that we had to begin with an IO Map to characterize the business contribution their
organization tries to make and then to identify what is preventing them from producing more of that
benefit.
It was obvious to me that it would be a pure facilitation session, since I had no prepared
materials that were relevant to their business and, in fact, I had little knowledge of what they did.
The manager of the group couldn’t make the first half of the meeting, so I spent some time
orienting the group. On a flip chart, I began to list elements that I thought would be part of the IO
Map. When the manager arrived, it became clear that her thinking was very mature compared with
the rest of the group, so we quickly derived the Goal and Critical Success Factors (CSF) with her
input. As you probably have observed many times, not everyone in the group agreed. That
emphasizes the first important contribution of the IO Map: It starts the alignment discussion among
members of the system being considered.
Peter Drucker published The Practice of Management in 1954. In 1973 he updated that first
book with Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices. In both books he discussed the
importance of asking the question “What is our business?" The next question he says must be asked
is, “What should it be?” followed by “What will it be?” Drucker suggests that you may find you’ve
worked shoulder to shoulder with a colleague for manyyears, yet you each have completelydifferent
answers to these questions. The IO Map offers a structured way to discuss those questions.

We didn’t complete the IO Map in that meeting, but the group took the flip chart with them and
vowed to advance the effort and get back with me. That hasn’t happened yet, but another woman in
the group stopped by for a long talk. She had told her husband (who also works at Siemens) about
our meeting and now he wants to develop an IO Map for his organization, too.
Over several weeks, many people stopped to read the trees. At the time there were no
instructions on them explaining how they should be read, nonetheless people spent substantial time
looking at them. I could overhear them explaining the meaning to each other, and getting it all
wrong! But the important thing was that the entities were of interest to the readers.
One evening, about 6:30 p.m., I was still at my desk. The manager of the original group,
Francine, stopped by to talk. She began looking at my bookcase and commenting on the books. I
discovered that she has followed a nearly parallel reading program to mine over many years. We
certainly had a common basis for a discussion of management.
A few days later Francine stopped bywith two other managers and asked me to discuss the logic
trees, but by that time I had taken most of them down. Only two IO Maps and an Evaporating Cloud
remained on the wall. I was preparing to add two more CRTs and two more FRTs, but they hadn’t
been printed yet, so I had little material on the wall to use. Naturally, I started with what was there:
the IO Maps.
I pulled out the illustrations of the Third-Generation Thinking Process logic tree relationships
from Dettmer’s 2009 TOCICO presentation (Tacoma, June 2009) and spoke from them.
Third-Generation Thinking Process
Because I’ve internalized what Dettmer said during my training and in his books, I was able to
show on our actual IO Maps how you determine undesirable effects (UDE) for the CRT and the
objective and requirements for the EC.

Using the Design Department’s actual IO Map, I was able to show how it focused on business
results. Then I showed them five bullets from a PowerPoint presentation that has been prepared to
“sell” our proposed reorganization. These five bullet-items guided the changes that were made.
While they are certainly negative entities in the CRT, they are not really UDEs. I showed Francine
and the other two managers that the negative entities were related to specific Necessary Conditions
(lower down in the IO Map) that are not being adequately fulfilled. Since they were predominantly
clustered under two of the three CSFs, it was actually the failure to achieve those CSFs and the Goal
became the UDEs.
At this point, I seized the opportunity to discuss the fact that in the Design Department, most
managers focus on technology management, not business management. As a result, they didn’t
automatically relate areas of poor performance to business results.
I have what I think is a pretty good CRT, and a pretty good FRT, related to the proposed
reorganization. I showed the managers where their efforts fit into the IO Map, but I also identified
the broader systemic problems that must be resolved if we are to eliminate the negatives that the
Design management staff identified. I warned them that the whole objective of the Theory of
Constraints is to zero in on the most high-leverage actions, rather than chasing after every negative
symptom. (Istayed on the conceptual level, since some of the information in these trees has not been
made public yet.)
The CRT has several magnitudinal “ands” in it, and I explained to them the difference between
an ellipse and a “bowtie.” Iwas surprised and amused when Ifirst saw all these magnitudinal “ands,”
because they show that a reorganization is more likely only to diminish the negative effects than to
eliminate them. The bowties imply that additional injections will be required to get positive
outcomes all the way to the desired effects (DE) at the top of the FRT. Without them, a
reorganization is likely to fall short of its hoped-for benefits.
This helped me explain to them that six additional injections beyond those created by the
reorganizations would be required to turn the UDEs into DEs. I had previously explained to them
that the cause-effect logic of the CRT had been scrutinized through rigorous tests for logic validity
called the categories of legitimate reservation (CLR). So, at this point I said that, after completing
the FRT, it would be necessary to check every cause-effect connection using the CLR. And after
doing that, then every entity must be assessed to determine what possible negative effects could
result in addition to the desired positive effect.
By doing this, I had found five potential sources of negative branches. I showed them the
developednegativebranchesandthelocations whereadditionalinjectionswouldbeneededto “trim”
them. In all, eleven additional injections are required, in combination with the reorganization, if a
robust solution to current performance problems is to be achieved. I then tied everything back to the
IO Map, show them that the desired effects were worded exactly as the critical success factors¯or
very close to them.

This week I’ll spend time with Alan Morrison and Barry West, examining the details of the
CRT, FRT, and negative branch reservations. One dayI caught them looking at the trees on the wall,
but they were really short on time. At that time, I only had time to wave the reorganization CRT and
FRT in front of them, point out that additional injections are needed, and advise them that five
negative branches need to be trimmed. That really piqued their interest, so I expect an interesting
discussion when I get together with them.
Meanwhile, I’m working with the Materials Design manager on an IO Map for his group. He’s
basically trying to manage chaos at the moment and doesn’t see the underlying structure. The IO
Map is forcing him to think it through.
In addition, I’ve developed an IO Map for the Lead Drafter function in our organization. Ireally
wanted to do this to fully define that job, because at the moment I don’t think the Lead Drafters and
the managers agree on the job content. Lead Drafters are clearly the resource constraint for our
project throughput. In a meeting with a group of Lead Drafters and the Drafting manager, I elicited
where they are not fulfilling NCs of CSFs. I then developed a CRT to determine the source of the
negative symptoms. One lead drafter has scrutinized it, but it requires more rigorous examination.
The manager wants me to review it with him and his entire organization in coming days. If we open
up throughput in that area, it will really improve our project completion rate.
I laid in a supply of colored Post-it® notes, some bold markers, and some masking tape. Then
I went to a conference room and ripped off some flip-chart paper. I’ve worked with a couple of
people as a group to develop some new maps on that same wall outside my office. They really like
being able to participate by writing the notes and moving them around for proper association with
each other. They also liked the “stand up” nature of the exercise in the hallway. All of that points up
the benefits of creating the maps “the old-fashioned way,” instead of through a software controlled
by a single individual.
Now I have a another request to work with an organization outside of the Design Department,
to help them bring their chaos under control. (Once the dam broke, I started getting inundated!) Last
week, the manager of that organization stopped and brought two people with her. She asked me to
explain to them what was on the wall. We must have stood there for an hour. They were full of good
questions, but Inow have good answers. I said that one critical root cause of the UDEs in the Design
organization is: “Bias toward historical local practices has been permitted to persist.” (I told them
the real root cause was “invertebrate management,” but I stopped the CRT one level above that!)
Our company bought Universal Power 12 years ago, and both our US and foreign entities still
defend their customs as best. As a result, we’ve never really integrated. It has led to a lot of negative
entities in the CRT.
After this interaction, I checked the organization chart and see who I’d been talking with. It
turns out that one of them has eleven managers reporting to him, each of whom has two to four

managers reporting to them¯an executive with more than 50 people working for him. His parting
shot after the discussion was, “Itook two things awayfrom this discussion. First, Ilove your passion
for the subject. Second, you are focused on the right stuff¯business results.” The benefit of starting
the discussion with a good IO Map! “And the hits just keep coming...”

Howto Promote the Logical Thinking Process (LTP) using The Norovirus Approach - EN

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